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Free Can Mean Big Money - The Open Source Economy
Gentu writes "People are always accusing Open Source proponents of being communists, but an editorial by the OSNews publisher, ex-Red Hat employee David Adams, takes a critical look at whether Free and Open Source Software is really anti-capitalistic or is, in fact, only a product of the free market at work. Does wide availability of high quality, low cost software harm or help the world's economy?"
That whole thing assumes communism is in any way bad... It's biased to begin with.
it may be good for world economy but may not be good for US corporations which control US govt. US govt, in turn uses its sole superpower status to control other states and so on. Effectively, "if it ain't good for US Corp., it isn't good".
This of course assumes that OSS = high quality. That is definitely NOT always the case. OSS is just software, and can be good or bad quality. That being said, talk amongst yourselves...
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Does it even matter if it hurts the economy? That's what capitalism is all about. Screw the other guys; if the consumer wants my cheaper product over theirs, then I win.
There's a BusinessWeek article today advising the Linux community and those in product development to drop GPL and release under BSDesque licenses in order to stay more business-friendly.
...that you can still sell services based around that free software.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
... how much of the money companies make trickles down to the volunteer coders of OSS?
Think about all the money educational institutes, medical centres and so forth are saving by moving towards open source. They are able to invest these funds in various other departments such as research, human resources and so forth.
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
There are different types of "free". There's "free" as in "free speech" and "free" as in "free beer". Some free projects adhere to one or the other, not all to both.
You can read about the GNU Free Software philosophy for more information on the former.
OSS can help small businesses get the foot in the door when trying to enter into a competative market. When every penny counts, OSS is a big way to save money needed for startup costs.
Linux is not Just One Big Thing.
Just because you go into a linux service business does not mean you have to support ALL linux systems and run into spirals of madness therein.
Make your own. Make it specifically yours. Make it free to the world if you like, but also make it so you only do paid support for the system from people who have your exact defined distro.
You're in a service business, not a software business then. It doesn't matter if people copy your software, or improve on it, or spread it worldwide. You still provide services to your customers. They still pay you to maintain.
That';s the bit most of the big boys don't get. "The software is free! Free for anyone else to use! Free for all! Free and they can copy it!". True. But you the service company knows that your services are not free. Your time is not free, and you spend your time keeping your customers running smoothly and you earn from that.
What's better about a Linux service economy than a Win one - a service business based on proprietary software may come up against roadblocks. limitations in the software that their proprietary vendor does not address. Limitations that may make your clients go elsewhere, "switch" as it were.
With linux, you can implement that change. You can make the product you give away perform as they need, and keep supplying service from then on.
Linux - It's a service economy now guys. The only money to be made is in serving free software and in being the service provider known to be the best for a situation. Implement functions your clients need first, get paid first. TRUE market driven innovation.
(thank you this marketing rant was brought to you by 3 straight days awake and sixty coffees)
You could make confusing software and then charge people to help them understand it...
I think this once was a buzzword used in IBM advertising.
....
International Business
I have recently heard they are strongly connected to OSS. Somehow, they still do what they once advertised.
So at least, one can infer that OSS is good for IBM.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
It's as simple as this, if people save money by going with OSS then they have more money to spend elsewhere. One industry shrinks, another grows.
I install Linux, Microsoft loses. Because I installed Linux I now have more money in my pocket, Brewing industry gains.
As long as such changes are gradual, the impact on the economy is nil.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Think about it. Where once a whole slew of programmers might have been hired to work on an inventory or billing system, for example, now a fraction can be hired to tweak what the rest have been producing for free.
One could hardly call this anything other than neocapitalism. Under the guise of not reinventing the wheel (a process which actually contributes innovation by demonstrating multiple ways of reaching the same goal, some better than others) businesses are able to make their programming dollar go further at the expense of the programmer.
While it is indeed possible for programmers to wait tables in their spare time, I would like to suggest that waiters do not need to invest 4+ years of schooling in their vocation. At some point this must be recouped or the quality and availability of programmers will decline.
Unfortunately, both the hacker mindset and the CEO mindset are currently geared towards the concept of free software -- the hacker for the love of the code and the CEO for the love of free code -- and damned be the concepts of effective software engineering, security principles, or a day's pay for a day's work.
Doesn't anyone else here see the absurdity
of providing high-quality software (via your
precious time) for free to the corporations
that do not give us their technology, food
or services for free?
I'll say it now, and I'll say it again,
those mutherf**kers are not getting one
minute of my time for free. Period.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
The notion of "From Each According To His Abilities, To Each According To His Needs" which is the core of Karl Marx's philosophy is also the core of Open Source ideals. Those of us who can code give away our code so that everyone who needs software can benefit.
