[ox-en] Re: Free Software and payment
- From: Markus <markus vodes.net>
- Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 12:23:56 +0200
Hi Stefan,
Hi Markus and all!
First I'd like to ask you two things. If there is no reason to
full-quote please don't do. This is an archived mailing list and
nobody needs an unchanged full quoute in a reply.
sorry.
at the outset, i have to admit that my observations are as an outsider.
therefore,
im also somewhat hesitant to get more involved in the discussion on open
source, the idncc and
vodes.net. simply because i dont feel i know enough on how open source
really works.
id rather focus on vodes.net - thats something i understand and feel
confident about. i started writing to
this list because i got the impression that there are people who might be
interested in working
with us. vodes.net is not primarily about open source software; it is
about the arts scence. while there
are many similarities (spirit, collective mode of production, democratic
nature), there
are also many things different. in addition, our goal is to achieve a fair
distribution of wealth within the
arts scene. per definition, this includes money. i thought that creation
of jobs, support of open movement, the generation
of money and a fair distribution of wealth are goals that some inhere
might find worth actively supporting.
as much as i would like to learn more on open source and participate in
the discussion you are having here my time is very limited.
still, i made a couple of statements so i should also respond a bit.
I'm really curious if you can give us reasons for your conviction.
well, as i said i want open source to be successful in the marketplace.
what are the most successful
projects? how many are NOT successful? what is the rule and what is the
exception?
to me being successful in the marketplace means that gimp is a viable
option to make the switch from photoshop. this is not the case now.
openoffice has powerful corporate backers. im sure you can mention a
couple of successful examples where there is no money involved; but again,
its dangerous to highlight exceptions and not the rule. you might end up
loosing objectivity.
correct me if i am wrong, but open source projects where there is no money
involved
primarily live because of the people who invest their time and knowledge
because they are interested. consequently,
where there is no interesting, challenging task (such as support work,
writing documentations, making sure that
the software is userfriendly and looks good), there is a lack of time and
knowledge
investment from developers side. now, money can provide an substitute for
the lack of interest and stimulate investment
into the creation and - equally important - uptake and usage of open
source software.
second, non-monetary costs/investment is only one factor in the creation
of software. very high (economic) costs relate
to promotion. but you cannot pay cdnet, download.com or a newspaper with
your interest in writing code.
there might be examples where money is not involved and the open source
project is still very successful.
but as i said one should not focus on the exceptions and ignore the
general rule.
So Free
Software to my knowledge is the only type of non-capitalist product
which managed to "compete" with capitalist products even after a
complete market exists.
what are the most successful open source projects? how many are there?
Now, you say you want Free Software to prevail in the marketplace. My
first question would be: Why does it need any help at all? Free
Software is still doing well in the marketplace and it continues to do
so - regardless of how many people say repeat that now this time is
over.
i just dont think that free software is a real competitor in many cases.
Above you accept that Free Software delivers outstanding quality. Why
do you think this is so? I gave the Oekonux reason above, what is
your's?
one needs to be more specific. quality depends much on the product. for
example, for our purposes
we needed a cd menu creation tool. there was one available on sourceforge,
but it was rudimentary at best.
having said that, i do thank the developer for doing this. we needed to
buy one from a small company. it is worth
every euro we paid. it is extremely powerful and userfriendly. and this
little for profit company does a tremendous job
and you get great value for your money.
having said that we do use open source products where we can (joomla,
filezilla) and it is a viable option. for instance,
we release all our content exclusively in ogg and xvid. we use png where
we can; however, sometimes the picture is just way to big
if we compress it using png. when jpeg is asking for money we might make a
total switch though. generally, our personal experience
tells us that many times we just cant use open source products.
regarding why there are certainly great open source products, i dont feel
competent enough to state why this is so. perhaps because talent
does not have much to do with the personal motivation?
Finally why do you think that money can help for delivering
outstanding quality? In the past money were not necessary for this and
I think the very reason for this is that Free Software is special
*because* money does not introduce alienation in people's activity and
*therefore* they can live their Selbstentfaltung and produce software
with outstanding use value. Money can only destroy this. If money
would be useful for highly useful software then Free Software would
have had no chance against Microsoft.
as i mentioned above, money can substitute for lack of interest
investment. plus, certain costs to make the product successful
in the marketplace can only be paid with money.
And to me it doesn't matter much whether the money is distributed by
some committee or by the market. The effect on the Free Software
project is always the same: Projects don't do what is best for the use
value but what is best to receive money. It introduces alienation in
effect killing quality.
i absolutely share your concern in this respect regarding software: that
generation of money turns to be the main
motivation. however, in response to that we suggest to give rationality a
strong role in deciding how
gets what and what for. but in this respect, please remember that vn is
not about software.
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de