[8350] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
The 'Property is Theft' theory of software development
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tansin A. Darcos & Company)
Mon Nov 15 22:06:51 1993
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 22:04:11 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
Reply-To: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
To: Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.com>, cni-copyright@cni.org,
>From: Paul Robinson <TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.com>, writes in list Com-Priv@psi.com:
> I've been reading the book "Economics in One Lesson", by Henry
> Hazlitt. ... The bulk of the book is examples of bad economics,
> where people limit the group they consider, or only consider the short
> term.
> So then I was trying to explain the economics of free
> software (and this applies also to any kind of free
> information) to a friend. Getting paid for distribution is no
> problem, same for support. Some software "creates itself"
> because it's fun to write (any programmer who hasn't written a
> text editor should hide his/her head in shame). So the only
> free software that needs help is that which isn't fun to write.
Sheesh that brings back memories; I wrote my first text editor in 1978 on
a PDP 11/03 running MU Basic on 4 terminals; the program ran in 4K. I
wrote it because, like many of the tools and features of the Internet, I
needed it and nothing else was there; editing a program on a line editor
(to edit a line, type in the line number and the line all over again) was
a painful experience. Someone once said that you always remember your
first love affair; well, I will always remember the first computer I ever
programmed on; the PDP 11/03 that had 64K, 4 terminals and cost $20,000 in
1975.
> And putting the two new (to me anyway) bits of information together
> made me realize that it *might* be economically more efficient
> (that is, create more wealth) if all software was freely copyable,
> and some group mechanism was found to create boring software (user
> groups, trademark licensing fees, operating system costs, or for
> the creatively challeneged, taxes). Our current software industry
> is fairly inefficient. Look at the number of TCP/IP stacks that
> have been written.
> For example, proprietary software (or proprietary information, e.g.
> page numbers) makes some people richer. But if the software was
> freely copyable, then the people who *had* been paying for the
> software would still have their wealth.
I will state for the record I think the Page Number Copyright decision
(West v. Mead?) is bad law in view of the Telephone Book [No] Copyright
case (Feist v. Rural Telephone?). Even without that case, I think that a
decision that declares that the numbering of pages is protected by
copyright is an example of either a distortion of reality or a good
inference that someone was bought off. :)
I have been having a discussion in both the Objectivist and Cni Copyright
lists on the question of whether copyright is a Natural Right or not. I
came to the conclusion that copyright is not a Natural Right like the
right to worship or as one chooses - if one chooses to do so - or to speak
one's mind or to own property, etc. Copyright is a creation of the
State. And it is a necessary and important part of industrial development.
Without copyright protection and the ability to vend software at whatever
price the manufacturer chooses to charge, you eliminate the ability to
have the kind of huge application software since many programs are very
expensive to create, and as such, without a lot of customers making
payments for these programs, nobody will spend the time to create them.
Let those who think that freedom to copy software encourages the
development of new application programs, show me the complicated and large
applications coming out of countries like Hong Kong, Communist China,
Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore; countries where copyright protection for
computer programs is all but nonexistent and piracy of computer programs
is 'business as usual'.
New and huge applications which are developed require not a person or two
working a few weeks part time; they require the equivalent of hundreds of
years of work, e.g. the work of perhaps 300 people over an eight-month
period.
A lot of people use a program called "Notes" from Lotus. I've never used
it, so I don't know what it does; some kind of groupware thingy I suppose.
Those who use it apparently rave about it and the biggest complaint is the
cost per copy to license it. I know why, too.
Those who are in the "Richard Stallman/National Association of Software
Looters/Software Should Be All Free/We don't want to pay for it" group
forget that not everything can be the type of razor sharp and dangerous
application that Unix is: some things have to be easy to use for ordinary
people. To do that sort of difficult work requires professional
capability that one must be able to make a living at the particular work.
And to do that means one has to work full time as a programmer.
Oh yes. Does anyone here know why Lotus Notes is expensive? It cost
Lotus Development Corporation some $170,000,000.000 to create that
program. We're not talking chump change here, folks.
Who in their right mind would consider spending $170 million dollars to
create a computer program and not know that they would be able to recoup
that investment through sales of the program? The only way they could do
that is to tightly control who has it and charge a lot of money, then
cross their fingers and pray someone doesn't break their contract and
pirate it off to people.
Does anyone seriously believe Quicken could be sold for $39.00 if there
wasn't a copying prohibition? Without the ability to have the exclusive
right to reproduce a package, the only way a company can protect a product
is to charge high prices and rigid control, or sell programs in
boxcar-sized loads from poly bags for just above cost of production. In
*that* case you ain't gonna see complicated programs being made.
Some companies print books. Why is the publisher of a software program
less worthy of making money than the publisher of a book? No one has been
going around pushing for free and unlimited photocopying of books.
> Now, you could argue (as the head of a software business did to me
> recently) that free software "distorts the market" and "destroys
> jobs". Not at all.
I'll agree on that point. But not all applications are the kind of thing
that can be done for free by someone. An accurate tax package has to
handle hundreds or thousands of regulations and calculations set down by the
gestapo^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Internal Revenue Service plus the State Commissions.
A little ol' payroll program usually has to handle 5 or 6 deductions,
taxes, social security, sometimes health insurance, plus overtime, and
maybe two or three tax tables for each employee.
> The people who now have more wealth because they aren't paying
> for software can do one of three things: they can hoard it
> (put the wealth into nonproductive investments), they can
> invest it (rent the wealth to people), or they can spend it
> (which obviously creates jobs). Very few people are going to
> do the first, and the second creates wealth, because the only
> people who are going to rent wealth are those who expect to be
> able to pay the rent by using the wealth to create more wealth.
Excuse me, but the number 1 form of "rented wealth" in this country is
Credit Card debt that people have used to purchase consumption items,
and are paying interest on what they have consumed. Or else it's the
payment of the mortgages on people's houses which, despite all the talk
about owning a home, is a consumption expense.
In case anyone has forgotten, all of the programs which are available as
part of the BSD 4.1 Reno collection (and thus freely distributable)
are there because the U.S. Federal Government contracted to fund the
development of them. In this case, the taxpayers paid the salaries of the
employees of the University of California at Berzerkely that created the
programs in question.
---
Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
All Trademarks are acknowledged.
