Re: economic efficiency of free software

Taran Rampersad wrote:
> And if they need it badly enough, they need to put their money where 
> their mouth is.

You said:

> Software is *not* scarce.

But admit that if you don't pay for it to be created, in some cases it
won't be.

Is that scarce *by definition*?

If there's a shortage of programmers willing to create the software
you want, and you have to complete, perhaps by offering money, to
motivate them to create it, then I would say that the _creation_ of
that software is scarce.

If there's plenty of programmers who would create the software you
want, if only they didn't have to deliver pizza and pay the rent,
_then_ there's a good case for saying the creation of software isn't
scarce; what's scarce is rent-free accomodation.

(Sorry, I don't know the appropriate terminology: "creation of
software" isn't a good or a noun, and it's grammatically dubious to
call it scarce.  It's not correct to say the software itself is
scarce).

In no case is *software itself* scarce.  There isn't a limited amount
of software which one person can have or another person can have; only
the *process of creating software* is like that. 

-- Jamie