Re: [ox-en] Re: Importance of price
- From: Stefan Seefeld <seefeld sympatico.ca>
- Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:38:36 -0500
Stefan Merten wrote:
That's rather superficial. The developer / artist has to live, too.
Pretending that he makes a living elsewhere and produces his work
in his spare time is superficial and dishonest (at the least, it
is even wrong in most cases, I dare to claim).
First I'd like to be clear on terms like "making a living". The point
you are really referring to is "making money". Whether this is enough
for buying goods for making a living is a completely different
question which on the one hand depends on the amount of money someone
earns and on the other hand on the mix of Free and commercial products
one needs for that living.
Actually, I was indeed referring to 'making a living' in the sense of
having to reproduce (in our current society, which, like it or not,
involves spending money).
Second that developers / artists need some money is certainly true in
our societies but whether or not they sell *these* particular products
is only very loosely related to this. In fact in our societies there
are lots and lots of societal useful activities which are not paid -
often not even indirectly. Woman movement created figuers on that
calculating the amount of money a housewife should earn.
No need to explain the various 'value' concepts to me.
My point remains: it isn't very helpful for the discussion to talk about
(some) Free Software that people create in their spare time, without
also discussing what enables those developers to have that spare time.
What I'm trying to say: That people need money to buy products and
services is obvious. That in general they receive money only for a
subset of their activities is also obvious. Given that, to me it is in
no way forcing that you draw a special connection between one type of
activity - namely producing Free Software - and making money. In the
contrary: It is completely arbitrary - especially for those people
which explicitly do *not* want to make money from their explicit Free
activities - like me.
What I find dishonest about your argumentation is that you take for
granted that you don't need to cover your basic needs, and so you can
write Free Software the way you do. But if you really want to explain
the economic role of Free Software you really ought to discuss what
conditions enable it, what make it sustainable, today, as well as in the
future.
Third I'd like to refer to the study for the EU from which I posted
the executive summary recently:
6 days ago Stefan Merten wrote:
> * Almost two-thirds of FLOSS software is still written by individuals;
> firms contribute about 15% and other institutions another 20%.
I think you, StefanS, and Yuwei are reiterating the ideology of a few
official Free Software evangelists. Which goes like: "*We* want to
make money with Free Software somehow so let's claim that Free
Software in general is actually not gratis." I'm not of this kind and
among the two-thirds above there are probably only a small number of
fools who give away their products gratis whereas they would rather
like to sell it.
I think you are hugely misrepresenting what I'm saying.
Let me ask this again: what are the economic conditions under which Free
Software can be developed ? And, what is necessary to make Free Software
an essential part of the production of software overall ?
I think it is a very practical one: Some people claim that Free Software
gets adopted because it is cheaper than its commercial / proprietary
conterpart. Others say it is because, because it comes with certain
freedoms (which you cite), it gives important advantages to its users.
I'm a strong supporter of the latter, in case this hasn't become clear yet.
I agree with you on this. However, currently I see how much
corporations (or in my case: public institutions) can pay on
commercial licenses for proprietary products *and* get a *lousy*
support for this (which to me seems to be the rule rather than the
exception meanwhile...).
(Actually, I wasn't even thinking of monetary advantages, I was thinking
in terms of the control over the software you gain by using Free Software.)
2 months (73 days) ago Yuwei Lin wrote:
Independent free software developers who do not work for the governments or
big companies usually have to face an ignorant question from their
users/customers: shouldn't free software be free of charge? These customers
are misled to expect free labour (or cheaper labour) from these free
software developers. And it is frustrating to them having to explain this
all the time.
Certainly true. However, even in these cases if the Free Software is
published after a customer has paid for developing it, it *is* gratis
for the next one who needs it. Isn't it?
Sure. And thus developers have to think about how to create incentives
for potential customers to pay, so they *can* develop the software,
without making it proprietary. Just assuming that any needed software
will emerge out of the blue is highly naive.
Back to the relationship between free software and art, artists do make
money out of creating art as well. People need to pay a price to have these
artists around, directly or indirectly, visible, or invisible.
Graffiti artists even risk legal punishment for their art. They are
hardly paid. All these people who make music at home are artists who
don't get paid for this. Even artists who today are considered
breakthroughs have died in poverty (such as van Gogh).
I'm not sure I see what point you are trying to make. Are we not trying
to understand what may make Free Software a sustainable mode of
production ? Your argument that Free Software is produced 'for free'
doesn't appear to be very constructive in this respect.
Artists need to live, too. Usually that means they either get sponsored,
or they prostitute in some way or another.
Regards,
Stefan
--
...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...
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