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> selling service contracts, [...] The price is still $0 and there are still no regulations on it. I assume at this point that you're being paid to shill some

> selling service contracts, [...] The price is still $0 and there are still no regulations on it. I assume at this point that you're being paid to shill some political viewpoint on the internet, because you just explained that the price of software isn't actually zero, because it's unusable (to the customers that buy a service contract) without a service contract, and creating a company that employs the developers that wrote the software to support that software has a high barrier to entry. (because those developers are already employed) To pick at company at random, HortonWorks. I pick on them because I recently saw an invoice. $20,000 for 16 hours of training. So by your argument, there must be some kind of regulation there, right?

WalterBright 10y ago
You're making quite a vast assumption that service contracts mean the software is unusable without them. Red Hat Linux is just one counterexample. A further vast assumption is that your arguments are so compelling that anyone not convinced must be a paid shill. There are many software consultants who charge over $10,000/day for doing training. Many companies find them worthwhile when amortized over a roomful of engineers. Those consultants aren't suckering anyone in by giving them free software, in fact, they don't provide any software whatsoever.
- Ironchefpython 10y ago
  >> it's unusable (to the customers that buy a service contract) without a service contract > You're making quite a vast assumption that service contracts mean the software is unusable without them. Red Hat Linux is just one counterexample. No. I'm not. I'm basing that on the tautology that consumers of "free" software who purchase expensive service contracts spend their money purchasing expensive service contracts. Software is free in the same way that air conditioning at the mall is free, the hugs handed out by the "free hugs" guy are free, the way that the privilege of watching advertisements on TV are free. Somebody is spending time and money making this software, because they think they are going to get more out of it than they put into it (either tangibly or intangibly (except for that TempleOS guy, who does it for the voices in his head)) And this still doesn't change anything about the EpiPen. There's a consumer surplus, and the price is increased to maximize capture of consumer surplus regardless of the cost in human lives. I don't care how free software is, the price on EpiPens is going up to maximize profit. To frame this as a simple dichotomy, would you rather live in a world where people die to maximize profit, or a world where regulation is applied to reduce human suffering and death?
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    > To frame this as a simple dichotomy Except it's not so simple. Peltzman showed with statistics in "Regulation of Pharmaceutical Innovation" that the 1962 FDA amendments resulted in an increase in human suffering and death. (The 1962 amendments added "and effective" to the FDA's mandate.) While some ineffective drugs were prevented from reaching the market, this was overshadowed by good drugs being delayed, and a sharp reduction in new drugs being developed due to huge cost increases from the regulations. Markets are very dynamic systems, and unintended side effects always happen even with regulations that have the best of intentions.
eropple 10y ago
> I assume at this point that you're being paid to shill some political viewpoint on the internet I don't agree with Walter on this issue, but a cursory Google of who you're talking to should indicate how ridiculous this statement is. You are profoundly out of line and you owe him an apology. (You'd owe anyone an apology, but this is particularly silly of you.)
- Ironchefpython 10y ago
  > but a cursory Google of who you're talking to Right, there's more than one person on the planet with that name, and surely the actual inventor of the D language has better things to do with his time than go all Liberatard on the Internet arguing economics with strangers.
  - dang 10y ago
    You've been an HN user for a few years, so we won't ban you for this, but the way you've behaved in this thread is bannably offensive, so please don't do it again—to anybody. Specifically: no accusations of shillage to score points in an argument; no name-calling; and respect toward your fellow users, please, from now on.
icebraining 10y ago
I assume at this point that you're being paid to shill some political viewpoint on the internet, because you just explained that the price of software isn't actually zero, because it's unusable (to the customers that buy a service contract) without a service contract Yet here I am, using self-hosted Gitlab without having paid for a service contract, to write code for Odoo without having to pay for a service contract, using Nginx as a frontend proxy without having paid for a service contract and deploying it with Ansible without having paid for a service contract, on Ubuntu without having paid for a service contract. Sure doesn't sound unusable to me.
dang 10y ago
Accusations of astroturfing or shillage without evidence are not allowed on Hacker News. An opposing view does not count as evidence. Please also read my reply to you at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12344369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12344369, because you've broken the HN guidelines badly in this thread. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12341638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12341638 and marked it off-topic.

