[8361] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
RE: Been reading a book (dangerous thing to do)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bayardo Alvarez)
Tue Nov 16 01:32:34 1993
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 01:35:44 -0500 (EST)
From: "Bayardo Alvarez" <balvarez@mason1.gmu.edu>
To: com-priv@psi.com
In message Sun, 14 Nov 1993 00:02:37 EST,
"Russell Nelson" <nelson@crynwr.com> writes:
> 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.
Developing software involves more than the desire to have fun. It requires
at least one person to do the analysis, research, programming. It requires
hardware to develop the programs, education or training, people to test
the software, hardware for people to test the software, to write the
documentation, money to pay the bills and to pay the people involved.
In the context of a market economy, how many companies would be willing to
spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in software not available,
just so it's competitors can claim the right to copy it? Wouldn't this
discourage the investment in developing new software? How long would it
take for programmers to satisfy the needs of government, businesses, and
the millions of users out there?
> 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.
Customers willing to spend their money in specific software is the best
indicator of what software needs to be developed. And the fact that there
are several applications that tackle the same necessity or problem does not
mean it is inefficient. The better solutions survive and the rest are
driven out of the arena, take WordPerfect and WordStar as an example. What
is more important, having several products compete just makes each strive
for efficiency.
> One ramification of the Economics Lesson above is that when you
> force people to make uneconomic decisions (e.g. tariffs, price
> fixing, subsidization, etc), society is poorer in the aggregate.
> Of course what usually happens is that *some* people are made richer,
> and everyone else is made even *more* poorer.
>
> 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.
You mention subsidization as an uneconomic decision people have to make.
How else would free software be developed but by subsidizing?
It is fallacious to believe that "*some* people are made richer, and everyone
else is made even *more* poorer". People exchange money for goods, because
they value the merchandise they are obtaining more than the money they are
paying, whether it is going to make them more productive, provide them with
information, entertain them, or amuse them.
I recognize that the current methods to ensure software copyrights are
cumbersome and confusing, but turning around and revoking these rights can
only be detrimental. Let's instead devise the mechanisms to make software
accessible to more users, and adherence to owner rights easier and clearer.
|| Bayardo Alvarez George Mason University ||
|| balvarez@gmu.edu Telecommunications Program ||
