Re: [ox-en] Book project
- From: MJ Ray <markj cloaked.freeserve.co.uk>
- Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 18:33:57 GMT
Graham Seaman <graham seul.org> wrote:
I'll have a go at replying, though I'm not certain I've got your meaning
exactly.
Don't worry: I am not sure that I have accurately conveyed my meaning.
Although it does not allow a normal capitalist model for the products, there
can still be a capitalistic process for the experts. Is that incompatible
with oekonux?
This is the point where I don't understand you. By 'products' I
assume you're talking about production, but then what do you mean by
'experts'?
The workers who create the products. There is a finite number of them with
finite working time, therefore there is a restricted supply.
I also goofed above. I should have written "does not support a feasible
capitalist model for the products" because supply is near-infinite and
demand finite.
What made me ask is the fallacy "the actual product is gratis" in the page
at
http://www.oekonux.org/introduction/blotter.html#Characteristics%20of%20Free%20Software
I don't think this is a fallacy. If you pay for a red hat cd-set, you're
partly paying for the convenience of the cds, but mainly for the promised
service - you're not paying for the 'actual product' [...]
Maybe not in this case, but did your parents never tell you that it is very
dangerous to generalise from one example? However, to disprove it, I only
have to provide one counter-example: my last employer sold software under a
free software licence to a single customer. That customer paid for the
product (there was no additional service in the contract) and then had all
the rights that the licence entitled him to, but it was not gratis.
It may be the norm for mass production at the moment that the product itself
is gratis and you are paying for the service of having it nicely selected
and supplied (actually, with red-hat, you are probably paying for the
proprietary stuff batched with it, technically, and any helpline services
etc), or for associated services, or it is used as a loss-leader to sell
some other product, but it is not a general truth.
I think this is an interesting way to challenge the established thinking
about free software. Restating fallacies about "free software is gratis"
helps the established (capitalist?) line about free software and doesn't
really develop new ideas, whether to support capitalism, collectivism, or
something else.
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