Don't neglect the transaction costs of the coordination problem. It's quite possible that consumers desire common chargers and data cables, but the costs of expressing that desire exceed the value of the chargers.
A free market is one in which government intervention is limited to enforcing property rights. Some people add contracts to that. Other people add tort law (since it applies equally to everyone, it might not be a market intervention; on the other hand, governments have been known to write legislation which is designed to apply only to one party.)
Okay.... you name one oligopoly created by free markets, and I'll name a monopoly or oligopoly created by government. First person to quit loses. If you don't reply, you grant my point that government is the cause of *opolies, not free markets.
You should distinguish between a law and legislation. A law is something which people create by their behavior. For example, the legislated speed limit in the USA is 55 MPH (for most roads). The law regarding speed limits is that you can drive from 5 to 10 MPH over the speed limit and no policeman will pull you over. If one does, you feel a sense of injustice.... as if a law had been broken.
Laws are created by people. Legislation is created by politicians.
Kids these days! Ya gotta keep 'em in their place. -russ
Re:Outsourcing made simple
on
Offshoring IT
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· Score: 1
Offshoring is indeed trade. Once foreigners get our dollars, all that *they* can do with them is trade with other people, who trade with other people who... eventually trade with us. If they never trade back with us because the dollar is such an excellent store of value (and it has been), then we've managed to purchase goods and services in exchange for green pieces of paper. Such a bargain! -russ
Re:Outsourcing made simple
on
Offshoring IT
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· Score: 1
Two parties will not willingly engage in a trade unless each party thinks their party is better off afterwords than they were before.
True. That's why people purchase lottery tickets. Objectively, you cannot justify the sale of lottery tickets, since the expected gain is always less than the purchase price. Since people do purchase them, obviously they are getting some benefit beyond the chance of winning. In other words, they think they're better off. What price happiness? -russ
Re:Outsourcing made simple
on
Offshoring IT
·
· Score: 1
Trades is giving something of a certain perceived value in exchange for something of perceived equal value.
Nope. If that were the case, then nobody would bother trading anything. Why take the time and effort to trade anything unless you want the other thing MORE? That's what's so great about free markets -- every trade makes the other party better-off.
By the way, Macroeconomics at the graduate level is even more likely to be bullshit than at the undergraduate level. If you need mathematics to understand it, it's not economics. The most complicated math needed to understand a complicated issue (e.g. comparative advantage) is multiplication.
It's kind of a fun game, since you are not really playing with REAL money;)
Exactly. You have put your finger on the problem with modern economics: it's not real. In order to understand real economics, you have to throw out most modern economics and go back to Hayek and von Mises. THEY understood what they were doing. -russ
How is it illegal for you to act as an agent for someone who is merely pursing their fair use rights? You *had* the original tape in hand, right? And you only made one copy onto disk, right? So what's the big deal?? -russ
Yes, they're violating it. The OSD requires no discrimination against persons or groups, and yet they refuse to accept contributions from businesses. The OSD requires that the code (and documentation) be freely copyable, and yet NO copyright permissions are granted in their HTML.
Yes, they'll stop or we'll die trying. -russ nelson, OSI board member in charge of misuse
Mr. Torvalds has said that he is anxious for Linux to continue to grow...
Here's how you can tell the guy is lying. Has anyone ever seen Linus Torvalds anxious? And Linus's command of the English ideom exceeds that of most native speakers, so he would never say "anxious" when he meant "excited". No way did he talk to Linus. He's just making it up as he goes along. -russ
But the biggest problem is that the author never says why free software or open source software must be commercialized. Sure he does. It's so that the unit of exchange in the hacker culture (respect) can be converted into the unit of exchange in the non-hacker community.
You didn't do what I asked. I asked for a list of characteristics of free software which are not present in the Open Source Definition. I wouldn't presume to define free software for you, but I would like you to define it for me. -russ
But Mike, you're confusing commercial software with proprietary software. Free (gratis) software is not commercial. Free (libre) software is not proprietary. Open Source software can be commercial software. Open Source software cannot prohibit commerce and still be certified as Open Source. That's the reason the Sun Community license is not Open Source.
Open Source is hostile to proprietary software, not commercial software. -russ
Open Source *is* free software. Make up your own definition for free software, and tell us how it differs from the Open Source Definition. Remember, O'Reilly does not define Open Source. -russ
Open Source(tm) is free software. If you disagree, then write a list of characteristics that free software has, and compare it to the Open Source Definition. -russ
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. -russ
If RMS wants a GNU distribution, he can do one. But for him to insist that all other distributions be called GNU, not Linux, is beyond reason. Why not GNU/Solaris? Why not GNU/Freebsd? -russ
Slashdot Mirror
Don't neglect the transaction costs of the coordination problem. It's quite possible that consumers desire common chargers and data cables, but the costs of expressing that desire exceed the value of the chargers.
