Let's not forget that despite our differences that our goals are *much* more in line than they ever could be with, say, Microsoft. We're arguing over fine details here. There's nothing wrong with that, but let's remember that our disagreements are fundamentally friendly, even when the tone isn't.
ESR, Bruce Perens, and RMS are all on the side of free source. Their motivations differ, as does precise details of what they consider appropriate, but their overall positions are still clustered quite tightly.
Agreed that we are on the same side, but that does not relieve anybody the responsibility of "getting it right." In cases where the community feels it is not being represented by prominent people who claim to do so, public noise is going to happen. So if someone claims to representing us, they need to try really hard to get it right, to avoid these problems....
Credit is due to OSI for opening up the process, if this is in fact what's going on. But it's important for them to realize the importance of follow-through. If we all get to comment on these prospective licenses and the effect of the commentary is minimal, public comment will inevitably follow in other forums.
So good idea guys, but remember that you are performing a service for the community, and as in any free software project, we'll rate you on how good a job you're doing. Publicly, and without apology.
Hmmm. Runs Windows NT variant. Closed box so you had better be able to get timely support from the single vendor you are locked into. Used by small organizations so it better have every single application you might want built into it from the start.
I think I'm missing something.
Let's not confuse negligence with vandalism
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The Melissa Syndrome
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· Score: 1
Bruce Perens wrote:
Melissa was Microsoft's fault. They left their system wide open to this sort of abuse, they knew it could happen and did nothing. The fact that word macros could be abused was public knowledge for at least a year before Melissa came along. Rather than fix their system and protect a few hundred thousand users, they waited for someone to come along and set off their bomb. Someone so naive that he left incriminating evidence in the virus. The fact is, MS users are unprotected from rank amateurs.
Let's not confuse negligence with vandalism. If someone leaves a can of mace around and I use it to assault bystanders, they may have been negligent but I'm still responsible for my actions.
People without self-control create problems. The tools to screw people's lives up can always be found by some idiot child with unfocused hostility. Civilization starts at the individual level.
Flames and viruses both serve some good purposes
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The Melissa Syndrome
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· Score: 1
for(;;;) wrote:
Flames and viruses may both come across as hostility, but they share similar positive qualities. They're blunt ways to point out weakness in an argument or system.
Shooting people in the head is a blunt way to point out the dangers of guns, but it's still not a very good idea. "~We had to destroy the village in order to save it.~"
http://public.wsj.com/tour/ijcontact.html
on
WSJ Says Linux Lags
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· Score: 1
Use the above URL to comment to wsj---please make sure you reference the URL of the article on msnbc which has their name on it, and the specific factual errors.
1956 studies seem to apply to manual typewriters!
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The Myth of QWERTY
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· Score: 1
The studies cited would not be very current, in that manual typewriters would benefit much more from alternate-hand typing. Nowdays I believe, with computer keyboards and N-key rollover, a strong case could be made for Dvorak. In my experience, Dvorak is quite efficient, though like QWERTY it does take quite a bit of practice to make it work well for you.
The problem is maybe not a market failure....there are inherent limitations to what a market can do. If no one asks the right questions, the answers don't automatically spring from the ether.
It was rather disconcerting to discover, coming in around midnight US/Pacific, that sengan had posted my essay together with a somewhat, um, difficult to recognize summary of the thoughts expressed.:) But these things happen, and I do appreciate getting the exposure.
Thanks to all who provided comments on the essay; they were greatly appreciated and should prove helpful. Thanks especially to the CMU writer who reminded me of the term "externalities of possession" in his correspondence. Once I get a bit more sleep and the chance to do a bit more thinking and writing, I'll begin working through the implications of agalmics in more detail. Expect to see additional postings on the agalmics site.
As to the usual flurry of "this guy is an idiot", "this guy is trying to be ESR" and "this guy can't think his way out of a paper bag" postings, well, this is Slashdot, a medium which seems to mix genuine enthusiasm, thoughtful engagement and a tendency to skip paper training. All things considered, I'm glad to have the opportunity to post here, and perfectly willing to ignore the occasional flame.;)
I look forward to seeing more depth in later postings, together with commentary on examples -- hopefully with the theory published before the examples happen (anyone can backdate a thesis;-).