The fact that the Cold War happened and 'communism' became a dirty word in the U.S. and other western nations doesn't make Open Source any less about ensuring that everyone can enjoy the fruits of the labor of the most talented without the necessity of enriching the producers of the software or discrimination against those that would not be able to afford software if it was proprietary and commercial.
There are several companies that have embraced FOSS and are making good money. Not by charging money for the software, but by providing services. We always think of Red Hat and the like, but now think of IBM and they way they have embraced the FOSS world yet still make mega bucks providing their services. Linux, for instance, is not the basis of IBM's offerings, but merely one solution they provide. They don't charge for that software, but they do very well capitalistically speaking. There is no conflict between capitalism and FOSS, it merely shuffles the equation around a little. Instead of charging for the software, you charge for your knowledge in other areas. Then you 3. Profit!
Closed-source software houses that screech about their lost profits and how important it is to America to maintain their stranglehold on this part of the economy sounds just like the RIAA. "Save our artificial business model!" Well, it's articifical, and as a business model its time is drawing to an end, or at least being marginalized. Time to make the choice, do you want to be like the buggy-whip manufacturers and the RIAA? Or do you want to be like IBM and make profits from embracing FOSS.
Without open-source software (linux), the smaller companies for whom I have consulted would not have readily had the budget to hire me. Even though I'll happily work on commercial UNIX systems, the availability of Linux has contributed greatly to to my consulting cash-flow especially since the downturn in the economy.
My own perspective is that Open Source can play a major role in reducing major concentration of power (both financial and political). I tend to see both communists and capitalists(even anarcho libertarians) as largely favoring concentration of power-despite much rhetoric to the contrary. Overall, I tend to see decentralization of power as a very good thing.
However, there are some issues that concern me:
will decentralization have negative side effects like getting advanced weapons technology into the hands of folks that seriously misuse that technology?
In a free market, commodity prices inevitably trend toward the marginal cost. With software, the marginal cost is zero, and the popular and best OSS apps (linux, apache, mozilla...) are generally commodity-type items. So far from being communistic, it's coherent with market principles.
OpenSource Software would only be communist if people were forced to perform work for the "common good" Instead people have their own reasons for creating open source software. Some of those reasons are market driven such as wanting to create a demand for services that otherwise wouldn't be needed. Or some are socially motivated, such as wanting acknowledgement or to help improve society as has happened with the explosion of communication on the web and internet.
If people were somehow prevented from writing Open Source Software because it can take some jobs away from certain companies or some other reason, now that would be communistic.
People are free to create and decide what they want to do with that creation. Communism is all about others deciding for you.
Lets take for instance if all the telecommunications companies in the US were forced to give up their lines and hand the upgrading and maint of them to a centeral company. This company would be regulated by the government for prices and what upgrades need to be done through contributions by the "Telecommunications Services Companies" and taxpayers.
It would be my belief that you would see wide adoption of Fiber to the Premises in a much quicker manner than currently being shown by SBC and Verizon. Futhermore those companies that have this huge debt cloud that the fiber would never make money can then focus on providing services over those lines. Also they would not be restricted to the areas they are currently in so in essence I could be a Verizon Customer until I get a better deal then switch over to Comcast who would provide services via my fiber connection.
In essence the national telecommunications network would be considered the Linux of our telecommunications backbone. Verizon, SBC, Cable Companies etc would be considered in the same light as Redhat, Novell, Mandrake and others. It's a common platform and the services are being provided.
The only problem with this is that Linux has yet to be standardized in a acceptable manner. Mandrake looks different from Redhat who looks different from Novell. Fix that, standardize what's being done to the kernel and fight for customers with support and product contracts and we can kiss MS goodbye.
Linux service providers (LSP)'s should be going to Corporations and telling them we'll provide you this service that will eliminate this problem or situation. You have to adopt Linux on that platform but for a fee we will make it do what you want and provide training and support for the life of it.
Other companies should be investing in end to end solutions built on Linux that are standards based and drum up companies to adopt this. We see it in many places today but adoption is slow but picking up very quickly.
Other companies who are standing on the sidelines wondering about this SCO business need to realize all the money they are throwing away and finally need to give the finger to SCO and get on with the conversion. Service disruptions to a Microsoft based virus over the last 2 years have far outshined any royalty payment you would ever have to pay SCO if hell froze over and they won their court cases. Go out and find those balls you had when you made these companies so great and use them again for once.
I make all my money with free software these days.
