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Re: [ox-en] Book project



Hi MJ

On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, MJ Ray wrote:

Graham Seaman <graham seul.org> wrote:
I'll have a go at replying, though I'm not certain I've got your meaning
exactly.

Don't worry: I am not sure that I have accurately conveyed my meaning.

I'm still confused... :-(
 
Although it does not allow a normal capitalist model for the products, there
can still be a capitalistic process for the experts.  Is that incompatible
with oekonux?
This is the point where I don't understand you. By 'products' I 
assume you're talking about production, but then what do you mean by 
'experts'? 

The workers who create the products.  There is a finite number of them with
finite working time, therefore there is a restricted supply.

I also goofed above.  I should have written "does not support a feasible
capitalist model for the products" because supply is near-infinite and
demand finite.

If I get this right, you're saying that near zero-cost reproduction of
something (therefore, near infinite supply) means that thing cannot be 
incorporated well in a capitalist economic model. In this case software.
That I'm fine with.

But the fact that there is a restricted supply of programmers means that
they (inevitably?) fit in a capitalist model. Now I'm not sure what you
mean by 'capitalist model', whether you're talking about the real world,
or economic theories, or both, or what? And I'm not even sure if it's true
that there are a finite number of programmers. Viewed as a static thing, 
no computer is a Turing machine, because they don't have infinite storage.
But in practice you can get as close as you need to infinite storage 
simply by using a tape factory to produce an extra tape as soon as the 
machine needs one (at least, till you've converted the whole earth to 
tape.. :-). Similarly with programmers: I'm sure there are more 
programmers now than there would have been without free software, 
especially in the so-called '3rd world'.

What made me ask is the fallacy "the actual product is gratis" in the page
at
http://www.oekonux.org/introduction/blotter.html#Characteristics%20of%20Free%20Software

I don't think this is a fallacy. If you pay for a red hat cd-set, you're
partly paying for the convenience of the cds, but mainly for the promised
service - you're not paying for the 'actual product'  [...]

Maybe not in this case, but did your parents never tell you that it is very
dangerous to generalise from one example?  However, to disprove it, I only
have to provide one counter-example: my last employer sold software under a
free software licence to a single customer.  That customer paid for the
product (there was no additional service in the contract) and then had all
the rights that the licence entitled him to, but it was not gratis.

This is not a counter example. I'm willing to bet the software was not 
an rpm from redhat, or downloaded from cpan or whatever, but was written
(or at least modified) to fit the customers needs. That's providing a
service, and is not so different from the guy doing the same thing in 
house with paid employees; he just contracted the work out, that's all.

Alternatively, if you're saying you know someone who will pay you money 
just for providing him with software he could download himself, please
could you give me his address? ;-)
 

It may be the norm for mass production at the moment that the product itself
is gratis and you are paying for the service of having it nicely selected
and supplied (actually, with red-hat, you are probably paying for the
proprietary stuff batched with it, technically, and any helpline services
etc), or for associated services, or it is used as a loss-leader to sell
some other product, but it is not a general truth.

Your example didn't convince me, so I'm afraid I still think it is a
general truth. 


I think this is an interesting way to challenge the established thinking
about free software.  Restating fallacies about "free software is gratis"
helps the established (capitalist?) line about free software and doesn't
really develop new ideas, whether to support capitalism, collectivism, or
something else.

I agree that saying 'free software is gratis' doesn't get you an inch 
further, adds nothing new, etc - but that doesn't make it untrue!

Maybe if we start breaking it down a bit more:

A program itself can always be sold to one customer. The customer may be
going to use the program, in which case the license is normally irrelevant
(he won't pass it on), or may be a free one (say he likes the idea of a
bigger pool of programmers who know the program). The money he pays is for
the labour of creating the program, just as if he'd paid a carpenter to
make him a bookcase.

Or the customer may be intending to make money from the program. The most
common way of doing this is to license it under a proprietary license. In
this case, he will pay the original programmers for the work of
programming plus possibly some extra for the transfer of all rights over
the program to him. Or just possibly he may have a scheme for making money
from something which runs on top of the program, and want the program
itself to be under a free license. There are half a dozen variations on
this; all of them involve the program changing hands once;  it's been made
on purpose at someone's request, and paid for. That kind of thing has
happened in every society since the stone age; there's nothing
specifically capitalist about it.

Now, the next stage is that the program is to be distributed on a mass
scale (assuming it wasn't just for internal use). Either it's under a
proprietary license, and users pay for the license (in this sense all
programs are gratis - end users never buy the program itself, just pay a
license fee); or it's under a free license, the owner makes no money from
licensing, and his money comes from some kind of associated service.

No?

Graham

 

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