The Riches of Open Source

Daniel Dvorkin writes "This BusinessWeek article argues convincingly that Linus Torvalds has more resources at his disposal than Bill Gates. Not only is it a nice overview of Why Open Source Really Matters pitched to a non-technical audience, but it makes a solid argument in favor of OSS in general and Linux in particular, from a solidly capitalist perspective."

Comments

Re:grave misconceptions

[dh003i]

Your belief that the government is the protector of the free market is non-sense. There is no greater hindrance to the free market and no greater violator of property rights and bodily rights than the government. All that the government is is a monopoly on violence. The government (the individuals controlling it, rather) is the only entity allowed to commit violence without being punished. Only the State can murder millions of individuals without the individuals within it facing the consequences.

In regards to your absurd idea that the government is needed to prevent monopolies, you should know that all true cases of monopoly-pricing are government-created. The following articles may be helpful:

Fear of monopoly
The question of the cable monopoly
Understanding the Barriers to Entry
Pile on Microsoft
Media Concentration: Not a Threat
Break up Microsoft
Anti-trust, anti-truth
Cipro Shortage: An Invented Scarcity