Well, ultimately theories do have to be written based on observed fact, not the other way around. But I agree that the test of a theory is the reproducibility of its results.
The only good point as a real economist I can find from Mr Levin's article is: economists have not done any serious study on the Open Source Movement. Other than that, it's full of flaws and misunderstanding of economic concepts.
Basically, we can model the situation by the similar models of volunteering (we do have models about volunteering!). I bet it's because the dropping of hardware cost enable us to have Open Source Softwares. And the dropping of hardware cost is nothing new to economics.
Thanks for your comments. I see some confusion here---you appear to assume that open source software works via a "volunteering" process, and I'm not sure that's a useful model. It implies a single-direction transaction, rather than an exchange. It's clear there are direct benefits from the exchange of software source for bug reports, fixes and enhancements, and these are only peripherally based on notions of charity and public good.
I will be glad to entertain the possibility that my comments evince "flaws and misunderstanding of economic concepts," though I will obviously have to wait until you enumerate at least one of them before I can agree that they exist. As to the dropping of hardware cost being nothing new to economics, I can certainly agree. But the concept of exchanges based on other than scarcity is hardly anything like an economic concept.
Theoretically, it seems that there's nothing new. We do need some empirical studies.
I'd be interested in seeing the results of such studies.
More then once I have had the urge to begin contributing to the community. I have written code, documented it and gained authorization for its release. But at the last minute I always hestiate and then stop. Why? I think I fear the fangs of the community. At this point, everywhere I turn its a big flamefest and getting quite tiresome. Its gotten to the point where it seems one has to be some sort of Jedi Master level coder to contribute.On more then a few mailing lists I have seen contributors flamed for their contributions! Flaming someone for GIVING something away. Its incredible.
I do understand your viewpoint. But what you need to remember is that people who flame you for contributing to the free software community are not functioning as members in good standing of that community.
Give your software because there will be people who will let you know they appreciate it. Give it because people can at least potentially contribute back with bug reports, patches and enhancements. Don't let flames, which are essentially noise, ruin your view of a process which can produce enjoyment, utility and clear, demonstrable value for all of the parties involved.
From what I understand of the article, the author it dealing with a subset of economics, specifically with the economics of a gift culture. As was mentioned in a prior post, economi is not a new thing.
Thanks for your comments. Actually, sengan referred to gift cultures in the introduction, but my essay mentions them only in a non-rigorous way. I'm not convinced that non-scarcity "economics" really has much to do with the conventional gift culture, which is a pre-technological culture in which scarcity is a basic fact of daily existence.
The author's premise is that economics is the study of the allocation of scarce goods. Adam Smith defined economics (or polictical economy) as the study of "the nature and causes of the wealth of nations." Since then, the focus of the dismal science has not changed.
Actually, most economics texts I've seen in recent times do refer to economics as the study of the allocation of scarce goods. The Adam Smith definition would seem to be pretty dated.
In the US we are seeing the developement of new kind of economy. We have moved from the manufacturing oriented Industrial age to the technology driven Information Age. However, the same economic principles will still apply. Reguardless of how much you 'marginalize scarcity' (a rather dubious concept) it will still exist. If you keep taking a small portion away from something, you still have most of it left (see Zeno's paradox's for more on that).
Zeno's paradox is not all that useful for reasoning real-world situations. If you reduce something by half over and over, what you eventually get in the real world is a state change, when the actual value drops below some level such that behavior changes. Continually diminishing scarcity is only of academic interest when a particular good becomes plentiful enough that it is no longer traded. Specifically, if supply always equals or exceeds demand, you don't have a scarce good in the real world.
I believe that intellectual property economics is a good model to start with when dealing with the economics of the free software (or open source, or copyleft...) market. What must be kept in mind are the fundamental laws of economics. They are tried and tested rules that have shown to explain human behavior in many circumstances.
