6 ms·

He is `set' because he continuously fulfills the expectation of the employer: he publishes (and teaches etc.). And expectations of the wide public: he provides

by dexen 16y ago

He is `set' because he continuously fulfills the expectation of the employer: he publishes (and teaches etc.). And expectations of the wide public: he provides information to us. The employer (university) is happy, because those publications bring them money, even if indirectly. And you were going to say that's a bad thing because...? Sure university is a somewhat special case; we don't expect everybody to become a professor. But, in similar vein, artists earn money by performing. Open source developers earn money by utilizing their knowledge and skill in paid-for projects. Etc., etc.

davidw 16y ago
If you read what I wrote, I made no criticism of him for doing his job. I said it would be a poorer world were the only people who could afford to write those with independent sources of income. > artists earn money by performing What you're saying, in economic terms, is that musicians have rivalrous, excludable goods they can produce: the concert experience. That's not bad, although it would have the IMO negative effect of leaving the Brian Wilson (much more oriented towards studio work than touring) types between a rock and a hard place. Authors don't really have that: they could sign books, but that would reduce their income drastically, as most copies would be freely had. > Open source developers earn money by utilizing their knowledge and skill in paid-for projects. As for the open source developers, but WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM in those paid-for projects? Scarcity is where it comes from, and often, they're getting paid to work on open source by someone who deals in the artificial scarcity of intellectual property.
- dexen 16y ago
  > (...) WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM in those paid-for projects? Scarcity is where it comes from (...) Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Google, IBM and the likes earn by selling services and goods rather than artificially limiting intellectual property. ((cue Android download link and AdWords control panel link))
  - davidw 16y ago
    > > Scarcity is where it comes from (...) > Sometimes yes, sometimes no. No. It always comes from scarcity of some kind. In the case of consulting, the scarcity might be expertise in putting together some kind of enterprisey system, but there is always going to be scarcity, otherwise no money will be exchanged. And you can rest assured that IBM has made plenty of money from IP itself over the years - they're no strangers to software or any other kind of patents, nor selling software like DB2. Also: do you think that IBM's services division would make as much money if they posted all their code to the internet? I bet many of their clients believe (right or wrong) that the custom solutions they're getting are a competitive advantage and do not want to freely share them with the competition who is not shelling out big bucks to IBM. With regards to Google's IP, you can be very sure that they would invoke all kinds of IP laws were someone to walk out of their HQ and post important bits and pieces of their search engine tech to the internet. These days, they're in a pretty good position to survive in any case, but think about trying to start a company and have no way of doing anything if people walked out and posted your "crown jewels" to the internet.
    - dexen 16y ago
      Agreed.
    - loup-vaillant 16y ago
      > It always* comes from scarcity of some kind.* Meaning, if you want to gain any wealth, then work on something scarce, and make sure it stays scarce. Let everyone do that, and we get a world of scarcity. Hmm… I thought that a world of abundance was better?
      - davidw 16y ago
        Competition has a way of ensuring that scarce things become abundant. Look at, say, automobiles or computers or food or most normal goods. Sure, monopolies exist, but we also have laws to limit their harm as well. You don't just get to wave your hands and make things "abundant", someone has to do the work, and in order to do the work they have to make a living at it, at the very least.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  > Authors don't really have that: they could sign books, but that would reduce their income drastically, as most copies would be freely had. Cory Doctorow seems to manage just fine. OK, that's not easy. But I'm not sure it's harder than earning money from a standard publisher, and it looks at least possible.
  - dexen 16y ago
    Paulo Coelho, Trent Reznor, Bruce Eckel, at least to some extent.
  - davidw 16y ago
    Cory Doctorow's work appears to be released under the "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike" license, which means that only his publisher has the right to sell paper copies. Granted, he's being very generous and liberal, but he is still utilizing IP laws to create some scarcity. http://craphound.com/ftw/Cory_Doctorow_-_For_the_Win.htm http://craphound.com/ftw/Cory_Doctorow_-_For_the_Win.htm Also, you have to look at these things at the margin: were all authors to do this, how many would no longer be able to support themselves with their writing, and thus be forced to stop or curtail their activities? He's a relatively well known writer: maybe it's ok for him to make, say, 100K rather than 200K a year. Some guy making 50K a year may have to give it up if his income is cut in half. Furthermore, consider that just now the Kindle and similar systems are really starting to take off. In 2005 or so, you either bought the paper book and had yourself a nice read, or stared at an LCD for hours, which is not my idea of pleasant.
    - loup-vaillant 16y ago
      I hear you. Well, I even agree, you're probably right. And that sucks. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2334265 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2334265
kragen 16y ago
> Even if they were all in the public domain, he's basically "set", being a university professor with tenure. > He is `set' because he continuously fulfills the expectation of the employer: he publishes (and teaches etc.). And expectations of the wide public: he provides information to us. I don't think you understand what "tenure" means. Think of it like having your stock options fully vested and exercised, except that the company pays dividends every year, and you had so many options that you can live on the dividends.
neves 16y ago
Man, Does he "fulfill the expectation of the employer"? This guy rocks: According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992. He is also the eighth most cited source of all time, and is considered the "most cited living author". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

