Open source or no: Let the market decide: "The world benefits from competition between open-source and proprietary software and from the pressure that the strengths of each form puts on the other." Excellent point.
Posted by gsiemens at July 24, 2003 12:03 AMTwo days ago I filed this article in my anti-Free Software propaganda. It is full of typical, trivial, and superfical statements, not backed up by any recent experience and real studies.
Mr Delong begins:
"The latest anti-Americanism to sweep Europe is a broad hostility toward computer software that's produced by proprietary companies, mostly American,..."
1) Being critical about a *lying* president Bush, is not anti-americanism. Many Europeans feel sorry for the american people for having such a ...[self-censoring here] as president. Lies about the Niger-document, lies about WOMD's, ...
2) Lying about reasons to declare war on another nation can be cause for impeachment according to american law.
3) According international conventions this war was illegal.
So far about the anti-americanism, which is basically a variant of the really worn-out communist-argument. Since Osama bin Laden is the most well-known real anti-americanist, Mr Delong implicitly ties Free Software Companies/Developers/Users to terrorism, like other anti-propaganda has tried to do before more explicitly.
Then we go on manipulation of the debate:
"proprietary companies".
All companies are proprietary, Free Software is a fight for the right to know what your computer does with your data, what it sends to the internet and to whom, the right to modify it if you don't agree with that.
"programs written by networks of volunteers"
According to studies (Perhaps Mr Delong should bother to read some?) Free Software is in 75% of the cases written by professionals that get paid by companies to do so.
"International bodies, national governments and lesser political subdivisions are moving to legislate preferences for open-source over proprietary software."
Right, but these legislations are a *policy* that government puts upon *itself*, not upon the rest of the country. Governments here acts as a customer, deciding what products to buy or not.
Besides, I don't like government running crucial services for society that it is not allowed to control.
"Would you like to pay for this software, or would you rather get it free?"
Mr Delong cannot be so stupid and ignorant to have never heard about the Free beer/free speech pragma. So this is again an active and deliberate manipulation. The Munich-deal with Suse/IBM costs around 30M $. I guess Mr Delong is not very snappy to talk about that, no?
"license fees are a small part of the total cost of ownership, or TCO"
Sure about 3-5%, there is no governement in the world who is not aware is this. Many people do not realise this, but this argument is in fact pro open source. If you would make all license fee go away, the ICT-sector would drop -5%. The spreading of software to many more companies would lead to more software use for which more consulting/customising needs to be done. ICT-sector at least +5%.
"The origin of the open-source movement, and still its dominant ethos, was in an ideological commitment to sharing and to voluntarism rather than crass commerce."
How about these ones:
"Freedom of speech was in an ideological commitment rather than crass commerce."
"Democracy was in an ideological commitment rather than crass commerce."
"The War against Iraq was in an ideological commitment rather than crass commerce."
Oh, wait a minute here... :)
Laws that goverment enact should only take into account crass commerce, and not any other aspect of society? Mr Delong is probably George Bush jr. biggest fan.
"A more fundamental weakness of voluntarism is in the incentives for the volunteers."
Again, there are studies about what drives Fee Software developers, btw Eric Raymond's writings are *not* studies.
"After a period of time, the lack of reciprocity begins to grate."
Copyleft is reciprocity-based concept, that proved itself on a large scale.
"These structural issues create doubts as to the long-term viability of open source as a mode of production."
How about doing some reading of Yochai Benkler "Coase's penguin" in which he describes "collaborative peer-based production" as a third mode of production? But then again Mr Delong already has a lot of reading to do.
"The world benefits from competition between open-source and proprietary software"
Polluting factories? There is no need for environmental legislation. Let the markets decide, hip-hip-hurrah!
Want to sell your organs? Let the markets decide!
Want to clone yourself? Let the markets decide!
Need some cocaine? Let the markets decide!
Want to buy a kalashnikov at Wallmart? Let the markets decide!
Exxon spilled oil in Alaska? Let the markets decide!
Want to have a highway-system in your society? Let the markets decide!
Social Security? Let the markets decide!
On some issues even the bush administration could never agree to let markets decide. Luckily many other goverments in the world have more sanity.
Anwser this, Mr Delong:
What about Napster? Let the markets decide too?
But Mr Delong needs to do some explaining:
Governments deciding not to sign EULA with certain overly restrictive clauses, and therefore refuse to buy certain software, is NOT a market decision?
"Tilting the playing field in either direction is not necessary."
But what Mr Delong doesn't mention here is that
tilting the playing field by introducing patents is perfectly fine for him.Multi-million dollar lobbying to introduce a patent-system on software is what I call a "preference movement". Mr Delong is a plain lying hypocrite.
I won't be wasting more time discussing all other flaws and deliberate misrepresentations in Mr Delong superficial rant. It didn't deserve waisting one minute in the first place.
"James V. DeLong is a director of the Center for the Study of Digital Property at The Progress & Freedom Foundation in Washington, D.C."
For a nation that has Bush as president, we should not be surprised to find such ignorant fool as a director of the Center for the Study of Digital Property.
Mr Delong has not spent a single word one the REAL issues why governments all over the world are legislating and adopting FLOSS-software. And there is just one reason for that:
He doesn't want more people to become aware of them. Well informed politicians are considered a real enemy.
There a nice article at Newsforge about how special rules for government have always been around:
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/07/19/1713232.shtml?tid=4
Posted by: Wouter Vanden Hove at July 25, 2003 01:46 PMHi Wouter...as always, thanks for the comments. You've brought a much more philosophical interpretation of the article.
My intent in linking to it was to express that I felt (and still do) that both open source and proprietary software have the ability to learn from each other...not so much a commentary on the morality of open source software in relation to proprietary. The notion there is primarily one of "who owns what"...and who has a right "to do what with it".
This is happening in the media/software fields now. Just like Stallman's issue with proprietary software was not about the cost...but rather the fact that a corporation could limit and dictate and end-users activities with that product (even though they paid for it), the same issue is happening with music. Once I've purchased a CD, what can I do with it? Proprietary attitudes say "You don't really own it"...open source attitudes say "I paid for it...it's mine to do with as I want".
My pointer to the article was not based on that distinction/argument. It was based on the fact that open source has much to teach proprietary software (and vice versa - especially if open source is to make inroads into the desktop/end user market).
Posted by: gsiemens at July 26, 2003 02:54 PM