Here we will have to disagree. Intellectual property law is an attempt to turn fundamentally non-scarce goods (ideas) into scarce goods by limiting their use through legal sanction. If ideas could not be invented independently by more than one person, or if IP didn't tend to be collected by well-capitalized organizations with large legal staffs, or for that matter if ideas were not as fundamentally easy to transmit without loss of the original copy, intellectual property law might be a good idea. In the world as it really exists, IP law tends to slow technological progress, and IP economics provides a distorted view of goods which are essentially agalmic, not economic, in character.
We are all acting in our own rational self interest, reguardless of how irrational that may appear to everyone else. Begin here and you start on a strong foundation.
I can only agree wholeheartedly. But it would be a mistake to regard agalmic behavior as synonymous with charity. People engage in agalmic transactions based on personal motives which are as diverse as those of economic actors, and often quite thoroughly self-interested. Like a well-functioning free market, an agalmia does not require charitable intent to function efficiently.
Many parts of his essay are *very* close to a (chapter of a) paper by ESR, Homesteading the Noosphere , which describes the hacker culture as a Gift economy (among many other interesting topics).
Actually, it would be incorrect to say that I view the hacker culture as a gift culture, per se. All of the gift cultures I'm aware of existed prior to significant modern technology, and hence were based as much on scarcity as modern economies.
Further, I would have to say that I consider ESR's reasoning in much of Noosphere to be seriously flawed. He seems to be invoking "hacker tradition" to assert that people "own" the projects they run. I don't believe it is possible to homestead the "Noosphere."
As to the originality of my comments, I make no claim to be the first person thinking about these issues. Indeed, in the mid-80's, a science fiction writer named James Hogan wrote an excellent novel called Voyage to Yesteryear which touched on a number of these topics. And the Extropians have been talking about them for some time. Eric has come up with some interesting spins and useful comments, but I'd argue that neither the topics nor the issues are new.
This guy literally doesn't know what he's talking about.
"The nature of such organizations is to hold onto these assets tightly and release them slowly, so that the most efficient return on investment can be achieved."
Duh no. They deploy them as quickly as possible to realize the fastest return on investment.
Is there an economist in the house?
Thanks for your comments. AT&T and the electronic switching system. (1950's technology, implemented in the 1970's). IBM at the beginning of the PC revolution, when Compaq was a small organization whose name was synonymous with high-end, and regularly came out with faster machines than IBM.
When a corporate entity owns two pieces of technology, and sales of the newer one will impact sales of the older one, it has no incentive to immediately gear up to produce new product. Except when such a product can be used to compete with a rival which, as I say in the essay, does happen with some regularity.
This description is, as you say, false. But the author's point is nonetheless true, because the description nonetheless drives the behavior of some large companies (to be specific, Microsoft), who have come to believe that unless someone else loses something, they can't win anything.
Thanks for your comments. I think several people have gotten the impression that I consider economic behavior, as a whole, to automatically be zero-sum or even negative-sum. That was not an impression I intended to create. But one of the weaknesses of economic transactions is that they are typically zero-sum in each direction. This is appropriate, since economics deals with the allocation of scarce goods. I can't continue to own my toaster if I sell it to you.
Nonetheless, economic transactions have produced quite a bit of value; they provide a mechanism whereby individuals can 'trade up' from a commodity with less utility to one with greater utility. They also provide opportunities for cooperative behavior in which groups of individuals can produce value by division of labor or creative effort.
This essay is very good, as far as it goes. Its tone reminds me very much of Mises' landmark work in economics. Unfortunately, this essay, unlike Mises' "Human Action", stops far short of being in any way useful. Hopefully the author will publish a more complete treatment. And this time, perhaps explain his perspective of the free market a little more clearly.