by dexen 16y ago

davidw 16y ago

If you read what I wrote, I made no criticism of him for doing his job. I said it would be a poorer world were the only people who could afford to write those with independent sources of income. > artists earn money by performing What you're saying, in economic terms, is that musicians have rivalrous, excludable goods they can produce: the concert experience. That's not bad, although it would have the IMO negative effect of leaving the Brian Wilson (much more oriented towards studio work than touring) types between a rock and a hard place. Authors don't really have that: they could sign books, but that would reduce their income drastically, as most copies would be freely had. > Open source developers earn money by utilizing their knowledge and skill in paid-for projects. As for the open source developers, but WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM in those paid-for projects? Scarcity is where it comes from, and often, they're getting paid to work on open source by someone who deals in the artificial scarcity of intellectual property.

dexen 16y ago
> (...) WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM in those paid-for projects? Scarcity is where it comes from (...) Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Google, IBM and the likes earn by selling services and goods rather than artificially limiting intellectual property. ((cue Android download link and AdWords control panel link))
- davidw 16y ago
  > > Scarcity is where it comes from (...) > Sometimes yes, sometimes no. No. It always comes from scarcity of some kind. In the case of consulting, the scarcity might be expertise in putting together some kind of enterprisey system, but there is always going to be scarcity, otherwise no money will be exchanged. And you can rest assured that IBM has made plenty of money from IP itself over the years - they're no strangers to software or any other kind of patents, nor selling software like DB2. Also: do you think that IBM's services division would make as much money if they posted all their code to the internet? I bet many of their clients believe (right or wrong) that the custom solutions they're getting are a competitive advantage and do not want to freely share them with the competition who is not shelling out big bucks to IBM. With regards to Google's IP, you can be very sure that they would invoke all kinds of IP laws were someone to walk out of their HQ and post important bits and pieces of their search engine tech to the internet. These days, they're in a pretty good position to survive in any case, but think about trying to start a company and have no way of doing anything if people walked out and posted your "crown jewels" to the internet.
  - dexen 16y ago
    Agreed.
  - loup-vaillant 16y ago
    > It always* comes from scarcity of some kind.* Meaning, if you want to gain any wealth, then work on something scarce, and make sure it stays scarce. Let everyone do that, and we get a world of scarcity. Hmm… I thought that a world of abundance was better?
    - davidw 16y ago
      Competition has a way of ensuring that scarce things become abundant. Look at, say, automobiles or computers or food or most normal goods. Sure, monopolies exist, but we also have laws to limit their harm as well. You don't just get to wave your hands and make things "abundant", someone has to do the work, and in order to do the work they have to make a living at it, at the very least.
loup-vaillant 16y ago
> Authors don't really have that: they could sign books, but that would reduce their income drastically, as most copies would be freely had. Cory Doctorow seems to manage just fine. OK, that's not easy. But I'm not sure it's harder than earning money from a standard publisher, and it looks at least possible.
- dexen 16y ago
  Paulo Coelho, Trent Reznor, Bruce Eckel, at least to some extent.
- davidw 16y ago
  Cory Doctorow's work appears to be released under the "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike" license, which means that only his publisher has the right to sell paper copies. Granted, he's being very generous and liberal, but he is still utilizing IP laws to create some scarcity. http://craphound.com/ftw/Cory_Doctorow_-_For_the_Win.htm http://craphound.com/ftw/Cory_Doctorow_-_For_the_Win.htm Also, you have to look at these things at the margin: were all authors to do this, how many would no longer be able to support themselves with their writing, and thus be forced to stop or curtail their activities? He's a relatively well known writer: maybe it's ok for him to make, say, 100K rather than 200K a year. Some guy making 50K a year may have to give it up if his income is cut in half. Furthermore, consider that just now the Kindle and similar systems are really starting to take off. In 2005 or so, you either bought the paper book and had yourself a nice read, or stared at an LCD for hours, which is not my idea of pleasant.
  - loup-vaillant 16y ago
    I hear you. Well, I even agree, you're probably right. And that sucks. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2334265 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2334265

kragen 16y ago

> Even if they were all in the public domain, he's basically "set", being a university professor with tenure. > He is `set' because he continuously fulfills the expectation of the employer: he publishes (and teaches etc.). And expectations of the wide public: he provides information to us. I don't think you understand what "tenure" means. Think of it like having your stock options fully vested and exercised, except that the company pays dividends every year, and you had so many options that you can live on the dividends.

neves 16y ago

Man, Does he "fulfill the expectation of the employer"? This guy rocks: According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992. He is also the eighth most cited source of all time, and is considered the "most cited living author". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky