2009/4/7 Matt Ford <[email protected]>: > Playing devil's advocate here but I can imagine people in government > being afraid of taking away people's jobs by open sourcing software. If > they don't open source it then someone else may be given the job of > writing exactly the same software all over again, during a time of > recession they may be inclined to think this is a good thing.
The example I use follows... In The Door into Summer, by Bob Heinlein, the lead character is cold frozen into the future, and finds employment at a car factory. He wonders why the build quality is so bad until he discovers that the factory next door employs people to dismantle their output... The production of good free software _creates_ wealth, and then the programmers can be employed to create more good free software. > Those more informed of us would realise that such an opinion is an > example of the broken window fallacy. We can only hope that there are > sensible people in place to explain the economic benefits of open source > as an aid to innovation and 'progress'. Absolutely. rgds, Richard ---- Richard Rothwell http://www.cockspiracy.com/ _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
