From: John Joyce Date: 2007-07-25T03:35:24+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby Editor On Jul 24, 2007, at 10:21 AM, Alex Young wrote: > John Joyce wrote: >> On Jul 24, 2007, at 5:04 AM, Brad Phelan wrote: >>> Chad Perrin wrote: >>>> On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 06:49:59PM +0900, Brad Phelan wrote: >>>>> However it always stuns me when software geeks come with >>>>> arguments as previously posted because we are meant to be >>>>> abstract thinkers. However I keep hearing the same old argument >>>>> along the lines of `if I can't kick it, it has no value and >>>>> should be free.` >>>> I don't recall anyone saying anything of the sort. Maybe I'm >>>> just not thinking abstractly enough to know where you got that. >>> 'governmentally enforced artificial scarcity model where software >>> is treated as physical product units.' >>> What does this mean other than that software has no inherent >>> monetary sale value other than that artificially imposed by >>> government control? >> Which is exactly the kind of half logic that would debunk all >> 'governmentally enforced' rights, property or otherwise. > I wouldn't call it "half logic". If you accept that value is > derived from scarcity, and that bits can be copied arbitrarily > easily (and are therefore by definition non-scarce and have *no* > intrinsic value), then a government-enforced moratorium on copying > bits under certain circumstances is required to give those bits > themselves scarcity and therefore value. Unless you have a > different model for defining intrinsic value, the logic is pretty > solid... > > If your business model doesn't depend on making bits harder to > copy, then you have no need for a government-enforced system to > support it, and vice versa. It's exactly the same as businesses > that don't need an artificial monopoly on a specific way of solving > a problem - the vast majority of businesses don't have any > interaction *at all* with the patent system. The fact that some > businesses can get by without it doesn't mean that it should be > "debunked" or even necessarily changed (although here and now isn't > the place for *that* particular diversion). > >> They're all artifices imposed by social constructs. Some of them work >> and some don't. If they don't work, they're ideally changed/fixed. > Working on it :-) > >> But the ideal Star Trek world of no money and free and equal access >> to everything is not going to happen any time soon. > Only because we haven't cracked free energy and replicators yet... > Again, working on it :-) > > -- > Alex > Uh, by your debased definition matter, like energy is neither created nor destroyed at the sub atomic level. It just changes form or breaks into constituent components, so nothing has any true scarcity, just scarcity of condition and circumstance. Big deal! If you package something in some way and sell it, and somebody buys it, then you have something of a business model. Dirt is not scarce by normal definition, yet people sell it and buy it! Water as well. Plants. Services? How can they have scarcity? They don't exist. So the scarcity is your time? You're just blindly believing all software should be free. Not all of it should be free. Stallman is not right about everything. He's a convenient nut to have for pushing ideas, but a little to extreme and absolutist. You're missing the fundamental rule of economics: supply and demand. If people really cared about free software, they would use it. Ubuntu is now a wonderful consumer-friendly OS. Free. They'll even send you it on optical media for free! It's gained some traction, but nobody is clamoring for it. Most everyday people never heard of it and don't care. By your thinking, all content would be free because it is stored in a digital medium. That's silly. So if I store things in an analog medium it's ok to sell it due to scarcity, since it can't be exactly easily reproduced? That's just not sensible. You still don't get the fact that some things are public domain and free and some things are not. You make it, you decide what to do with it. I can paint a picture. I may decide to hide it from the world. I may decide to sell it and all reproduction rights with it. I may just charge you to look at it, even though photons are free and your ability to perceive variations in wavelengths of photon vibration is not a product. I can say the painting is 'relatively unique' and difficult to reproduce. If I create a digital illustration, it is no different. It is still mark-making, but a different medium. According to your concept, it is however, digitally stored and so the actual file should be free to everyone? Of course printing and displaying it will never be exactly the same twice since neither monitors nor prints are digital. They are analog.