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> Which can be quite high when deciding to distribute free software instead of proprietary software. Note that the quote considers the gains on proprietary sof

> Which can be quite high when deciding to distribute free software instead of proprietary software. Note that the quote considers the gains on proprietary software to be rent too, so this opportunity cost argument is kind of like saying any rent is not rent once any other rent opportunity exists. But I would find it hard to categorize all software gains after paying all wages as rent since there could be an aspect of taking undeserved payment or as you say, you could be taking reasonable payments for investment risks. Only in the extreme, I could sell on your GPLv3 software and use some proceeds to imply I am the trusted source for it which is pure rent seeking behavior. I got a bit distracted by the second half of the article since it seemed to be flowing to the usual point that most people feel more comfortable marking up service costs as multiples of the actual hourly wage¹. I think the feel good argument for consulting based models is that you are selling a real limited resource to the individual customer, but I think this mark up is actually more clearly rent. You are attempting to hold an expertise monopoly such that no one can sell a similar service and no customer can find adequate expertise on the market and just pay wages similar to whatever you pay the consulting employee. Why would your documentation be good in that model? If they made a more unique point maybe someone could post a TLDR. (¹ No? I guess hardware/cloud mark up is what they mean by their products.)

eesmith 6y ago
> like saying any rent is not rent once any other rent opportunity exists Good point, thanks! FWIW, I did try selling free software, though under the MIT license. My income was a fraction of the hourly wage were I do do in-house development that was never released at all. Enough to live on, but not normal software developer wages. So I find it hard to call that "rent". Speaking of economic rent, "Frappe has the huge advantage of being the home to most of the contributors and maintainers of ERPNext" makes it sound rather close to the economic rent attributed to labor unions ("higher pay for some workers, where collective action creates a scarcity of such workers, as opposed to an ideal condition where labor competes with other factors of production on price alone" - from WP's "Economic rent"). That's pattern matching on my side, since I don't have handle on what 'rent' is supposed to mean here. Speaking of distractions, the analogy "FOSS is like the highway system" suggests the government should be funding FOSS, and/or that tolls are entirely reasonable. ;)

eesmith 6y ago

> like saying any rent is not rent once any other rent opportunity exists Good point, thanks! FWIW, I did try selling free software, though under the MIT license. My income was a fraction of the hourly wage were I do do in-house development that was never released at all. Enough to live on, but not normal software developer wages. So I find it hard to call that "rent". Speaking of economic rent, "Frappe has the huge advantage of being the home to most of the contributors and maintainers of ERPNext" makes it sound rather close to the economic rent attributed to labor unions ("higher pay for some workers, where collective action creates a scarcity of such workers, as opposed to an ideal condition where labor competes with other factors of production on price alone" - from WP's "Economic rent"). That's pattern matching on my side, since I don't have handle on what 'rent' is supposed to mean here. Speaking of distractions, the analogy "FOSS is like the highway system" suggests the government should be funding FOSS, and/or that tolls are entirely reasonable. ;)