WalterBright 10y ago

You're making quite a vast assumption that service contracts mean the software is unusable without them. Red Hat Linux is just one counterexample. A further vast assumption is that your arguments are so compelling that anyone not convinced must be a paid shill. There are many software consultants who charge over $10,000/day for doing training. Many companies find them worthwhile when amortized over a roomful of engineers. Those consultants aren't suckering anyone in by giving them free software, in fact, they don't provide any software whatsoever.

Ironchefpython 10y ago
>> it's unusable (to the customers that buy a service contract) without a service contract > You're making quite a vast assumption that service contracts mean the software is unusable without them. Red Hat Linux is just one counterexample. No. I'm not. I'm basing that on the tautology that consumers of "free" software who purchase expensive service contracts spend their money purchasing expensive service contracts. Software is free in the same way that air conditioning at the mall is free, the hugs handed out by the "free hugs" guy are free, the way that the privilege of watching advertisements on TV are free. Somebody is spending time and money making this software, because they think they are going to get more out of it than they put into it (either tangibly or intangibly (except for that TempleOS guy, who does it for the voices in his head)) And this still doesn't change anything about the EpiPen. There's a consumer surplus, and the price is increased to maximize capture of consumer surplus regardless of the cost in human lives. I don't care how free software is, the price on EpiPens is going up to maximize profit. To frame this as a simple dichotomy, would you rather live in a world where people die to maximize profit, or a world where regulation is applied to reduce human suffering and death?
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > To frame this as a simple dichotomy Except it's not so simple. Peltzman showed with statistics in "Regulation of Pharmaceutical Innovation" that the 1962 FDA amendments resulted in an increase in human suffering and death. (The 1962 amendments added "and effective" to the FDA's mandate.) While some ineffective drugs were prevented from reaching the market, this was overshadowed by good drugs being delayed, and a sharp reduction in new drugs being developed due to huge cost increases from the regulations. Markets are very dynamic systems, and unintended side effects always happen even with regulations that have the best of intentions.

eropple 10y ago

> I assume at this point that you're being paid to shill some political viewpoint on the internet I don't agree with Walter on this issue, but a cursory Google of who you're talking to should indicate how ridiculous this statement is. You are profoundly out of line and you owe him an apology. (You'd owe anyone an apology, but this is particularly silly of you.)

Ironchefpython 10y ago
> but a cursory Google of who you're talking to Right, there's more than one person on the planet with that name, and surely the actual inventor of the D language has better things to do with his time than go all Liberatard on the Internet arguing economics with strangers.
- dang 10y ago
  You've been an HN user for a few years, so we won't ban you for this, but the way you've behaved in this thread is bannably offensive, so please don't do it again—to anybody. Specifically: no accusations of shillage to score points in an argument; no name-calling; and respect toward your fellow users, please, from now on.

icebraining 10y ago

I assume at this point that you're being paid to shill some political viewpoint on the internet, because you just explained that the price of software isn't actually zero, because it's unusable (to the customers that buy a service contract) without a service contract Yet here I am, using self-hosted Gitlab without having paid for a service contract, to write code for Odoo without having to pay for a service contract, using Nginx as a frontend proxy without having paid for a service contract and deploying it with Ansible without having paid for a service contract, on Ubuntu without having paid for a service contract. Sure doesn't sound unusable to me.

dang 10y ago

Accusations of astroturfing or shillage without evidence are not allowed on Hacker News. An opposing view does not count as evidence. Please also read my reply to you at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12344369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12344369, because you've broken the HN guidelines badly in this thread. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12341638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12341638 and marked it off-topic.