I design a database...What do I use? Hmm Oracle? Can't afford it. MS SQL? Can't afford it. Guess it's MySQL or PostgreSQL, with the added benefit that I can charge a couple grand over the liscensing fees for either of those and make nice profit.
Deploy a firewall file server for some business? Win2003? Yea right. Solaris? Too expensive. Linux? I can charge ten grand and beat all my competitors.
Webserver? Apache. Office? Open Office.
MS Zealots can talk TCO all they want, but these people pay me a few hundred dollars a month to keep an eye on their stuff, and it never really breaks. I can admin three dozen boxes by myself, and I'm laughing all the way to the bank.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
This reads like a response to one of MS's most common attacks on OSS, especially when pitching to governments, about how increasing demand for OSS => decreasing demand for proprietary software, which causes the loss of jobs becasue OSS people do it for free, not as a career.
Which is bullshit.
1) Many, MANY OSS programmers work for traditional companies, which may or may not be primarily software companies. Really, it's not a case of some unpaid commie hippie stealing an MS programmer's job, it's a case of a well-paid IBM programmer stealing an MS programmer's job. Which is fine by me--the market at work.
2) The OSS development model seems to have lower overall costs associated with it--open-source projects can give you the same functionality and features, but the total cost of developing all that software is much less than the total cost of developing the congruent proprietary product. This is GOOD, because it means that less people are doing more work, which means we're more productive and efficient. MS hurts because they're not able to compete with the more efficient (and therefore cheaper to the consumer) OSS product, and they lose revenue. Again, fine all around.
What this is REALLY about is that OSS is a different management model for building software, and it's a model that's based on a different understanding of how best to profit from your ownership of intellectual property (copyright on software you've written/had written by others). That's why MS has started an internal drive to study the development process used by the kernel coders and others--they want to see if they can take some of the techniques and processes that are OSS and apply them to help MS become more competitive.
Well, IBM can "make" money from Linux while contributing back to Linux at the same time. IBM needs to meet it's customer's needs, and if Linux doesn't satisfy those customer's needs, then IBM can modify Linux to suit those customer's needs. However, the customer isn't paying for Linux, they are paying for the custom services/software on top of it.
Linux allows IBM to quickly build a solution for that customer without having to "re-invent the wheel" or pay software license fees. Thus IBM can get the job done for less, they can pass some of those savings on to the cutomer, and the Linux community can benefit from their additions. So, in essence they made money....
A more interesting question is whether it's sensible for professional programmers to insist that their labor is worth nothing. Or whether it's logical for them to insist that that their labor is worth nothing but that it's an outrage to replace them with someone earning half as much.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I've never understood how people took the rant about free software being communist seriously.
:p)
Are lawyers doing pro bono work destroying the market for lawyers? Are doctors who work in a clinic as volunteers destroying the demand for medical services? Are all the people out there who write articles or novels and give them away for free "destroying" the market for books? Of course not.
It's foolish to assume that the best OSS software authors act entirely selflessly. If you could make $50/hr at a corporate software shop, or make a name for yourself on 10-15 hrs/week in coding for free and then command $150-200/hr for the other 25-30 hrs a week, what would you take? I'm making way more money than I ever did in a "real" job as a consultant, and I do it on my schedule and my terms. I got this by releasing a little OSS package... one that isn't even in use any more because I didn't have time to maintain it and it was fairly early-stage. But within weeks of putting it out, I was getting inquiries about modifying it on a per-hour bsais, and I've had a full schedule for over 16 months and more than 1 full time job offer that I've turned down.
Also, it sort of assumes that there's some competition between OSS and certain alternatives. If I had a choice between a free IIS and a $100 copy of Apache, I'd buy Apache. If I had a choice between a free winXP, and paying $89 for linux, I'd take linux. (And I'd dual boot to free windows so I could play games
I'm sure for a lot of people, "free" is a nice thing. But you know what? It's been pointed out before: license fees on software are often a tiny fraction of TCO. OSS is often superior not because of the software cost, but the associated costs.
As far as the "World Economy" goes, this question is in the "Give Me a Break" category. It's like asking whether free medicine would help or harm the world economy. The only difference is there isn't an army of altruistic and excellent drug manufacturers like there are software developers.
He missed a major point in section 7.
LINUX MAKES JOBS.
Its very simple, Microsoft's revenue is $36.8B it employs 55000 it has a high revenue per employee of $669k. It has a monopoly so that high revenue/employee is not suprising.
Other companies are not so lucky:
GE revenue is 140 Billion, it employs 305000, thats $459K per employee.