A free market is one in which government intervention is limited to enforcing property rights. Some people add contracts to that. Other people add tort law (since it applies equally to everyone, it might not be a market intervention; on the other hand, governments have been known to write legislation which is designed to apply only to one party.)
Okay .... you name one oligopoly created by free markets, and I'll name a monopoly or oligopoly created by government. First person to quit loses. If you don't reply, you grant my point that government is the cause of *opolies, not free markets.
You should distinguish between a law and legislation. A law is something which people create by their behavior. For example, the legislated speed limit in the USA is 55 MPH (for most roads). The law regarding speed limits is that you can drive from 5 to 10 MPH over the speed limit and no policeman will pull you over. If one does, you feel a sense of injustice .... as if a law had been broken.
Laws are created by people. Legislation is created by politicians.
Kids these days! Ya gotta keep 'em in their place.
-russ
Offshoring is indeed trade. Once foreigners get our dollars, all that *they* can do with them is trade with other people, who trade with other people who ... eventually trade with us. If they never trade back with us because the dollar is such an excellent store of value (and it has been), then we've managed to purchase goods and services in exchange for green pieces of paper. Such a bargain!
-russ
Two parties will not willingly engage in a trade unless each party thinks their party is better off afterwords than they were before.
True. That's why people purchase lottery tickets. Objectively, you cannot justify the sale of lottery tickets, since the expected gain is always less than the purchase price. Since people do purchase them, obviously they are getting some benefit beyond the chance of winning. In other words, they think they're better off. What price happiness?
-russ
Trades is giving something of a certain perceived value in exchange for something of perceived equal value.
;)
Nope. If that were the case, then nobody would bother trading anything. Why take the time and effort to trade anything unless you want the other thing MORE? That's what's so great about free markets -- every trade makes the other party better-off.
By the way, Macroeconomics at the graduate level is even more likely to be bullshit than at the undergraduate level. If you need mathematics to understand it, it's not economics. The most complicated math needed to understand a complicated issue (e.g. comparative advantage) is multiplication.
It's kind of a fun game, since you are not really playing with REAL money
Exactly. You have put your finger on the problem with modern economics: it's not real. In order to understand real economics, you have to throw out most modern economics and go back to Hayek and von Mises. THEY understood what they were doing.
-russ
Yes, and because of that, she doesn't need to be Natalie Portman'ed, thankyouverymuch.
-russ
What is (or was) System 12?
-russ
I didn't click on any ZD ads. Did you? All we did was push down their click-through rate.
-russ
Jamie is male. What else is wrong in your post? Readers beware.
-russ
How is it illegal for you to act as an agent for someone who is merely pursing their fair use rights? You *had* the original tape in hand, right? And you only made one copy onto disk, right? So what's the big deal??
-russ
What's wrong with SmartMedia? At least it's a replacable medium.
-russ
Yeah, but you aren't going to get away with soldering this with any soldering iron from radio shack.
-russ
I sent them my standard spanking letter.
Yes, Open Source is a trademark.
Yes, they're violating it. The OSD requires no discrimination against persons or groups, and yet they refuse to accept contributions from businesses. The OSD requires that the code (and documentation) be freely copyable, and yet NO copyright permissions are granted in their HTML.
Yes, they'll stop or we'll die trying.
-russ nelson, OSI board member in charge of misuse
Here's how you can tell the guy is lying. Has anyone ever seen Linus Torvalds anxious? And Linus's command of the English ideom exceeds that of most native speakers, so he would never say "anxious" when he meant "excited". No way did he talk to Linus. He's just making it up as he goes along.
-russ
-russ
The community License is NOT Open Source for all the reasons you state.
-russ
You didn't do what I asked. I asked for a list of characteristics of free software which are not present in the Open Source Definition. I wouldn't presume to define free software for you, but I would like you to define it for me.
-russ
But Mike, you're confusing commercial software with proprietary software. Free (gratis) software is not commercial. Free (libre) software is not proprietary. Open Source software can be commercial software. Open Source software cannot prohibit commerce and still be certified as Open Source. That's the reason the Sun Community license is not Open Source.
Open Source is hostile to proprietary software, not commercial software.
-russ
Open Source *is* free software. Make up your own definition for free software, and tell us how it differs from the Open Source Definition. Remember, O'Reilly does not define Open Source.
-russ
Open Source(tm) is free software. If you disagree, then write a list of characteristics that free software has, and compare it to the Open Source Definition.
-russ
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.
-russ
If RMS wants a GNU distribution, he can do one. But for him to insist that all other distributions be called GNU, not Linux, is beyond reason. Why not GNU/Solaris? Why not GNU/Freebsd?
-russ