Thanks for your positive comments. I intended this essay as a mini-introduction a concept of "non-scarcity economics", and as such it's inherently very limited and incomplete. I expect to spend a good deal of time examining how successful agalmic transactions work, how agalmias can come into existence and grow, how agalmic and economic behaviors can interact, and how the future of agalmic activity might play itself out. I also want to talk about the role of nascent technology in expanding the agalmic sphere, about how decentralized logistics can help agalmias prosper, and how this all relates to free software.
I agree with your comments on von Mises; he had a lot of things to say, and indeed a lot of Human Action has practical applications, but his work would probably have profited more from more direct real-world examples. As something of a philosopher, I find it extremely helpful to be able to use the Internet to comment about real world situations in something approaching realtime. I do plan to exercise that advantage.
WTF is he talking about?? Free markets aren't zero-sum. They're always positive-sum for both parties, otherwise they won't engage in the transaction.
Economics has been defined pretty consistently as the study of the allocation of scarce goods. The common medium of exchange is money, which is, in itself, a scarce good. As such, it is a zero-sum commodity in any given transaction. Either I have that dollar, or I've given it to you. It's certainly true that economic transactions can be positive sum, But each side of an economic transaction is typically zero-sum: I give you a toaster and no longer have it. You give me $20 and no longer have it.
On the other hand, each side of an agalmic transaction is typically positive-sum. The software I give you stays in my possession, too. The fixes you give me stay in yours. So if you're attempting to implement positive-sum games, the agalmic context is a much more effective one.
I cannot stress this enough. If your site has been challenged legally, regardless of the nature of the injunction, whether it's legal or illegal for you to do so, GET THE WORD OUT TO THE PUBLIC WHO THE PEOPLE WHO DID IT ARE! If we know who they are, pressure can be applied. You can't apply public pressure to an unknown entity.
The owners of the sites named screwed up by not making damn sure we knew who shut them down. Don't be so intimidated you don't shout loud and publicly so we know who is harassing you with lawyers. Anybody can be harrassed by unscrupulous entities with cash and legal access. To fix it we need the clear light of day focussed on the perpetrators.
It seems unfortunate to me that, at this point, ESR's role seems primarily to welcome people into the community without ensuring that they fully understand what works and what doesn't.
It's attractive to try to get commercial organizations to buy into open source, but if the licenses have serious problems, I'm not clear we're really getting them to buy in at all.
Only by doing so can we ensure that they will be subjected to the appropriate public ridicule for their inappropriate use of legal harrassment to get their way on the Internet.
Let's get that information soonest, guys. Whoever knows the folks at Userfriendly and Segfault should convince them to post the harrassing correspondence.
Not GNU utilities, Linux/GNU utilities ;)
on
Feature:Free Linux
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· Score: 1
An anonymous user wrote:
however, it's equally true that up until Linux came along, the popularity of the GNU suite didn't hit anything like its current levels. No operating system, a lot less exposure to the world.
Quite a myopic view. Ask any NEXTSTEP, SunOS4, HP-UX, Irix administrator... all have had GNU tools installed in addition to or in place of the vendor utilities for a long, long time already.
I'm afraid that GNU software has been universally popular on nearly every POSIX system, long before Linux became popular.
No Unix has ever had the popularity and growth rate of its user base that Linux enjoys. Unix installations have always had a much smaller market share than Windows installations, and Linux is the only POSIX OS that has shown any chance of challenging Windows much at all. So I guess I would have to stick with my viewpoint.
'Universally popular', sure, but in a very small universe.
True. It's easy to get caught on the anti-MS bandwagon (its so easy!), but then it's also easy to get caught on the Linux hype bandwagon. You can't win either way!
I'm one of these people who is pissed off with MS, their software and their practices. But I'm not the kind of person that Jon was addressing; the religious zealot. Yes I could just ignore his postings, but I thought this one might actually be witty and not just ranting and raving.
I know all good causes and movements need a loud voice to carry the message to the world. But with postings like this we're posting the wrong message.
Please just calm this hysteria. Be sensible, be mature, be intelligent. The more it occurs the more I'm tempted I am to walk away from Linux.
