Re: [ox-en] Centralized peer production

On 2010-07-11 01:47, Diego Saravia wrote:
> > But every other copy is decentralized because the software is
> > protected by the GNU GPL which requires anyone receiving that
> > instance has access to the Virtual Sources needed for
> > modification.
> 
> that is exactly the meaning of a free good!
> 
> not a public good (controlled by state, or limited: army, public
> space)
> 
> not a common  good (limited: fishery, common ancestral land property)
> 
> not a private/club good,(only accessible to owners)
> 
> its free, everyone could copy/reproduce/modify/use/distribute it
> once developed, its free, you can have/produce infinities copies of
> it, and the possessor of that copy could do whatever he/she wants
> with it.

Nope, that's simply wrong. Free software is _not_ a "free good", it 
comes with certain rules codified by a license, and the possessor can 
not do whatwever s/he wants. S/he can only do what does not violate the 
freedoms of others (given by the four freedoms of free software).

This is the common confusion of res nullius ("no man’s land") with res 
communes (a commons based on a common pool ressource). The first is 
unregulated while the latter is regulated (here: GPL).

This confusion was prominently given by Garret Hardin in 1968 with his 
influencial paper "The Tragedy of the Commons". Instead of a commons, he 
uses an unregulated "free good", a "no man's land", which indeed falls 
into the tragedy. Many of the liberal economic theorists (except Elinor 
Ostrom) are following this tremendous fault until today, because they 
can argue: A good must be privatly or state owned, otherwise it will be 
subject to a tragedy as Hardin showed.

Please do not repeat this confusion again and again.

Ciao,
Stefan

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