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Tetris Creator Claims FOSS Destroys the Market
alx5000 writes "In an interview conducted last week with Consumer Eroski (link in Spanish; Google translation), the father of Tetris Alexey Pajitnov claimed that 'Free Software should have never existed,' since it 'destroys the market' by bringing down companies that create wealth and prosperity. When asked about Red Hat or Oracle's support-oriented model, he called them 'a minority,' and also criticized Stallman's ideas as 'belonging to the past' where there were no software 'business possibilities.'"
No, I think the irony is that while there are a million and one free clones of tetris, the reason he got screwed out of a ton of money was due to the acts of proprietary software companies.
True, the Soviet government screwed him over, too, but only after Andromeda had sold the rights (which they didn't own) to Spectrum HoloByte (who got rich selling it in America).
Naw he doesn't. If he did, he could just do what everyone and their mum seems to be doing these days and sue every author of every clone for copyright infringement. If he doesn't have the copyright or perhaps a patent for the game, then he hasn't got a point besides being greedy and miserable.
This is all covered in my book, Shit I Made Up About The Russian Software Industry. Obviously you didn't see the BBC documentary on Tetris (it's available on YouTube - can't provide a link right now). Alex created it as a variant of a popular board game with a couple extra twists according to the documentary. It then started selling, and only later did the USSR find out about it - after it had already swept through the USSR and other countries wanted to buy it. The USSR's software group ended up sole-sourcing the market to Nintendo through some interesting twists, which through Atari for a spin as they had already pumped a lot of money into their own version of Tetris since they thought they had licensed it for the PC. Quite a good documentary.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Jobs is a better example of vendor lockin - he wants everything as a disposable appliance.
It's almost impossible to find a large software company with multiple products that doesn't have some open source offerings, however, even if their main products are primarily closed source. Some examples are Apple, Microsoft [also see Codeplex], Adobe and Oracle.
Probably the best example I can think of for closed source is game companies like EA, Vivendi (Blizzard), etc. Carmack and Id are the exception, not the rule in that industry.
Sega has a patent on Crazy Taxi gameplay, and they have sued Fox over it. Fox settled out of court, so that patent still stands. Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Taxi_(series)#Legalities
"Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production." (from the (reasonable) Wikipedia defintion) Nothing in this definition mentions the government. FOSS really is quite communistic in that everyone owns the means of production and the product. Up the irons!
I could bottle and sell air to people, and generate a lot of wealth for myself (assuming I could get people to buy it from me), but this isn't creating wealth. People may need air to live, but they can get it for free in most places, so me selling it to them doesn't create wealth, it only harvests it from suckers.
Hey, people and companies make good money selling bottled air. There's always a value-add, though. Dive stores sell compressed, filtered air to scuba divers, and 3000-psi compressors don't come cheap. Companies like Praxair and Air Liquide sell compressed or liquified components of air (nitrogen, oxygen, argon, etc); the value-add there is obvious too.
It's adding that value that creates wealth, and none of the above companies even try to sell air to people that just want to breathe (above water). (In fact, I believe the latter both refuse to sell to "oxygen bars" because of the lack of safety standards in same.)
Just nit-picking, I completely agree with your other points. (And come to think of it, back when I was diving, my regular dive store didn't charge for the air, but for the labor of filling the tank, thus avoiding sales tax on it.)
-- Alastair
I always wanted to say that. But you are right. How many universities all over the world have whole classes that are essentially Adobe product training....like:
"Creative Imaging, VT2500" (photoshop)
"Creative Illustration, VT2600" (illustrator)
"Interactive Multimedia, VT3100" (flash)
and I could go on and on. Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, the list is long...These companies have made products that WE ALL have used to our benefit and have generated wealth for WAY more people than just the producers.
This was a bit long to quote but how many universities that teach computer science have whole units devoted to linux.Introduction to Programming Environments 152
Systems Programming Design
Computer Communications 352
That's 3 units you take which are basically pure Unix, and then every unit except software engineering uses Linux in the Labs (at the Uni I went to).
And seriously stop confusing wealth redistribution IE gambling, taxation with wealth creation, raw materials -> product.
Taking bricks and mortar and building a house and selling it for more than the inputs is wealth creation.
More importantly, creating Tetris makes him a one hit wonder puzzle inventor while saying almost nothing regarding his skills in programming, IT, computer science or economics.
Wait a second, I don't know jack about programming, IT, computer science, or economics... but I know video games, and he's not just a one-hit wonder. He also designed Pandora's Box and Hexic HD.
Comment of the year
He thinks FOSS screwed-over his buddy Vladimir causing his software company to go tits-up, causing him to kill his wife and son. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Pokhilko http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/tetris/ I read it on rotten, so it MUST be true!!