Am Dienstag, den 04.03.2008, 15:51 -0800 schrieb Mark Tarver:
> 1. Producing FOSS is OK (unlike dumping) because it is done with good
> intentions.
> [...]
> This comes up most often as a defence of FOSS. It is based on anti-
> consequentialism which states that it is the goodness of the intention
> that determines whether the action is right and not the goodness of
> the consequences (consequentialism). See
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism
This may come up often, but it is a misconception, I think.
The real pro-FOSS argument here is that since the marginal cost of
distributing software is almost negligible compared to software
creation, the usual market laws don't apply anyway.
> In this case if a person produces FOSS using tax money and is
> indifferent to the consequences of bankruptcy of a small private
> company who is trying to operate without that support, is his intent
> that noble? This is not an idle question because FOSS started
> (allegedly) as a feud between Richard Stallman and Symbolics w.r.t.
> sharing code. RMS was reverse-engineering Symbolics code and FOSSing
> it, making it difficult for his former buddies to make a buck.
> Personally I've been very much on the side of Symbolics (now extinct)
> over this one.
Not noble with that one, though I think RMS accepting having to drive
his former buddies to achieve a higher goal.
Personally, I don't particularly like this kind of thinking. Not because
the reasoning is invalid (damaging a small fraction of society for a
greater whole is OK by my book), but because it is so easy to delude
oneself about the short-term damage and the long-term benefits.
> And a lot of FOSS is reverse-engineered or copied from
> commercial systems.
That's just wrong.
"Reverse-engineered" is wrong because reverse engineering is OK. If
somebody invents a better way to do something, it's usually better if
others can use that invention, too. (That's why patents expire, on a
loosely-related tangent.)
"Copied" is wrong because the facts are different. Any FOSS project that
copies code is infringing on copyright and will be sued out of existence
as soon as it starts distributing code. FOSS authors know that and don't
copy (at least the successful ones).
The only case would be submarine copying - a contributor smuggles copied
code into a FOSS project as a form of sabotage, or people use some code
that they believe is free which isn't.
For the largets FOSS project around (the Linux kernel), we can be pretty
sure that neither is the case, SCO didn't find a single line despite
having months with full source access and strong incentives to find
something.
> 2. Producing FOSS is ok because people can always go on to buy the
> better thing.
>
> The problem is that the FOSS can be so good that people never buy the
> better thing.Or the betterness of the better thing is not enough to
> tempt people to shell out.
Correct. FOSS is destroying the market where people sell software
itself.
The justification is that there is no fair pricing possible for
software, because investment is far more expensive than copying (by
several orders of magnitude today). So market laws don't work anyway,
and society isn't losing anything valuable here.
> 3. FOSS is great because it makes people's lives easier.
> Quote
> "As a poor student for most of my life, I have generally preferred the
> free software model. "
> Unquote
>
> This is straight utilitarianism - greatest happiness of the greatest
> number (particularly me). However one thing you've got to grasp about
> utilitarianism - *it is completely inconsistent with the idea of
> individual rights*. An individual has no rights because the welfare
> of the majority must always prevail.
No, there are limits. You still have your individual rights (such as
freedom of speech).
> For that reason RMS denies the
> author of the software any rights over his own work.
This is incorrect.
In fact he asserts full copyright rights.
He just argues that it's a good idea to give them up, maintaining
copyright just as a legal vehicle to make sure that the software isn't
being abused. (I don't think this would have been necessary, but one can
reasonably disagree about that.)
The "good idea" argument actually goes in two directions:
* It is good for society because free software helps others.
* It is good for the individual because he can still make a lot of money
with it.
The latter argument is a bit weak, though it can work. It certainly
worked for Red Hat and MySQL as a business model. It also worked for
Innotek: Open-sourcing their Virtualbox product was a great marketing
move, they are now making more money with services around Virtualbox
than they ever made with selling it.
> Generally the most benign governments have adulterated utilitarianism
> with
> unalienable rights.
Copyright isn't unalienable.
> 4. FOSS is OK because people have the right to do with their time as
> they
> please.
>
> Quote
> "Free software is released _by it's creator_ as such. The creator
> makes a decision that that is what they want to do with their
> creation, and they do it."
>
> "As I see it, if I want to spend my own money and resources making
> guitars and giving them away, it is my own business and there is
> nothing wrong with it, even though some guitar companies might not
> like it."
> Unquote
>
> This is a version of extreme social libertarianism; everybody should
> be free
> to do their own thing - whatever. But this doctrine leads to an
> unacceptable
> Hobbesian free-for-all which no sensible person could accept.
By this argument, cornering a market should be banned, too.
Who's going to sue Microsoft tomorrow? (Well, the EU already did
that...)
> 5. OS does not mean 'free'. Think 'free' as in 'free speech', not as
> in
> 'free beer' (RMS).
> This is an RMS red-herring.
I agree with that one.
Slogans like "software wants to be free" are ridiculous if taken as
arguments.
(They are rhethorically useful, which is probably why he is using them.)
> 6. If proprietory closed source cannot compete with FOSS - too bad
> for them!
>
> Quote
> "The world does not owe software company shareholders a living. If
> software
> houses can't produce software that is sufficiently superior to free
> software to justify the price they charge, then they don't really
> deserve to succeed."
> Unquote
>
> Compare: if African farmers cannot compete against highly subsidised
> EC food, too bad for them.
There's an essential difference between African farmers and Western
software companies: an African farmer who cannot sell is likely to
starve; a Western software company dissolves, its employees finding work
elsewhere.
>From another perspective: this argument is just what market liberalists
say. They shouldn't be using this argument against FOSS.
Regards,
Jo