I was already itching to write when I read the first paragraph concerning
software. There are plenty of people who need software but it doesn't get
written. Why? Because they don't really need it! This is what the argument
suggests. Applying the same logic to bread should make the non-sense of this
line of thinking so obvious that it feels embarassing to point it out. Why do
peopke starve? Because they don't realize that they need food? No, because
they are structurally unable to gain access to it (and this in the context of
a general overabundance of food worldwide).
Free Software is free because it serves the (self-)interests of the knowledge
elites
(programmers with a reasonably secure economic basis, large service oriented
corporations like IBM) to have it free. This has very nice side-effects,
because everyone can use it, but this is only a side effect, because it would
be more difficult to create/enforce a boundary around the community than to
simply not care. This is the beauty of a public good, once created, everyone
can use it.
There is just no comparable (self)interest of farmers to make grain free,
among others, because it's not a public good. Mind you, self-interest does
not need to be economic, it can be culturally oriented, or towards personal
self-unfolding. Also the farmer can perfer to grow organic food because s/he
likes the idea to protect the environment, rather than following a mindless
profit-maximizing strategy, but still, this won't really help those who
starve.
Felix
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http://felix.openflows.org
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http://www.oekonux.org/