Um, use Linux if you find it useful. If you're hanging around vitriolic Linux users, find some less vitriolic Linux users.:)
Personally, I enjoyed the essay. I guess it's a bit irritating that having a few billion dollars means you can keep trying to reinvent yourself as a historic figure till you get it right.... Must be nice.
On the whole, I'm just glad I don't have to use the guy's products. They're okay, but they crash a lot. And he keeps trying to tie people into proprietary standards, a strategy that will make lots of money through other people's misfortune, so I guess that irritates me too.
I guess if you make a lot of money, you are likely to get a lot of people annoyed at you, particularly if you're not that picky in how you go about it. Such is life.
See above. Got tired of wading through the variations on the theme of all the possible things that can be wrong with an essay, a person, a philosophy, a life, and figured you might appreciate hearing from somebody who enjoys your work.:) Especially since we seem to be in the majority.:)
Rob
Not GNU utilities, Linux/GNU utilities ;)
on
Feature:Free Linux
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· Score: 1
An anonymous user said:
Is what percent Linus coded. Why should we call the collection of utilities and libraries "Linux" when Linus coded less than most organizations/people? Do you REALLY think Linux would have been possible without GNU? No. Because Linus would not have had a C compiler and he would be SOL and stuck with Minix.
If everything with a GNU license is prefaced with 'GNU/', RMS and FSF will certainly get a lot of free advertising. It's true that without the GNU utilities Linux would not be an operating system; however, it's equally true that up until Linux came along, the popularity of the GNU suite didn't hit anything like its current levels. No operating system, a lot less exposure to the world.
Perhaps GNU utilities should be referred to as Linux/GNU utilities.
You want to replace all the GNU tools because you think RMS has too much of an ego? This is not just a waste of time but destructive.
I don't see that it's either. Free software contributors do what they enjoy doing. Code gets reused. It's something of a weak link that this community only has one compiler. Diversity is great, let's have more.
Nobody has to use a new tool if they don't want to. We've got at least two free makes, at least two free lex's, I can't see that it will hurt us to have more tools.
It's not your right to tell other people how to spend their coding time, or what motivation is "acceptable".
Well, I hope you have a fun time creating a compiler as good as gcc and a debugger as good as gdb. Why waste your time on political bullshit? Shut up and write some code that we _need_, not code so you can justify creating your own non-FSF distribution. The FSF has done a lot for us all, I'm sorry if you don't appreciate it, but I sure as hell do.
In point of fact, this entire discussion was started by RMS, who decided that Linux should be referred to as GNU/Linux. Tom deserves kudos for pointing out the fallacy in that argument.
Should everything compiled with GCC and debugged with GDB be referred to with the 'GNU/' prefix? Maybe everything anyone has ever viewed on paper should be referred to with a 'Gutenberg/' prefix.
The fact is, that the GNU suite without Linux was not an operating system. It wasn't until Linux came along that you had an operating system. Credit is definitely due the FSF, but it does not own Linux. The community does.
Slashdot Mirror
Rik wrote: Agreed that we are on the same side, but that does not relieve anybody the responsibility of "getting it right." In cases where the community feels it is not being represented by prominent people who claim to do so, public noise is going to happen. So if someone claims to representing us, they need to try really hard to get it right, to avoid these problems....
Rob Levin
Head of Operations, Open Projects
"Open source, open technology, open information"
Credit is due to OSI for opening up the process, if this is in fact what's going on. But it's important for them to realize the importance of follow-through. If we all get to comment on these prospective licenses and the effect of the commentary is minimal, public comment will inevitably follow in other forums.
So good idea guys, but remember that you are performing a service for the community, and as in any free software project, we'll rate you on how good a job you're doing. Publicly, and without apology.
Rob Levin
Head of Operations, Open Projects
"Open source, open technology, open information"
Hmmm. Runs Windows NT variant. Closed box so you had better be able to get timely support from the single vendor you are locked into. Used by small organizations so it better have every single application you might want built into it from the start.
I think I'm missing something.
Bruce Perens wrote: Let's not confuse negligence with vandalism. If someone leaves a can of mace around and I use it to assault bystanders, they may have been negligent but I'm still responsible for my actions.
People without self-control create problems. The tools to screw people's lives up can always be found by some idiot child with unfocused hostility. Civilization starts at the individual level.
for(;;;) wrote: Shooting people in the head is a blunt way to point out the dangers of guns, but it's still not a very good idea. "~We had to destroy the village in order to save it.~"
Use the above URL to comment to wsj---please make sure you reference the URL of the article on msnbc which has their name on it, and the specific factual errors.
The studies cited would not be very current, in that manual typewriters would benefit much more from alternate-hand typing. Nowdays I believe, with computer keyboards and N-key rollover, a strong case could be made for Dvorak. In my experience, Dvorak is quite efficient, though like QWERTY it does take quite a bit of practice to make it work well for you.
The problem is maybe not a market failure....there are inherent limitations to what a market can do. If no one asks the right questions, the answers don't automatically spring from the ether.
It was rather disconcerting to discover, coming in around midnight US/Pacific, that sengan had posted my essay together with a somewhat, um, difficult to recognize summary of the thoughts expressed.
Thanks to all who provided comments on the essay; they were greatly appreciated and should prove helpful. Thanks especially to the CMU writer who reminded me of the term "externalities of possession" in his correspondence. Once I get a bit more sleep and the chance to do a bit more thinking and writing, I'll begin working through the implications of agalmics in more detail. Expect to see additional postings on the agalmics site.
As to the usual flurry of "this guy is an idiot", "this guy is trying to be ESR" and "this guy can't think his way out of a paper bag" postings, well, this is Slashdot, a medium which seems to mix genuine enthusiasm, thoughtful engagement and a tendency to skip paper training. All things considered, I'm glad to have the opportunity to post here, and perfectly willing to ignore the occasional flame. ;)
William Tanksley wrote: Well, ultimately theories do have to be written based on observed fact, not the other way around. But I agree that the test of a theory is the reproducibility of its results.
LittleStone wrote: Thanks for your comments. I see some confusion here---you appear to assume that open source software works via a "volunteering" process, and I'm not sure that's a useful model. It implies a single-direction transaction, rather than an exchange. It's clear there are direct benefits from the exchange of software source for bug reports, fixes and enhancements, and these are only peripherally based on notions of charity and public good.
I will be glad to entertain the possibility that my comments evince "flaws and misunderstanding of economic concepts," though I will obviously have to wait until you enumerate at least one of them before I can agree that they exist. As to the dropping of hardware cost being nothing new to economics, I can certainly agree. But the concept of exchanges based on other than scarcity is hardly anything like an economic concept.
I'd be interested in seeing the results of such studies.Siberian wrote: I do understand your viewpoint. But what you need to remember is that people who flame you for contributing to the free software community are not functioning as members in good standing of that community.
Give your software because there will be people who will let you know they appreciate it. Give it because people can at least potentially contribute back with bug reports, patches and enhancements. Don't let flames, which are essentially noise, ruin your view of a process which can produce enjoyment, utility and clear, demonstrable value for all of the parties involved.
