Re: price of software [was Re: [ox-en] Book project]
- From: Russell McOrmond <russell flora.ca>
- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:34:24 -0500 (EST)
On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, MJ Ray wrote:
This isn't generally true, either. In a lot of Europe, certain "moral
rights" of an author over the work seem not to be transferrable. IANAL.
Note: Canada has the concept of non-transferable moral rights as well.
The USA does not. This comes up often when discussing copyright in the
Canadian context as court cases go a little differently here than south of
the border because of the moral-rights tradition.
Maybe it is better to say that free software cost tends to zero as the
number of licensees increases? (in a Smith-capitalist market, that is)
As a Smith-economist might say: "Free as in Free Market, not as in
beer".
To have truly Free Markets (an ideal concept, not something we see
examples of), there needs to be so much in place first -- part of that is
an informed customer base, which when it comes to FLOSS is clearly nowhere
near the case.
It is interesting to watch the threads in the OpenOffice.org marketing
team where someone 'discovers' someone selling OpenOffice.org CD's on
e-Bay or something similar. Some feel there are moral problems with this,
and others believe it is Free Markets at work (I am in the latter
category). There is a value-add service to producing CD's, especially
CD's with an email address on them for support.
These resellers rely on the fact that their customer base is less
informed that they are, and are not selling 'software', but selling the
fact that they know something than their customers (or in some cases,
simply have more time to coordinate the creation of CD's).
Then again, this would encourage rational users (are there any?) to
delay buying for as long as they can, which probably isn't what we want
to happen, as then innovation will die.
Are those users you describe the 'rational users', or the
irrational/selfish ones?
What you describe sounds like a tragedy of the commons. If software
development is paid for as a value-add service on top of a commons, what
happens if everyone tries to wait for someone else to pay for value-add
that many people equally need? That insular way of looking at things can
lead the FLOSS mindset to decrease innovation in the same way that an
understanding of our interdependence can lead the FLOSS mindset to
increase innovation.
Those with an understanding of our interdependence will set up social
constructs (economic, whatever...) that allows a group of people who would
benefit from a software value-add to be able to jointly finance it.
There was talk almost 10 years ago about Free Software "Coopatition" (IE:
a merger of Cooperation and Competition -- a cooperation amongst
competitors).
How much do people think they are paying for related services when they buy,
despite what the transaction says? Is there past work on that?
I hope that this will be somehoe included in any book, whatever is
found. It is important for the FLOSS movement to move people to thinking
of Software as a service (value-add, 'use value', whatever other
terminology people want to use) rather than as a manufactured product
('sale value', etc).
I have been trying to get Industry Canada to understand some of this.
Part of their mandate is to promote Canadian 'Industry'. What they fail
to notice (IMHO of coruse) is that the Software Manufacturers may make
some money, but for the vast majority of the economy they are simply an
expense. What is extracted by Software Manufacturing, beyond the 'use
value' of the software, is essentially a drain on the economy as a whole.
There is this whole mantra pushed by neo-conservative economic thinking
that 'lowering taxes' is the best way to stimulate the economy (and
lowering taxes from the most wealthy, in a trickle-down fashion, being
their claimed best way). There isn't an adequate understanding that
lowing monopoly rents is a much better way to stimulate an economy than
lowering taxes (and don't get me started on the trickle-down theory ;-)
Whatever anyone may think about taxes, the money is theoretically under
the control of citizens, and for the benefit of citizens. Monopoly rents
are simply for the benefit of those private special interests, and are
(IMHO of course) always bad for the economy.
---
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses,
VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen
and not a third party. -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/