Citigroup $240K per employee
Walmart $183K per employee...
If companies spend less on Microsoft products and invest it in their own business with similar results to their existing business, then they will create more jobs.
So, if Walmart saves 10 million by not buying Microsoft licenses and switching to Linux
and invests it in its own company, it will likely create 55 jobs.
Microsoft will lose $10m (i.e. 15 jobs). A net gain of 40 jobs.
Walmart jobs are low grade, a more realistic example is Citigroup. 10 million saved on Windows licenses is worth 26 extra jobs.
My point is, it isn't just that companies spend the money on themselves, it's that they employ more people for each $ revenue than Microsoft, so every dollar saved creates more jobs than a $ going to Microsoft.
It should be painfully obvious by now that Microsoft's current MO (aside from funding the litigious bastards at SCO, and their current astroturf campaign about patents) is to lead everyone in the wrong direction about what "free" means (i.e. gratis instead of libre) and then tear down any claims made by that assumption.
Don't fall into Microsoft's trap. When talking about open source with colleagues, customers, etc. make sure they know about the true benefits. Lower TCO is part of the picture (and it does have a lower TCO when anyone not reciving Bill Buck$ is doing the measurement), but there's also the ability to interchange components at will, and the ability to interchange vendors at will, which gives everyone more leverage with their vendors. With open source, everyone wins except for software companies who have built their businesses around lock-in.
If nothing else, this whole thing should serve as a stellar example of why the phrase "open source" is an order of magnitude more versatile than the ambiguous "free software." There's no confusion as to what it really means.
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If we use the same logic that concludes that OS is communist, then we can conclude that some other famous orginizations(even countries) are communist as well:
Canada - Free healthcare? Those bastards!
The Red Cross - Stealing money from the healthcare industry!
There are many others. Can you think of some?
Ever hear of Social Security? Medicare? Welfare? Public education, non-toll highways, government funded research?
Yea sure, some people think these things are bad, but they're scary in the other direction.
Marx would have liked it, because it's a dialectic, eh? On one side, Capitalism--heartless and evil. On the other Communisim--mushy and incentive-free. Combine them? Excellent system.
It goes the same way with open source. We give it away, and we reap the rewards. Sure, its not the same kind of money you'd make if you were out to fuck everyone, but it's steady and solid, and the repeat business is kickin.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
That's the whole point of the GPL.
Sure, SCO has Samba, but its no competitive advantage for them.
If you can write software that gives you or your chosen company a competitive advantage, go right ahead.
Also, only by writing code do you become a good coder. You might have hard-drives full of applications that you've written, but who knows about them? And thus, who knows about you?
Nobody's forcing you to GPL your code, so why should you criticize those who chose to GPL theirs?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
One large one is the human nature of stupid and weasely people. Not of all people. The essentials of communism (arguably just extreme socialism) has existed many many times throughout human society: Very small nations, Native American tribes, Mormons were originally so communal it was damn near communist. The one thing in common they all had with eachother? They were small, very small. When it's small enough that when you're lazy you see somebody else starve, you're less likely to abuse the system. When living off the system is as easy as stealing cable, and you don't see any immediate downfalls, you'll see a lot more people want to cheat. This is the main reason why Communism on a large-nation scale has always had to be enforced with extreme control over people.
That reason, or the lack of its presence in OSS communities, is why OSS is so successful. OSS is like a dream community, everyone works hard to benefit eachother -- most people selflessly so. The fact that most true OSS people never see any financial benefits for it, and if they quit would lose nothing, is why it doesn't face weasely and stupid human nature ruining it.
Even people who claim that communism is absolutely evil will usually admit that the idea behind it is as beautiful as John Lenin's "Imagine" -- it's just in reality it never turns out that well. Well guess what, in the OSS community, it turned out that well. The people who its success are hurting are trying to tie the word communism to it so they can form negative preconceived notions based on Stalinist "communism".
Finally I'd just like to say that no I don't think OSS is communist, but I think it is a wonderful huge community where everyone is out for the benefit of others. That is the best part of the idea behind communism (and socialism for that matter) and that's why they get tied together.
Dragnetting /. for ideological enemies is one of the more pathetic human undertakings.
Besides posting as AC, that is.
OK, that's a good question. Let me try asking a couple of other questions in lieu of R-ing TFA:
- does the availability of high quality, low cost literature (Shakespeare, Rabbie Burns) help or hinder world literacy?
- does the availability of high quality, low cost music (Beethoven, Brahms) help or hinder world arts appreciation?
If you answered "of course it fucking doesn't" then may I propose that that is also the answer to whether or not high quality free software harms the world's economy.
