Re: economic efficiency of free software

Jamie Lokier wrote:

>Russell Nelson wrote:
>  
>
>> > Because forcing information into the tautology of classic economics
>> > has a terrible price ---because it requires scarcity to work.  The
>> > market requires scarcity and thus denial in order to function.
>>
>>But ... Jean, software *is* scarce, and I am being denied software
>>that I desire by the market.  This is true regardless of copyright
>>laws.  I can think of a half-dozen programs that I'd like to have,
>>which are scarce because they don't exist.
>>    
>>
>
>Well there you go, the scarcity is real; making software is work and
>the market governing which software is created is justified after all.
>
>But there's no scarcity in distribution.  When the market restricts
>who can have and who can't have a copy, it _is_ causing unnecessary
>denial, seen within the context of the distribution market alone.
>
>When you look at both together as a single market, then if we're
>intellectually honest we admit that some factors are genuinely scarce,
>and some are not.  Therein lies all the debate - how separable are
>those markets?  And the ethicals: _should_ they be separated as a
>matter of policy?
>
>In a sense it all works out in the long run.
>But that's true of any system.
>
>-- Jamie
>
>  
>
Just caught Russell's note, and Jamie's response - it's been a highly
interesting discussion that I have yet to have time to read most of, but
I'm going to throw this out in the mix:

With Free Software, the consumer is denied nothing by the market - the
consumer denies themself. Some things are ubiquitous, like office
applications. But if you need something, you can get it. Software is
*not* scarce, I disagree with that completely. It may just not be
available in the manner which you need it.

The rules of proprietary software do not apply, and a culture needs to
unlearn how it thinks about software. If it's needed enough, you'll be
able to get it in the pretty box (and with the price of the colorful box
included). Software itself, though a functional work, is in fact
intangible. What you pay for is it's creation and distribution. Even the
U.S. government calls software a *service*. Facilitating the service is
key, and with proprietary models there are failures in assuming what
consumers want. For every successful software product, there are plenty
of abandoned software projects which were just not financially viable
for the producing company.

There's a lot of code written that's sitting around dormant. I wrote a
lot of such code for companies, the majority of the code I have written
in my lifetime has not been used. Very frustrating in a way. But if it's
Free Software code, there's nothing to stop it from being used. I'm
actually spending a lot of time rewriting things I wrote in the past
because they weren't Free Software. Another level of frustrating, but
better than being accused of theft.

So, part of the service a company could provide would be to get
consumers to let people know what they consider to be scarce. It's the
facilitation of service; the software itself is service. Ethics, too,
are a part of business - though most established software companies
appear to find this challenging (the verdicts have been enlightening,
the punishments questionably punitive).

The Free Software Consortium (http://www.fsc.cc/ )is doing something
quite similar, which is why I have to dedicate some time to read these
emails that have been sitting in my email box way too long, tagged as
'TODO"...

-- 
Taran Rampersad
[email protected]
http://www.knowprose.com
http://www.fsc.cc/
http://www.uwi.edu/scs/
http://www.a42.com
http://www.xeebra.com

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