On 11/06 20:04, David Picón Álvarez wrote: > >> changed. But such arguments should not be used because that violates > >> our ideology as we could read in the blog of Marcus Rejas. > > I disagree very strongly with the argument put forward on that blog. While > some people might have plenty of money to spend on software, there are many > (a majority in the world) who do not. As it happens, in a country like Spain > which supposedly has quite high levels of wealth, a majority of people are > using proprietary software without a licence. This is true both of > individual users, and even SMEs. What this means, in practice, is that many > people make the choice that breaking the law is a better option that paying > for software. I think it is very clear that proprietary software pricing is > abusive. The level of surplus value extracted from a zero-marginal-cost > good, which in a free market would have near zero cost, is obscene. The fact > that Free Software is rationalizing the pricing model of software, tending > towards a zero cost per copy and a non-zero cost for services which actually > require labour inputs, is in my view yet another important thing in its > favour. I admit that the freeness and costlessness conflation is > problematic, and that for psychological reasons people often equate zero > cost with zero worth, but that's not sufficient to make the no-cost argument > out of bounds. Freedoms 0 and 2 also tend towards creating a zero cost per > copy, even if commercial distributors ask for a price, and that is a > systemic part of the Free Software story.
What I'm trying to say in my blog post is not to rely solely on the price and to be careful when it is used. I think that the producers of non free software know that the pricing model common today will not hold forever. We got other means to meet them even if they drop the prices to zero (or below). You are mentioning freedoms 0 and 2 which makes me think that we actually agree even though I might be unclear in my blog post. It is true that these freedoms keeps the price down. I think it is better to describe the freedoms (in a way that fits the audience) and also mention that they keeps the pricing down. -- Marcus Rejås jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ,= ,-_-. =. Rejås Datakonsult e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ((_/)o o(\_)) Kaserngatan 1 web: http://www.rejas.se `-'(. .)`-' s-761 46 Norrtälje gpg-key: http://www.rejas.se/rejas.asc \_/
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