Is Microsoft competing on unfair terms with Linux? Maybe. Is Arvo Part competing on unfair terms with Schubert? Same maybe - you could argue he is, or you could argue he isn't. Part can't just knock up some neat patterns thanks to Bach's and Mozart's comprehensive experimentation on the subject. That doesn't mean Spiegel im Spiegel isn't a damn fine piece of music.
Do we hear modern composers whingeing about the availability of high quality public domain music works, or today's authors complaining about how they can't compete with Shakey? I haven't seen Terry Pratchett arguing that Shakespeare's works should be legally prevented from being shared in the PD, or Tolkien's estate arguing that Project Gutenberg should be closed down.
I'm a laissez-faire, free market, anarcho-capitalist libertarian. Nothing could be more pro-free market than protecting the right of people to GIVE away their creations for whatever motive they choose. It just so happens that there are economic incentives to do so in many cases.
Anti-free market would be if you decide the government has to step in to "promote competition" (i.e., stamp out activity that seems to weird for the politician's radar and/or threatens established business models). Anti-free market would be if you RESTRICT people's right to give away what is theirs. The fundamental of the free market is the right to do what you want with what is yours.
Anti-free market would also be, IMO, granting any kind of monopolistic or exclusive rights to people or entitites, for example, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." A real free market solution would let the free market promote the progress of science and useful arts instead of doing it by government compulsion. And we are seeing that when there is a vibrant set of public works available through public domain and/or favorable licensing terms, science and useful arts advance dramatically as almost all discoveries and inventions build on prior art. Removing these restrictions would do so far better.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Ther ia a better question than "is high quality ubiquity good", the answer to that is obvious.
The real question is will the world support software insurance sales as a viable business?
Using JBoss as an example, they sell 3 things
1. Cost advantage vs. other guy (note there must be another guy to make this work)
2. Faster Better Cheaper support for problems
3. Indemnification against IP suits.
If we are to assume high quality, don't we also assume low support costs? That delta is the gross margin on professional open source.
So if the model is selling cheap, indemnified response to a "disaster", then how is this different than All State?
Always struck me as the first sign that corporate lobbyists had run out ideas as far as attacking Linux goes. Firstly, the protagonists always seem to confuse Soviet style Stalinism with communism which as the original article points out were not the same thing. Secondly, when comparing the Soviet system to modern software Microsoft's monopoly and arrogant, oppressive behaviour via the KG.... oopps, BSA bears more resemblance to the control freakery of the USSR than the relatively chaotic dispersed model practised by FOSS authors and development teams.
The economic damage argument is also a sign that MS and their schills are grabbing at straws. I imagine that the first use of gunpowder led to cries that arrow makers would be unemployed and the powered loom leds to concerns of unemployed weavers but every time a new business model arises the end result is that people adapt and their bloody good at it. Thousands of Miners, whole communities were made redundant in the UK in the 1980's but the end result is that they just moved on and found other things to do.
If any economic effect will be felt in the event of a major shift to OSS it'll be the free availability of software to businesses of any kind, large or small, rich or poor a startup in Bengal will have access to same CRM, office suite whatever that a major corporation in the US or UK has. Open standards will make the dissemination and exchange of information flawless across the global industrial base and a whole industry will spring up installing and supporting it.
The development of such an industry is almost guaranteed by the fact that just because the software is free doesn't mean that businesses will install and maintain it themselves. If this were the case people would be doing it with Windows and as I spend my working life in a sort of purgatory going from office to office doing such exiting things as showing people how to put the shortcut they deleted back I can't see it happening at any point soon.
Besides, there's always the option of following the dual licence model that MySQL, OpenOffice/StarOffice etc. follow so that businesses can buy in the product and service from the manufacturer if they choose to do so.
Anyhow, The more blatantly stupid lines that MS and Co. come out with the greater the pressure thay must be feeling which is a good thing in my book.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
A simple argument supporting the pro-Capitalism nature of Open Source:
No artificial measures have been used to "prop up" Open Source. Yet it exists in a Capitalist society. Free markets do not reach equilibriums instantaneously, so it is possible that the existence of Open Source is merely a bizarre transient. But every passing day is an indication that it is not.
On the other hand, artificial measures DO exist to prop up closed-source software. This directly hurts Open Source, yet Open Source is alive in spite of it. That's a pretty strong indication.
I can't give you a balance sheet showing how Open Source is "in the black", but if you believe in natural selection in the context of a free market, there's not really another explanation for the existence of Open Source.
