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Assume that there was no IP laws and everybody is freely allowed copy software/ideas/content as they see fit. Now developing a significant size software takes h

Assume that there was no IP laws and everybody is freely allowed copy software/ideas/content as they see fit. Now developing a significant size software takes human hours. There is a fixed cost associated per human hour. Now let’s say your cost was $1M and it’s useful to 1M people. As there are no laws to protect IP, I can’t divide my cost to potential users and sell my software at $1 a pop. If I do that then I can’t recoup my cost. This means I must sell my software at $1M to richest possible single buyer. Or create a buyer group much like vacation condo model. In either case, no IP translates to scenario where only upper class of society can benefit by advancement in innovations. This is a massive philosophical “bug” in free software movement. It’s one of the goal to make software more accessible to everyone but under the reality of economics it does exactly the opposite. Once free software arrives on market, cheaper but slightly superior commercial versions will die out and only expensive superior versions will live benefiting more affluent class/organizations. The hybrid models where you provide enterprise support for money while keep things free is interesting but I am still not sure that it can be as powerful when you can use full power of economy to drive resource scaling at fullest extent. Most companies which use this model run extremely frugal and usually can’t afford large scale research and development activities. The things that has been described in article has already caused significant damages. There have been Chinese companies who received designs from innovators and started creating white label products. They didn’t had to worry about capital cost of arriving at that design or reliability to protect the brand reputation. They also didn’t care about doing R&D investments to evolve the product further. The focus was strictly on generating cheap knockoffs that produces short term profits and then move in to next victim. So in essence, your model of IP extinguished innovation, it’s evolutio and promoted cheap short lived knockoffs.

andybak 8y ago
I do understand the fundementals of this topic. I've grown up with the assumption that everything you state is right and proper. I'm also aware that IP laws have a significant downside as they require fairly elaborate and repressive measures to maintain and they come with many indirect costs. (On a side note as I don't want to derail the central point we're discussing: > but under the reality of economics it does exactly the opposite. Considering most computing devices on the planet are running an open source OS then this is surely open to debate)
- sytelus 8y ago
  One would argue that Linux has stalled OS evolution. It's free so there is no incentive for other innovators to come forward and invest massive resources and capital. The OS investment at all major companies had been drying up. Think about it, this is now almost 50 year old OS. There have been virtually not much of research, advancement or evolution even when *inux has several opportunities to rethink design and architecture in so many areas. To a common user, it's even hard to use, manage and understand but we are still stuck with it. We carry almost half a century worth of historical baggage with us every day with no end in sight. Here's interesting reading: http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.html http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.html You will see this pattern virtually everywhere when free software has become standard and it brings to halt research and development in that area that may require large scale capital.

andybak 8y ago

I do understand the fundementals of this topic. I've grown up with the assumption that everything you state is right and proper. I'm also aware that IP laws have a significant downside as they require fairly elaborate and repressive measures to maintain and they come with many indirect costs. (On a side note as I don't want to derail the central point we're discussing: > but under the reality of economics it does exactly the opposite. Considering most computing devices on the planet are running an open source OS then this is surely open to debate)

sytelus 8y ago
One would argue that Linux has stalled OS evolution. It's free so there is no incentive for other innovators to come forward and invest massive resources and capital. The OS investment at all major companies had been drying up. Think about it, this is now almost 50 year old OS. There have been virtually not much of research, advancement or evolution even when *inux has several opportunities to rethink design and architecture in so many areas. To a common user, it's even hard to use, manage and understand but we are still stuck with it. We carry almost half a century worth of historical baggage with us every day with no end in sight. Here's interesting reading: http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.html http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000.html You will see this pattern virtually everywhere when free software has become standard and it brings to halt research and development in that area that may require large scale capital.