From: Chad Perrin Date: 2007-07-25T04:30:19+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby Editor On Wed, Jul 25, 2007 at 03:35:24AM +0900, John Joyce wrote: > On Jul 24, 2007, at 10:21 AM, Alex Young wrote: > > > 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. Actually, that's not strictly true, speaking from a semi-classical physics standpoint (I say "semi-" because I don't quite want to go all the way back to Newton, and "classical" because I'm avoiding some of the weirder implications of current subatomic physics theory, like "borrowing" matter from probability). Generally, the matter/energy deal is thought to be a zero-sum game. There is, in fact, scarcity, but we haven't even come close to reaching that limit (yet). For the moment, however, it looks like there isn't any scarcity of matter and energy per se. There is, however, a market scarcity because of the fact that matter is not easy (yet) to alter in fundamental ways, requiring the expenditure of mass quantities of energy, and energy is even more difficult to eke out of the universe. Market scarcity is measured more often in cost than in actual physical existence. > > 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. See above, re: cost. > Services? > How can they have scarcity? > They don't exist. So the scarcity is your time? Bingo. See above, re: cost. > > 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. The fact that someone takes a position you do not like in no way makes that position depend on "blind" belief. I tend to guess you include me in that sweeping statement, rather than targeting only Alex, and judging by performance thus far I probably am aware of (i.e. can "see") more of the economic factors involved in the foundation of the product-based software industry than you are. That doesn't mean there isn't someone else on this mailing list (or newsgroup or forum) who doesn't know more about it than I do -- I'm just pointing out that your use of the term "blind" is probably a substitute for an expression of your distaste rather than a useful metaphor for anyone's willingness or ability to "see" the merits of your argument. > You're missing the fundamental rule of economics: supply and demand. There's a lot more to economics than "supply and demand" but, ironically, "supply" is exactly the principle of economics that you're ignoring when you ignore the fact that software "product" scarcity must be enforced by some overarching power structure (in this case, the government) for the commoditized proprietary software business model to be even tenuously viable. I'm not 100% sure that implication is your *intent*, but it's the consequence of the arguments you're using. > > 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. I don't think anyone made that argument specifically. > > 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. Actually, I think Alex gets that -- and thinks that in some cases the "things that are not" should be in the public domain. I, for one, entirely agree that when you make something you should be able to decide what to do with it -- with the caveat that once you release something into the wild, you should not expect to have complete control over what others do with it, especially when they make something based on it (such as a copy), barring outside influences such as governmental enforcement of artificial scarcity. Even then, it's unrealistic to expect that people will not make (at least approximate, in the case of analog) copies. > > 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. Your argument here fails the "affirming the consequent" test. It assumes that your conclusion is true within its premises. > 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. For my part, my only statement was that something that is digitally stored *and distributed in that form* is only subject to limitations on copying and redistributing because of governmentally enforced artificial scarcity, and that there are other business models than those that depend on such governmental interference in market forces. Whether or not I believe that one *should* do so was not specifically stated -- and I think that straying from the factually provable on that subject in this list is a bad idea. Your repeated differentiation between digital and analog is a red herring, by the way. There are two ways to consider that difference: 1. If your implication that one has a "right" to control over future disposition of anything matching the creation in question is true, you have no such right to control of analog copies because they do not match it. 2. If we consider analog copies to be a close enough approximation to be covered by such a "right", that in no way changes the fact that governmentally enforced artificial scarcity is the only thing currently making business models based on that idea at all viable in the market. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] MacUser, Nov. 1990: "There comes a time in the history of any project when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production."