It's somewhat ironic that the label 'communist' gets attached to open source software. In fact, software, like all information goods in a networked world, is a pure public good (a technical economic term; look it up in Wikipedia or your Econ text) and therefore a standard textbook case of market failure. One possible solution to this failure is government intervention through legislating and enforcing copyrights/patents (closed source). The other possible solution is a tying arrangement whereas the software is given away for free, and technical services (not a pure public good) are tied to the software.
As a solution to public goods market failure, tie-ins have been studied by economists for decades and are conceptually nothing new (look up Nobel-laureate Ronald Coase's classic article on lighthouses). In fact, since they're entirely market-driven and require no government intervention (in the case of public domain software), they're closer in spirit to the ideals of a free market than copyrights.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
So, I won't argue with low cost. Sure is. But high quality? A few exceptions aside, open source software is often terrible quality. Just look at the never-ending story of Mozilla. Sure it's starting to clean up, but it's also taken years to build it into something!
OpenOffice for OS X? Sorry, I much prefer MS Office 2004. That's sort of ironic. And sad.
Open source holds a great place - and I think it's helpful that it forces the corporate players to improve their products. But I'm not confident that open source is the next wave or some incredible movement - at least until more attention is paid to installation, distribution, user interface, and stability. The mainstream user would rather spend more money to have a product that will work out of the box and is backed by a company. Most folks just have no interest in getting free software from some teenager - as incredibly talented as that teenager may be (Not to stereotype - but that's the perception if average people know what open source is about at all).
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
First, I think that it is fundamentally wrong to assume that public works and benefits are somehow communist in the way that Communist governments exist today. This sort of thinking has been a way of attacking public sector projects in thinking that "I don't want my tax dollars paying for it."
Instead, it seems to me that we are talking about some sort of continuum between Capitalism and Socialism where the difference is that Socialism has a number of public works controls which help to redistribute wealth and keep in check the big business capitalism.
I use the term communism to refer to Soviet, Chinese, Eastern European, and Cuban communism. Whether or not they are the ideal is irrelevant. They are the examples of communist governments that we can reference. Communism in this perspective seems to be a socialist feudalism with state control and ownership of producers. This state control has limited utility and consequentially at some point one has to move to a person-based (corporations are artifical persons) ownership model.
Hence the move from Feudalism/Communism to Capitalism/Socialism seems to be a one-way road, provided that one only allows one ot consider a transition complete once it has really taken root. I.e. the family succession of elected offices in places like Singapore indicate that feudalist mentalities are still alive and well in the psyche of the citizenry.
The problem with open source from a capitalist perspective is that the means of production (in this case intellectual property) have become socialized, in the words of Marx. However, this is fundamentally different from Communism as I have defined it because socialized doesn't mean "owned by the state" but rather "owned by the producers and users." In other words this is a move towards community ownership which on the surface seems more like communism. To be fair to Marx he seemed to indicate that capitalist institutions such as corporations and the free market would likely continue to exist in his vision of communism.
I am willing to admit (as Wilhelm Reich quite strongly advocates) that Lenninism is NOT to be equated with the theories of Marx, and that Communist parties are simply wishful thinkers and daydreamers. In this theory cooperative businesses are the true manifestation of Marx's ideas of communism, but the term communism can't be used because of confusion with the communist party and the Soviet regime. He uses the term "Work Democracy" in his book "Mass Psychology of Fascism."
Of course what we have here is a strange way in which work democracy is implimented here where the "workers" including "corporations" own the means of production. This is something which could be equated with Marx's communism but bears no relation to the state-controlled Feudal political philosophy which has started in Russia during WWI. Indeed, when compared to the ideas of the "Communist Party," open source more closely resembles capitalism because it assumes no state ownership and the operation of a free market.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The success of Free Software in a capitalist market is illustrated by considering the iterated prisoner's dilemma. Self-interested, profit motivated corporations will cooperate for mutual benefit. The GPL maintains a Nash equilibrium by punishing defection (cheating).
Logic is not Divine.
There is a general trend for most mass market goods to become commoditized. This should have happened in software some time ago, but there were unnatural monopolistic forces that slowed this process. In particular, Microsoft is doing everything in its power to prevent the commoditization of their bread and butter applications. But even with the presence of Microsoft, there remains a tremendous pressure by natural market forces to commoditize a lot of the software products in use today.
The only unusual wrinkle to this is that software becomes commoditized by becoming essentially free. There are intrinsically no costs of production or distribution (except of course for the initial effort to create the software). To me open source is not an expression of some type of political manifesto, but the realization of natural market forces that have been held back too long by some of the large software companies.
