On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 21:56, denny adelman wrote: > There are some people here (I am one) who believe in the life-style > model of self-employment (risk and adventure) and Commerce (I make it, > you want it, we reach a fair deal, thank you's all around, we stay in
Who said I disagree? I *am* self-employed, and I employ 7 people too, who all need to eat and pay their mortages. I have to feed my wife & 4 kids, too. I haven't inherited or anything, even financed university myself w/o external help. So. I know. The difference between the corporate attitude and what we want is beautifully expressed in your statement: " ... we reach a fair deal ..." No different from my "Symbiosis vs Parasitism", isn't it? I do not use an absurd construct of "intellectual property" to squeeze out undeserved money from those who happen to have the same idea as I did, and I don't put deliberate roadblocks in the way of anything that could be perceived as potential competition. I do not restrict the freedom of others deliberately in order to maximise my profit. I am happy to share my *knowledge* for free, since after all it is just based on the knowledge of others - but my *time* I insist to get paid for , proportionally to my skills. That's the difference. Time is a limited resource, that costs - knowledge is unlimited, not countable, invaluable and hence no price tag attached. Acquiring knowledge costs time, hence hiring my skills is expensive. But once I completed some work, and I have been paid for my time, I would conceive it as unethical charging for it repeatedly and denying others free access to it. Unethical because it delays progress, prevents scientific and social evolution. Does that make sense? Horst
