I'm interested in anything folks here can add about open source
software, either from a user's point of view or a developer's
point of view.
>From both the point of view of a user and from the point of view of a
developer the question depends on two factors:
* The first is whether you favor competitive, free markets or
whether you favor restricted markets. This is a moral question,
whether or not you favor freedom, and does not relate to the
second factor.
* The second is whether you expect economic freedom to fail or to
succeed.
Restricted markets are those in which a government uses its coercive
enforcement powers to prevent some people and some companies from
engaging in business. (By the way, Miguel once told me that is why he
started Gnome. He wanted to work on a Microsoft desktop system, but
as a Mexican at that time, he was forbidden to do so. So he started
his own.)
In the world of open source, a world with software business freedom,
people and companies do not use patents and copyrights to restrict
others through the arm of government.
On the other hand in a world of restrictions, a world in which most
businesses are forbidden to undertake commerce, a government uses its
its coercive enforcement powers to stop competing businesses.
As for funding development: both computer hardware and service
companies and non-conputer companies will do better if the cost of
their `complementary product', software, comes down. While the `free'
of `free software' is about freedom, that software is also less
expensive than restricted software. So that should motivate investors
in those companies.
As for end users: most want to get a job done and to spend as little
of their resources as possible doing it. They do not want their
resources transferred to a monopolist or oligopolist, even if it is
only US$40 or so for a computer and software costing US$1000 -
$2000. (That is what a US court figured was the amount transfered per
computer purchase in the 1990s.) End users do not want to be hassled
by viruses that waste their work (unless they dislike their work and
approve of viruses as providing an unexpected vacation). Most people
just want to do a job.
Consequently, end users tend to agree with Douglass C. North, an
economist, who said
In a world of uncertainty, no one knows the correct answer to the
problems we confront and no one therefore can, in effect, maximize
profits. The society that permits the maximum generation of
trials will be most likely to solve problems through time ...
and want to live in a more successful society. They want to benefit
from the trials of others.
But the future is fuzzy, as it always has been. I am curious whether
a company such as IBM will invest the (relatively small to it) amount
needed to convert what has become a commodity operating system and set
of applications to one that is more friendly to non-experts than its
current incarnation, or whether free software will continue as a `back
room' and `geek' project that is more interesting to computer experts.
While there certainly is a strong argument that demand increases when
the cost of a complementary product goes down, perhaps companies and
people who might benefit from freedom will lose to those who prefer
restrictions. The latter can see a threat of what they will lose; but
the former can see only the hope of a possible gain.
Indeed, historically, monopolistic (or oligopolistic) markets have had
their successess. The Soviet Union, a centrally planned, `state
capitalism' -- a country with massive restrictions -- did defeat
Germany in World War II with help from the somewhat oligopolistic US
and from others.
By analogy, we may expect competitive, free markets in software to
fail, too. (But the analogy is false, in that the German economy in
WWII was not very free and competitive.) Given that analogy, IBM
could lose its existing investment in freedom. Perhaps the power of
governments to restrict will be greater than the power of individuals
and companies to seek economic freedom.
On the other hand, technology has advanced:
* nowadays, the factors that encourage programmers' freedom, such as
commons-based peer-production, reduce (but do not zero out)
development costs for companies like IBM and HP;
* new technologies reduce the cost of software manufacturing (which
is often now called `copying' even though the duplicated item may
be as complex as a car or airplane).
But at the same time, new technologies also make government
enforcement cheaper for governments.
Still, IBM and a host of other companies may succeed. Lower (but
non-zero) development costs may outweight the higher company profits
available to a company that gains government protection, if only by
giving hope to those otherwise left out. Bear in mind that outside
the narrow community of oligopoly and monopoly, only market freedom
offers higher profits to those who do well. (In the US, a focus on
the greatly successful sometimes reduces the felt salience of this
truth.)
Competition may mean that IBM or some unexpected company or some
individual figures out a more attractive product for people, one which
they are free to adopt.
I do not know who will win the political war.
But morally, I find freedom better.
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
As I slowly update it, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I rewrite a "What's New" segment for http://www.rattlesnake.com
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