What makes this hard to understand is the commitment by so many to do "free" work for the community. How can market forces cause people to do uncompensated labors? Well, there are really three principle reasons (and probably a host of other ones as well). One is to enhance other people's free labors incrementally to make it useful for myself or those who I work for. This is where the GPL license is vital because I have to contribute those labors back to the community. The second is the desire of fame and the many ways fame can be translated to fortune. Again, the GPL license is vital because it prevents others from obscuring my contributions. The last reason is to reduce the costs of creating a successful software solution to a problem. I have to use commoditized software and enhance it because if I don't I will lose to competitors who do. This is why large companies like IBM are willing to pay staff to do open source development.
So I do not view free software as a force in opposition to or separate from standard rules of the capitalist game, but just a natural outgrowth. If we did not have software developers creating open source solutions under a GPL license, the natural market forces would create such a solution very quickly.
I would say that anybody who tries to invalidate the rules of the game by which the free software community thrives (such as the GPL) cannot possibly claim to be pro free market. They really only serve the interests of the existing market players and their real agenda has nothing to do with the true spirit of entrepreneurial capitalism.
Mormons were originally so communal it was damn near communist.
Two fundamental differences between the Mormon's United Order and communism are (1) Mormons who wanted to join the United Order voluntarily gave their means/property/output to the Order, whereas in communism, it is taken from him by force, as others on the list have pointed out, usually with an AK47 to his head. And (2) if a person was lazy, in the United Order they were put on probation and then kicked out if they didn't work. No so with communism.
Force vs choice. Work vs indolence.
Rather fundamental and critical differences, if you ask me.
For another practical example, study up on the first colonies settled in the New World. They started out as a communal society (crops, etc), and after the first winter, switched to a private-property-driven capitalist society. The Governer had some interesting words to describe the difference from the first year to the second!
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
By and large, open source work is done as a branch of capitalism (give away the code, make money off services), or as a beneficiary or capitalism (don't need the money, give away the code). Open source developers do not submit code into the public domain, and have some benevolent central authority assign to them the resources they need to survive daily. Instead, the open source developers who get the resources are those who fill a market need. Just like free market capitalism.
There's also nothing fundamentally incompatible between capitalism and open source code. In the ideal case, where the software is both free to acquire and free to operate (author makes zero money), all it means is that you can't make money doing a particular thing. But even under capitalism there are many things that don't make any money at all, such as charity work. However, we don't complain that charities take jobs from prison guards!
What does intersect is the communist ideal, which is basically like everybody else's ideal: that we're all rich and happy. Having Free/free software to use makes us a little richer and a little happier. The similarities end about there.
"Linux brings us the ability to benefit Small-Medium Sized Businesses with powerful tools at no direct cost, direct meaning no purchase price -- the time involved in implementing it, however, is a factor dependant on the skill level of the IT Staff."
This is not meant as a troll.
The problem, being a small business owner, is with this "factor dependant on the skill level of IT staff." Most small businesses don't HAVE AN IT STAFF!
They depend on outside contractors. Ouside support folks for Linux earn more than their Windows trained counterparts. Try finding an accounting system that runs well under Linux, and then try to find a CPA that will work with it! Seeing technical people, who don't own small businesses that are not technology related recommending FOSS is all well and good, but it means more COST for me!
Basically, buying shrink wrapped Linux costs more than Windows. Hiring folks to work on it costs more than Windows. I can't get the apps that I need to run my business on Linux. They are out there for Windows.
Explain the value proposition for a small business owner from Linux. I would like to "stick it to the man" as well, and support Linux. However, I am in business to make money, and not run my computer systems.
Actually, a whole bunch of corporations give away at least some of their stuff for free, including IBM (eg Eclipse), the Apache consortium, the folks that make MySQL, to name three of many. Open source gives me way more software than my individual contributions would buy if I was trading my hours for money. As long as it's a net gain for me, why would I care whether there are also a lot of freeloaders out there?
And here's a question: what's the ethical difference between an individual who uses open souce software but doesn't contribute anything back, and a freeloading corporation?
I, for one, am completely tired of the whole "is Open Source bad for business" discussion that keeps getting pushed. Guess who does the pushing? Companies that are fearing their business being harmed.
By freeing up money and making one sector of business more streamlined, by default another will open and the world will advance. It just happens that way. Sure automobiles put most horse and buggy makers out of business. But they created many jobs for producing automobiles. Eventually roads were made that still provides jobs.
