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Re: Business opportuities based on Free Software (was: Re: [ox-en] lovely ibm man



Hi Stefan and all,

in this context it might be interesting that we are on parallel tracks

I just gave a speech in Rome titled "Free Content generates Business -
mission impossible?"

of course the coinclusion is that the mission is possible and in full
action.

here is the wikipage with the notes:

http://www.globalvillages.info/wiki.cgi?GlobalVillages/FranzNahrada/Workspace/RomeSpeech

+++++

some more remarks on Stefan

list-en oekonux.org writes:
A couple of people are puzzled by the observation that it seems to be
possible to create businesses based on Free Software. May be they
think if the basis is Free everything based on it may not be part of
capitalism also.

Well some people might have that outlook but I think its quite a
minoority. 


I don't think so. The basis of Free Software is Free and this is not
challenged by these businesses who are selling support or security
add-ons to Free Softwre. Thus it is important to emphasize that these
business models are not about Free Software but based on Free
Software.

even a distribution is based on Free Software, yes.


This is a big difference, however. To make this clearer I'd like to
compare the situation with the automobile industry. Their you also
have garages and lots of other support businesses around the product
automobile. However, the product automobile is not Free - and if it
will become Free this is probably to be considered a major
breakthrough.

What we can observe allready is that the capacity to build an automobile
exists in tens of thousand small or large supplier firms, so the product
automobile is potentially much freer than it was twenty or thirty years
ago....

This is why corporations need to de-standardize chassis and other design
core elements - in order not to loose control.


On the other hand there are other well-known businesses which are
based on some free basis. For instance all agricultural businesses
exploit the free abilities of plants and animals to grow and
reproduce. (Yes, I know this is formed over by capitalist aspects but
that's not my point here.) This has been done since the beginnings of
mankind.

We have recently taken a very deep look into the way agriculture works.
You must not forget that agriculture also is in constant fight with
diseases, parasites etc....so the dynamic evolution of the germ plasm is
of utmost importance. We have in Austria still the so called "farmers
privilege", so that farmers have free access to a certain quantities of
seed material.of improved sorts done by national and scientific
institutions. This used to be evidently free because it also provided a
natural base of abundant seed material in society. It was the absolute
opposite of artificial scarcity and a very well working model which now is
targeted by corporations.

As far as the first comparison is concerned we can see that it seems
normal that one business operates on the basis of another business. In
the second comparison it seems equally normal that there are some free
resources which are exploited by some business. Nobody, however,
expects to be agricultural businesses to not exist just because they
are based on some Free basis.

Of course. Agriculture dwells on sun and wind and water, all free
resources.


There is of course a major difference between the two comparisons: The
first talks about a basis given by normal capitalist work while the
second talks about a natural basis. I think there could be examples
where the basis is created by non-capitalist work as well. Two
instances come to mind. The first instance is where the education of
humans is partly done in families. This is non-capitalist effort but
the whole capitalist system is built on it.

..and the increasing attempts to capitalitze these domains have nothing to
do with efficiency. The reason why capital likes to invest in
infrastructure and education is because these resources are so badly
needed that business is guaranteed. Overall it is a large cultural decline
coming with competition, redundancy, the costs of advertising and
marketing, the loss of standarddds and coordination. But for capital that
has reached its absolute limits in growing through "traditional"
industrial productions this non-capitalist domains are the last refuge of
accumulation.


The second instance are public goods which are paid for by the state
or some similar institution. For instance streets in many countries
are created by non-capitalist players. Once again capitalism is built
on this type of public goods.

The problem is: what is the means used by the state: it is the taxes and
surplus of capitalist accumulation. So with the limits of capitalist
accumulation automatically comes the limits of the state. Theyx are twins.

It seems to me that business models based on non-capitalist resources
are not so unusual. May be it could be interesting to explore more of
the differences and similarities here.

I think that increasingly the voluntary and productive activities of
communities like the Free Software communities will provide what the state
cannot provide. And only of the business world understands the value and
the needs of this entirely new sector, there will be a way out of the
vicious circle between state and capital.

thats what I tried to extrapolate here, 

http://www.globalvillages.info/wiki.cgi?GlobalVillages/FranzNahrada/Workspace/RomeSpeech

and I think I have found an extraordinary valuable resource in the
following site:

www.openbusiness.cc

look through the models section and browse them by month since october
2005 or so: it is breathtaking in which speed the new business world is
developing.

So there is not just a new seed form, but the society around is adapting
to the new seed form. That is equally important and has not yet been
sufficiently reflected in Oekonux theory so far.

Franz Nahrada

_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de



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