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I agree with lukifer (assuming his first paragraph was ironic), but not with many of your points. Why do you think the majority of people don't care how a comp

I agree with lukifer (assuming his first paragraph was ironic), but not with many of your points. Why do you think the majority of people don't care how a computer works? Simply because they don't want to learn, and they think mostly in the short term. (Not that I'd blame them. Short term thinking tends to be emphasised by our current western society.) Of course you can't apply FOSS principle everywhere. Buildings and cars are scarce. You can't copy them the way you copy software. You also assume that the market is efficient. It isn't. Even when doing the most ridiculous assumptions about human nature (homo economicus), the market simply isn't efficient. Therefore, the most popular product cannot be assumed to be the best, or even have the best cost/benefit ratio. And you know about Microsoft's OEM scheme. That gives them an advantage that has nothing to do with the quality of their software. You also seem to assume FOSS doesn't have such a great market share. On the desktop, sure. But on the server, it won.

lukifer 15y ago
I wasn't being ironic, actually. I'm not advocating for or against Coca-Cola; I'm stating how things are. There are many businesses built on secrets, whether it's source code, business practices, pricing deals, secret recipes, etc. And just as with other legacy, semi-functional market practices (stocks, patents, copyright), nobody is going to be willing to erase the value of their "ownership" overnight. And while a world in which everyone can brew and/or sell their own Coca-Cola would be cool, it would also put a lot of employees out of work. I'm neither defending nor vilifying corporations or other secrets-holders. But secrets are a big piece of the semi-functional market system that allows software engineers to draw a paycheck. If you want to talk about subverting or supplanting that market system, I'm ecstatic to have that conversation. But advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. (Not that I'm knocking dreaming; but it's only useful as Step #0).
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. I think I still agree with you. If I had to emphasise a point though it would be that the profitability one can get from information asymmetry is hardly a genuine justification for it. > advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. Totally agree. Now I discovered today that Stallman is probably aware of the economic issues[1]. Still, he doesn't deal with them. I don't know why, but I guess he may estimate there are other competent people working on just that (he repeatedly said that Free Software is a cause besides many others, and that he chose this one because he could). [1] http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-interview/ http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-intervie... It's not fleshed out, but I take it as evidence that Stallman at least thought about it.

lukifer 15y ago

I wasn't being ironic, actually. I'm not advocating for or against Coca-Cola; I'm stating how things are. There are many businesses built on secrets, whether it's source code, business practices, pricing deals, secret recipes, etc. And just as with other legacy, semi-functional market practices (stocks, patents, copyright), nobody is going to be willing to erase the value of their "ownership" overnight. And while a world in which everyone can brew and/or sell their own Coca-Cola would be cool, it would also put a lot of employees out of work. I'm neither defending nor vilifying corporations or other secrets-holders. But secrets are a big piece of the semi-functional market system that allows software engineers to draw a paycheck. If you want to talk about subverting or supplanting that market system, I'm ecstatic to have that conversation. But advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. (Not that I'm knocking dreaming; but it's only useful as Step #0).

loup-vaillant 15y ago
Thanks for the clarification. I think I still agree with you. If I had to emphasise a point though it would be that the profitability one can get from information asymmetry is hardly a genuine justification for it. > advocating FOSS without addressing the economic issues is pure dreaming. Totally agree. Now I discovered today that Stallman is probably aware of the economic issues[1]. Still, he doesn't deal with them. I don't know why, but I guess he may estimate there are other competent people working on just that (he repeatedly said that Free Software is a cause besides many others, and that he chose this one because he could). [1] http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-interview/ http://www.harishanker.net/2009/06/richard-stallman-intervie... It's not fleshed out, but I take it as evidence that Stallman at least thought about it.