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Re: [ox-en] esr on software costs



On Thu, 28 Feb 2002, Graham Seaman wrote:

hi,

Eric Raymond makes an interesting point in

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2105202,00.html

suggesting that mass-produced closed-source software for sale will go away
on its own when PC prices drop far enough, purely for cost reasons.

  I think ESR suffers from believing the rheteric that the USA is part of
a (or promotes rather than hinders) free market.  He comments that he
doesn't believe tha the current Antitrust cases have any merit, and
doesn't see various copyright expansion as the threat it really is.

  None of his free market analysis means anything unless the markets in
question are actually free markets.  This does involve rolling-back
government intervention in the form of copyright expansion (IE: Sonny-Bono
copyright extension act, DMCA, and laughing SSSCA out of discussion : and
the WIPO equivalents that are being imposed on other countries) and
properly enforcing domestic competition law.

  I believe that not supporting competition law in support of free markets 
is like not supporting laws against theft in support of private property.


  I do believe that ESR would be right if we were in a free market, but we 
simply aren't at this point.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 See http://weblog.flora.org/ for announcements, activities, and opinions
 "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise,
  we don't believe in it at all." -- Noam Chomsky

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