Rob Levin
PhunkyP wrote: Thanks for your comments. Actually, sengan referred to gift cultures in the introduction, but my essay mentions them only in a non-rigorous way. I'm not convinced that non-scarcity "economics" really has much to do with the conventional gift culture, which is a pre-technological culture in which scarcity is a basic fact of daily existence. Actually, most economics texts I've seen in recent times do refer to economics as the study of the allocation of scarce goods. The Adam Smith definition would seem to be pretty dated. Zeno's paradox is not all that useful for reasoning real-world situations. If you reduce something by half over and over, what you eventually get in the real world is a state change, when the actual value drops below some level such that behavior changes. Continually diminishing scarcity is only of academic interest when a particular good becomes plentiful enough that it is no longer traded. Specifically, if supply always equals or exceeds demand, you don't have a scarce good in the real world. Here we will have to disagree. Intellectual property law is an attempt to turn fundamentally non-scarce goods (ideas) into scarce goods by limiting their use through legal sanction. If ideas could not be invented independently by more than one person, or if IP didn't tend to be collected by well-capitalized organizations with large legal staffs, or for that matter if ideas were not as fundamentally easy to transmit without loss of the original copy, intellectual property law might be a good idea. In the world as it really exists, IP law tends to slow technological progress, and IP economics provides a distorted view of goods which are essentially agalmic, not economic, in character. I can only agree wholeheartedly. But it would be a mistake to regard agalmic behavior as synonymous with charity. People engage in agalmic transactions based on personal motives which are as diverse as those of economic actors, and often quite thoroughly self-interested. Like a well-functioning free market, an agalmia does not require charitable intent to function efficiently.
Rob Levin
An anonymous user wrote:
Actually, it would be incorrect to say that I view the hacker culture as a gift culture, per se. All of the gift cultures I'm aware of existed prior to significant modern technology, and hence were based as much on scarcity as modern economies.Further, I would have to say that I consider ESR's reasoning in much of Noosphere to be seriously flawed. He seems to be invoking "hacker tradition" to assert that people "own" the projects they run. I don't believe it is possible to homestead the "Noosphere."
As to the originality of my comments, I make no claim to be the first person thinking about these issues. Indeed, in the mid-80's, a science fiction writer named James Hogan wrote an excellent novel called Voyage to Yesteryear which touched on a number of these topics. And the Extropians have been talking about them for some time. Eric has come up with some interesting spins and useful comments, but I'd argue that neither the topics nor the issues are new.
Rob Levin
Rocketeer wrote: Thanks for your comments. AT&T and the electronic switching system. (1950's technology, implemented in the 1970's). IBM at the beginning of the PC revolution, when Compaq was a small organization whose name was synonymous with high-end, and regularly came out with faster machines than IBM.
When a corporate entity owns two pieces of technology, and sales of the newer one will impact sales of the older one, it has no incentive to immediately gear up to produce new product. Except when such a product can be used to compete with a rival which, as I say in the essay, does happen with some regularity.
Rob Levin
William Tanksley wrote: Thanks for your comments. I think several people have gotten the impression that I consider economic behavior, as a whole, to automatically be zero-sum or even negative-sum. That was not an impression I intended to create. But one of the weaknesses of economic transactions is that they are typically zero-sum in each direction. This is appropriate, since economics deals with the allocation of scarce goods. I can't continue to own my toaster if I sell it to you.
Nonetheless, economic transactions have produced quite a bit of value; they provide a mechanism whereby individuals can 'trade up' from a commodity with less utility to one with greater utility. They also provide opportunities for cooperative behavior in which groups of individuals can produce value by division of labor or creative effort.
Thanks for your positive comments. I intended this essay as a mini-introduction a concept of "non-scarcity economics", and as such it's inherently very limited and incomplete. I expect to spend a good deal of time examining how successful agalmic transactions work, how agalmias can come into existence and grow, how agalmic and economic behaviors can interact, and how the future of agalmic activity might play itself out. I also want to talk about the role of nascent technology in expanding the agalmic sphere, about how decentralized logistics can help agalmias prosper, and how this all relates to free software.I agree with your comments on von Mises; he had a lot of things to say, and indeed a lot of Human Action has practical applications, but his work would probably have profited more from more direct real-world examples. As something of a philosopher, I find it extremely helpful to be able to use the Internet to comment about real world situations in something approaching realtime. I do plan to exercise that advantage.
Rob Levin
Nelsonrn wrote: Economics has been defined pretty consistently as the study of the allocation of scarce goods. The common medium of exchange is money, which is, in itself, a scarce good. As such, it is a zero-sum commodity in any given transaction. Either I have that dollar, or I've given it to you. It's certainly true that economic transactions can be positive sum, But each side of an economic transaction is typically zero-sum: I give you a toaster and no longer have it. You give me $20 and no longer have it.