Fact: IT departments are by far and wide the biggest money losing departments of businesses. They don't sell anything. They are cost centers. Open source can help alleviate that and allow for that money to be used on something else. In the long run, this will always be good and help new sectors grow. Those that fight this change will go the way of the horse and buggy maker. Those that retool their shops to embrace will reap the rewards.
For-profit corporations are, by definition,
only in it for the money, and as such, are
willing to do anything to achieve than end.
Witness Enron et al. Look at the environmental
devastation, government influencing (running?)
and practical enslavement of human beings. This
is all because the owners of a corporation have
no responsibility to the land or their employees.
Witness the shameless job-cutting and overt
utilization of overseas labor whose laws would be
considered medieval compared to ours.
There is simply no morality in 99% of for-profit
corporations. The CEOs get mega-bucks while
the layoffs skyrocket. Among the big-boys, it's
all just the "good ol' boy network", except
they've had the time and money to buy the laws
and the judges that enforce them.
A hobbyist or single user who uses free software
is ok - he/she can use it to better their
education in many ways. I completely advocate
free software for personal use, as long as that
personal use does not support corporate America.
On a related note, free software can be a great
benefit to developing countries or even the poor
within America. If corporations had any decency
in them, they would recognize that and help
fund such initiatives, but they will refuse to
do that until we make them. How to do that is
a big question, for you can't make anyone assume
moral responsibility.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
Sure their software is basically crappy, but
they have managed to write an OS that works
with an unbelievable amount of different kinds
of hardware. If in doubt, check the list of
supported hardware in Linux or BSD.
That's not the point though, my point is that
M$ is at least charging those corporate sob's
for their work, and, last I checked, the
Bill Gates Foundation was giving away something
like a billion a year (I could be wrong, tho).
In any event, they have created (along with
Paul Allen and other old-time M$-ers) a paradise
of biotech research labs. So they have
effectively done a little Robin-Hooding of the
corporations and then taken that money and at
least done *some* good with it. Gates has
said that when he has finished running M$, he
will do philanthropy full-time. And, while a
lot of people speak a bunch of bs, his
foundation's track record speaks for itself.
Of course, his business practices are iffy at
best, but if he is truly out to help the world,
then would you rather a truly evil corporation
like Mosanto or Haliburton or one of these
prison-corps be owning your computer, or maybe
someone like Gates who may simply be using
their techniques for a greater good?
It is a possibility.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
I'm sick and tired of the current trend of evaluating all human endeavors in economic terms. Free markets and capitalism are not the culmination of western culture and not the final purpose of the Enlightenment (which, as the inspiration for the French and the U.S. revolutions is the God father of the current western democracies). Who cares if open source software is pro-capitalistic or not. What is much more important is the fact that it is an manifestation of a much more important tradition of the Enlightenment - freedom of expression.
"There is a terrorist behind every bush"
From economics, a free market is based on the following assumptions.
Read these assumptions and decide for yourself, does free software or propriatory software fit the free market model the closest?
In my opinion many of the industries crying out in the name of free market economics are in fact the industries furthest away from these assumptions.
1. First, markets must be economically
competitive - meaning the numbers of buyers and sellers must be so large
that no single buyer or seller can have any noticeable effect on the
overall market.
2. It must be easy for new sellers to
enter enterprises that are profitable and easy for sellers to get out of
unprofitable enterprises, so that producers are able to respond to market
signals of consumers' wants and needs.
3. Consumers must have clear, informative
and accurate information concerning whether the things they buy will
actually meet their wants and needs.
4. And finally, consumers must be
sovereigns - their tastes and preferences must reflect their basic values
- their tastes and preferences, untainted by persuasive influences.
(source http://www.pl.net/6business/marrul.htm)
I can understand that gaining $4,000,000 instantly would be a very enticing alternative, but any sane business leader would surely choose option 2. Let's look at the theoretical maximum profit that can be made by the two options:
Option 1:
Selling at $1,000,000 for 4 people = $4,000,000
Option 2:
Selling at $100 for 3,000,000 people = $300,000,000
That's a ratio of 1:75 in terms of profit. I do realise that marketing a product to a larger audience would take a major part of that extra money, but from a business perspective it would also make (a maximum of) 3,000,000 people dependent on your product. We've already seen the amount of power that can come out of gaining a large market share (*cough*Microsoft*cough*), which the 3,000,000 people certainly would be.
Also one could argue that, only some of the 3,000,000 people would (for the sake of the argument let's say that they could buy) actually buy the product. However, due to the large proportional difference and the fact that apparently the people desperately need the product ("people who need that software..."), the first option would still be very difficult to dismiss from a profit perspective.
"In regione caecorum rex est luscus" -Desiderius Erasmus