Re: Does the LGPL encourage sharing of code?

Anthony Taylor wrote:
> Roger Fujii wrote:
> >>Does it not make sense that the more code that is
> >>available, and the more software that is available, the greater the
> >>contribution to the economy?  Or is there some limit of which I'm not aware?
> >
> >This is true for X11.  With GPL, which requires derivatives to be
> >free, it can easily be argued that it DECREASES the economy.  After all, 
> >if you can only make $30, instead of $300, the net result is that you make
> >less of a contribution.  You might say that there is others that MAKE more 
> >money than you lost, but I haven't seen any evidence of this.  No linux 
> >distribution I know of is profitable. This isn't a good sign.
> 
> This is exactly what I'm talking about: when I discuss the economy, I am
> discussing the wealth of society.  When you discuss economy, you discuss
> the ability to extract money from society.  The economy is not merely
> the exchange of green paper things (or prettily-colored paper things,
> for folks with better-looking money).

actually, it (more or less) is.  You can make a decision for moral, personal
.... reasons, but if it isn't obviously linked to monetary wealth, it isn't
an economic reason.  I think you are using the word economy in an incorrect
way - it is *not* an umbrella term that can be used for evalulate the
desirableness of a society.  

> Current business practices have focused on the exchange of money, but
> economic theory does not depend on money.  

no, but it depends on exchangable value.  

> It depends upon the availablility of resources.  A country can
> have lots of currency, but without resources, it is a poor country.

Oh?  Tell that to Japan.  

> As an example, although no company has made any money off of Linux, how
> much have other companies *saved* by using Linux?

I doubt this number is large.  In any case, one could also ask the converse
"How many companies have been harmed by the GPL?".  Neither question is ever
going to get an exact answer.  It's like asking how much money is lost to 
piracy. 

> And if programmers are willing to code Linux for free, what difference 
> does it make if any distribution is *ever* profitable?

The problem is not the "product".  The problem is the infrastructure.  I could
care less if emacs is GPLed.  But if things like cut/paste mechanism, file formats
and other infractstruture components are GPLed, it makes avoiding GPL that much
harder.
 
> Try to decouple money from wealth.  It *is* possible.  Once you do that,
> it is easier to see how money-obsessed our society has become, to the
> point where corporations have more power than all the individuals
> combined, and the people allow it; to the point where a contribution
> to the economy is measured by the amount of money a company can
> extract from its customers.

I think you are exaggerating a bit.  The old addage "all politics is local" still
holds true for many things.  Also, while it *is* possible to separate the money
from your definition of wealth, it is easily shown that without money, more often
than not, you don't have wealth.  Look at divorce and a major reason for it.
 
> Imagine the replicators from Star Trek, or (better) the CHON food
> factories from the sequels to Gateway (Beyond the Blue Event Horizon,
> etc).  Would we be richer or poorer if we had something that could
> create food from what is essentially air?  And would it make us any
> richer if we had to pay someone for food that was essentially free?

well, you have to answer what the farmers, restaurant employees, grocery
stores, shipper, and all the other people involved with the food industry
would think.  What are all these people going to do?  How are they going
to make money to pay for stuff that isn't free?  

> This is the essence of software.  Once it is created, the product is
> essentially free.  So the fixed-cost unit model does not work, because
> that is *not* the model of the object itself, and we shouldn't force
> software into that model.  We need a new model.

You can't rule out "fixed-cost" altogether.  The problem is that you
are making the assumption that you can pay for the development costs 
of a product from the price of the first product.  No one would buy
software under that model, as the price would be prohibitively high.
While I agree there is a need for a new model, GPL doesn't fit the bill...

> And I admit, I do not know what that economic model is.  That doesn't
> mean it doesn't exist, though.  And, like economic corrections of the
> past, I suspect it will happen with or without our cooperation.

I don't think you mean 'economic model' but rather 'software model', right?
Software is indeed unique, and a new mechanism for dealing with it is certainly
needed.  If you mean 'economic model', I'm quite sure there are communes around
that you could experiment with....

-r