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Re: [ox-en] Welcome



Hi, Steve and all!

On Friday, 14. December 2001 11:11, steve tekell wrote:
thanks, it's especially nice to see some anti-Capitalist
activity in the wealthier capitalists states like Germany and
U.S.

I doubt that this discussion list and its participants are 
generally anti-capitalist.

Personally, I am irresulute whether capitalism is generally 
something good or bad. There are only two areas from which I 
definitively want it to fuck off:

1) Information: It is very terrible to see how in the last 100
   years intellectual "property" rights have emerged, so that
   information could become a commodity.

   Free software does a lot against that.

2) Basic Needs: It is a shame that in highly industrialized
   countries, people still have to sell their labor in order to
   get so basic things as food, clothes, housing, medical care
   and education.

   Unfortunately, free software seems to have nothing to do with
   them. So, a solution for this problem may go far beyond the
   principles of free software developement.

   (When we met in Berlin, a couple of weeks ago, Benni, Stefan
   Mz. and I called this problem the "Roll Question" (because
   rolls are some very basic food).)

I'd really appreciate if on the one hand the interesting
results we had on the German list could be spread out to
non-German speakers and

yes, it be nice there was a page in English that covered some
of the major discussion points that has occured in the German
list.

I guess that they will either be reinvented here, very soon, or 
otherwise, someone from the German list will bring it into the 
discussion.

For example, someone here has compared the phenomenom of free 
software within capitalism with an embryo, that is something 
definitely new, although still dependant. Recently, there has 
been a very similar metaphor on the German list: the germ of a 
plant...

There are two papers that I consider very important:

 o "GNU/Linux -- a Milesone on the Way into a GPL Society"
   by Stefan Merten 
                     and

 o "Linux Has no Value -- and That is Good so"
   by Stefan Meretz

Both texts do not have English translations, yet. However, there 
is a very accurately translated Spanish version of the Milestone 
text. So, if anybody could help translating these texts, this 
could speed up the discussion here.

You can find the German texts on www.oekonux.de

There is also an experimental collaborative translation project 
on http://www.opentheory.org/transpro/

BTW I find the phrasing in the introduction to the list a bit
awkward or a little off the mark.
"principles of Gnu/Linux may serve as a foundation of a new
society." That is, how can it be sufficient for a
"foundation"? Do you mean something more like "a gateway to"
or "key element of transformation and revolution" or "part of
a foundation" or "points to a foundation"?

As a participant of this discussion, you can fill it with 
whatever meaning you like.

I understand it this way: 
The principles of free software developement will lead us to a 
certain form of society, but maybe not the optimal one. So, the 
question splits up into two:

a) Where will free software lead us to?

b) Will it be a step forwards towards my vision of an optimal
   society form?

It seems like when
you are dealing with food, shelter, and the essentials certain
"principles" of Free software development wouldn't necessarily
match up or be sufficient to something which can't be
duplicated without cost. Maybe it's useless nitpicking, but it
just sounds weird to me.

I tried to make my oppinion on this point clear on the German 
list for 1 1/2 year. But it seems that noone understands me. :o(

IMHO, when we speak of "producing" things, we should keep in 
mind, that these words have two essentially different meanings:

a) "To produce something" can mean to *develope* something. When
   you say that you produce a new computer program, you usually
   mean that you develope it hacking, not that you manufacture
   material instances with your CD toaster.

b) "To produce something" can also mean to *manufacture*
   something previously developed. So, when you say that you
   produce a car, you usually mean that you assemble material
   instances of it, and not that you develope it, drawing
   sketches and calculating parameters...

So, you cannot produce a computer program in the same way as you 
produce a car, but only because the word "to produce" means 
something *entirely* different in each context! Of course, you 
can *both* develope and manufacture computer programs, and you 
can *both* develope and manufacture cars. Both, computer 
programs and cars, exist as pure information, and both of them 
exist as material instances.

By definition, free software does not care, how material 
instances of the software are made. You can toast CDs yourself, 
and give them away gratis, but you can also make them in a big 
factory, and sell the copies for 1,000 $ each. This is up to you.
So, there are no principles of free software manufacturing, but 
only such of free software developement.

When you say that free software can be duplicated without cost, 
this is only partially correct. When you intend to burn CDs with 
free software, you don't have to pay any royalties for the 
information you want to spread, but for the material part, you 
have the same costs as when you want to copy proprietary 
software. So thinking of a free car, it would certainly be a 
model that could be produced by any factory without any 
royalties for the construction papers, but with the same 
material costs a non-free car has. 

Of course, it is much more expensive to manufacture a car than 
to manufacture a CD. So, why are CDs so cheap?

The answer that I give to myself is 

 o that a CD is a highly standardized mass product (like paper
   or drinking water) and

 o that CDs are manufactured by several competing companies
   (this might explain why Iomega ZIP disks are so expensive). 

So, if free cars will be more like CDs than ZIP disks, they will 
only cost 1/10th of what the cost today.

What are all these "principles" exactly?

I think, a good categorization is:

1) Legal aspects (With free software you have the following
   rights and duties: blah, blah...)

2) cultural and technical aspects that came up with the Linux
   project and its Internet-based colaboration 

Bye,
Thomas
 }:o{#
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/


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