On the other hand, each side of an agalmic transaction is typically positive-sum. The software I give you stays in my possession, too. The fixes you give me stay in yours. So if you're attempting to implement positive-sum games, the agalmic context is a much more effective one.
I cannot stress this enough. If your site has been challenged legally, regardless of the nature of the injunction, whether it's legal or illegal for you to do so, GET THE WORD OUT TO THE PUBLIC WHO THE PEOPLE WHO DID IT ARE! If we know who they are, pressure can be applied. You can't apply public pressure to an unknown entity.
The owners of the sites named screwed up by not making damn sure we knew who shut them down. Don't be so intimidated you don't shout loud and publicly so we know who is harassing you with lawyers. Anybody can be harrassed by unscrupulous entities with cash and legal access. To fix it we need the clear light of day focussed on the perpetrators.
It seems unfortunate to me that, at this point, ESR's role seems primarily to welcome people into the community without ensuring that they fully understand what works and what doesn't.
It's attractive to try to get commercial organizations to buy into open source, but if the licenses have serious problems, I'm not clear we're really getting them to buy in at all.
Only by doing so can we ensure that they will be subjected to the appropriate public ridicule for their inappropriate use of legal harrassment to get their way on the Internet.
Let's get that information soonest, guys. Whoever knows the folks at Userfriendly and Segfault should convince them to post the harrassing correspondence.
An anonymous user wrote: No Unix has ever had the popularity and growth rate of its user base that Linux enjoys. Unix installations have always had a much smaller market share than Windows installations, and Linux is the only POSIX OS that has shown any chance of challenging Windows much at all. So I guess I would have to stick with my viewpoint.
'Universally popular', sure, but in a very small universe.
stodge wrote: Um, use Linux if you find it useful. If you're hanging around vitriolic Linux users, find some less vitriolic Linux users.
Personally, I enjoyed the essay. I guess it's a bit irritating that having a few billion dollars means you can keep trying to reinvent yourself as a historic figure till you get it right.... Must be nice.
On the whole, I'm just glad I don't have to use the guy's products. They're okay, but they crash a lot. And he keeps trying to tie people into proprietary standards, a strategy that will make lots of money through other people's misfortune, so I guess that irritates me too.
I guess if you make a lot of money, you are likely to get a lot of people annoyed at you, particularly if you're not that picky in how you go about it. Such is life.
See above. Got tired of wading through the variations on the theme of all the possible things that can be wrong with an essay, a person, a philosophy, a life, and figured you might appreciate hearing from somebody who enjoys your work.
Rob
An anonymous user said: If everything with a GNU license is prefaced with 'GNU/', RMS and FSF will certainly get a lot of free advertising. It's true that without the GNU utilities Linux would not be an operating system; however, it's equally true that up until Linux came along, the popularity of the GNU suite didn't hit anything like its current levels. No operating system, a lot less exposure to the world.
Perhaps GNU utilities should be referred to as Linux/GNU utilities.
Ami Ranguli wrote: I don't see that it's either. Free software contributors do what they enjoy doing. Code gets reused. It's something of a weak link that this community only has one compiler. Diversity is great, let's have more.
Nobody has to use a new tool if they don't want to. We've got at least two free makes, at least two free lex's, I can't see that it will hurt us to have more tools.
It's not your right to tell other people how to spend their coding time, or what motivation is "acceptable".
An anonymous user wrote: In point of fact, this entire discussion was started by RMS, who decided that Linux should be referred to as GNU/Linux. Tom deserves kudos for pointing out the fallacy in that argument.
Should everything compiled with GCC and debugged with GDB be referred to with the 'GNU/' prefix? Maybe everything anyone has ever viewed on paper should be referred to with a 'Gutenberg/' prefix.
The fact is, that the GNU suite without Linux was not an operating system. It wasn't until Linux came along that you had an operating system. Credit is definitely due the FSF, but it does not own Linux. The community does.