Re: Software as a public service

>>>>> "Russell" == Russell McOrmond <[email protected]> writes:

    Russell> Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

    >> Of course.  But that doesn't mean you don't want to amortize
    >> the cost over all the uses.

    Russell> This is where the discussions often fail.  What you
    Russell> describe is a business model which has its own
    Russell> costs-benefits analysis.

No, I said nothing about how the business model works, except that I'm
implicitly assuming voluntary trade (you can't extract more from a
given user than her value).  All I said was that you may want to
amortize cost over all the uses.

    Russell> I'm still not certain we are talking about the same thing
    Russell> at all.  Any talk of software business models that
    Russell> doesn't take its non-rivalrous (or anti-rivalrous) nature
    Russell> into consideration fails in my mind.

Why?  Whatever works ....  Probably a good answer *will* depend on
lack of rivalry, but I don't see why you should reject an answer that
happens to work as well for rivalrous hardware as it does for
non-rivalrous software.

    Russell> In the case of a worker

The point was to exemplify extensive vs. intensive, not to claim
software is like labor.  The point is that on the intensive margin the
cost of software is (very near) zero, while on the extensive margin it
can be extremely high.

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School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
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               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.