Re: Charging the Charger

   Franklin's reasoning was 1) I already have enough money, and I'm retired

Most people I know want more money (including me, but I do try to
exercise some self-restraint, and trust me, once you get started down
that path, its relatively easy going), and most people are not
retired.

   2) I want to maximize the benefit of the lightning rod, franklin stove,
   armonica, etc. to the entire world. 

Mnay people seem to think similar things, but their ideas about how to
maximize the benefits of whatever _they_ are capable of creating will
tend to vary.  

Sometimes they haven't actually created anything but they still want
to collect paychecks while they are in the process of maybe-creating
something.  Sometimes they believe that doing the best to help their
company maximize profits will be best for the world.  And there are a
lot of other ways of thinking about this service-to-the-world stuff,
too.

I'm not necessarily going to argue (why bother).  But I can imagine
designing simple simulations that might prove that if everyone thought
_like Franklin_ about this stuff, things would be going better than if
everyone thought _like Gates_ (etc. -- if I knew more history I would
cite a founding father instead... my sense is that Jefferson would
have been a pro-IP guy, but who knows).  Of course, maybe I'd be
surprised, and it would turn out that strong IP really was "better" --
or maybe it depends on a set of parameters; sometimes one way is
better, sometimes the other way is better.

   3) It's the 'right' thing to do. 

This is actually a somewhat convincing argument, at least it seems to
be for a lotta folks.

   4) It's more fun this way. 

An even more convincing argument for me, personally.

   5) It increases my fame.

Sure.  Look, we're still freakin' talking about ol' Ben _right now_.
(No, not _that_ ol' Ben.)

   and (perhaps most important of all) 6) The chicks really dig it.

Yeah, shucks. :)

So, items 3-5 here seem like things people might believe or might not,
different people will have different ideas about 2, 6 could be tested
empirically.  1 seems rather "special".

Anyway, I imagine it wouldn't be _too_ hard to use things like this as
the basis of a kinda fakey model or 10 that would compare free vs
non-free and give us something to think about.  But presumably people
have made many versions of this little model already?

   I indeed believe that Franklin was a significant contributor to the open
   source world.  It's us, once again, who are catching up with the First
   American.

Where was that prophesy... oh here it is: "The old shall be made new."