9 ms·

This is my chief difficulty with the GPL as well. As a profession, we can't self-destruct with an ideology of giving everything away in a society which we have

by pnathan 15y ago

This is my chief difficulty with the GPL as well. As a profession, we can't self-destruct with an ideology of giving everything away in a society which we have to pay rent, insurance, etc. I don't have a solution, wish I did.

ajross 15y ago
This is a fallacy. It's equivalent to arguing that any increase in productivity (which is precisely what this is: less effort expended to develop software) is bad. But it's wrong. Over time, those freed from obsolete jobs are employed by society to do new stuff (stuff that wasn't practical before because of labor costs) and we all benefit. And even in the short term this is pretty much just plain wrong. Almost all GPL software is written by people paid to develop GPL software.
- Steko 15y ago
  "It's equivalent to arguing that any increase in productivity (which is precisely what this is: less effort expended to develop software) is bad." RMS is not proposing an increase in productivity, he's proposing a massive disincentive to engaging in one of the most productive, highest growth industries in the world's history. "Over time, those freed from obsolete jobs are employed by society to do new stuff ...and we all benefit." These jobs aren't obsolete. It's not like the same software will get done if all these people stop working and go do "new stuff". We just wouldn't get those advancements and would suffer greatly not benefit.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    The obsolete jobs are those which depend on re-inventing the wheel, because some company needs to add a new feature or fix a bug in software X and they can't, because it's proprietary. If every software was Free we'd eliminate plenty of redundant work.
    - Steko 15y ago
      You don't just eliminate the wasteful jobs; you eliminate the productive ones as well.
  - ajross 15y ago
    "RMS is not proposing an increase in productivity, he's proposing a massive disincentive to engaging in one of the most productive, highest growth industries in the world's history." You say tomato, I say tomato... Seriously: if you were explaining to a space alien what the distinction was, how would you do it? The only one I can see is all the subtle connotations of the adjectives and superlatives you chose to throw in. I mean, the automobile was a "massive disincentive" to the horse breeding industry too. The gun put a ton of blacksmiths out of work. And secretaries and typists were an awfully big part of the world economy in the recent past too... All those people (figuratively -- really the fraction of the workforce they represented) are now doing other stuff like building web apps. And the world is a better place. "Productivity" is a quantifiable metric. Either you pay programmers to duplicate effort or you don't. In the latter case, productivity is higher by definition, and no amount of adjectives is going to change that fact.
    - CJefferson 15y ago
      Look around at open source software, clang vs. gcc, gnome vs. kde vs. xfce, and many others. I see little evidence that open source leads to a reduction in duplicate effort.
      - tjr 15y ago
        Alternately, we as developers can use existing open source software with which to build new software, without having to rewrite things that are already completed and available.
      - ajross 15y ago
        I don't think that analysis is complete. Obviously the point isn't that there no duplication within free software; just that there is less. Sure, clang competes with gcc. But as recently as the 90's there were dozens of commercial compilers were competing in the market. Now, everyone (outside of a handful of legacy platforms like windows) just uses gcc. Clearly that's a gain in productivity.
        rbanffy 15y ago
  - loup-vaillant 15y ago
    > [RMS is] proposing a massive disincentive to engaging in one of the most productive, highest growth industries in the world's history. OK, you lost me. How exactly the possibility of rendering your software proprietary enhanced in any way at all productivity in software ? Just a warning : I don't accept metrics based on how much money you extract from others, or how much people work behind a keyboard. What matters is how the lives of the people actually improved thanks to proprietary software. My guess is not much at all. If I recall correctly, the most crucial innovations where mostly public research work.
- pnathan 15y ago
  There are a number of factors you're not addressing, and are very convenient to overlook. One particular (example) is that it is no longer necessary to pay for software for typical (e.g., email, web browsing, Skype, music playing, spreadsheeting) activities with a computer. You can. You don't have to unless external forces constrain you to. Socially, an expectation is being created that useful software is without monetary charge. I would like the readers to extrapolate from this what happens as more users expect gratis software. If I was running a business, I would use 100% gratis software unless a really compelling reason otherwise was presented. As a software engineer, I usually recommend gratis software for most things... it works great! Why should I pay Microsoft/Oracle/etc when gratis software works so well? This means that non-gratis software companies (and their developers) are simply not receiving my dollars. Unfortunately us, we as software developers have to pay the bills, and gratis software is, well, gratis. Arguably, we can assume that software developers will continue to invent new and shinier things, useful to all, which people will pay for. But "past performance is no predictor of future performance", as stock prospectuses like saying, and I believe that to be a great statement about our industry. Who could have predicted the fall in 15 years of mainframes in 1970 [1]? I think that a viable business model for AGPL3 software still needs to come into fruition besides consulting/SaaS. Let's personalize this: I own a Macbook Pro, and have paid $0.00 for software on it; I use it probably 80% of the time I'm at home doing all sorts of geeky things. I feel bad for Mac app developers, but I don't need what they sell: gratis software does it for me. I've only paid for 2 pieces of app software on my personal computers in the last decade(not counting games - maybe I should?): - Microsoft Office for Mac (prior Mac) - Quicken (Once) Plus OSX 10.6, 10.4, and Windows 7. Until I come into a stiff requirement for a piece of proprietary software, I have no plans to change the 'use gratis/GPL software' model. It's worked well so far! I've bought about 4 (cheap) apps on the iPod, in contrast - the GPL is effectively banned, iirc. Of course, the GPL has caused some wonderful shared goods to come into being: gcc, emacs, Linux, etc. But those hard-working very smart developers don't receive money from me in general[2], because it's more financially efficient to use software gratis. I release my small amounts of public software under the AGPL3, because I believe in building a better world together, instead of grabbing each other's resources. But I think that we need to figure out a better way to make our bills get paid. To summarize: Someone around here referenced the idea of a post-scarcity world. I think common software is becoming a post-scarcity world, and I don't know how common app developers are going to survive and keep developing on those common apps. [1] probably a few visionaries, but besides them... :-) [2] modulo donations or swag
bfrs 15y ago
Oh god, the rent! Thanks for the reminder. I wonder when we will cross the post-scarcity point on housing. Considering that about 50% of my monthly expenses goes to rent, I think reducing the cost of housing is where most of my mental energies should be devoted. My partial solution is "Commodity Housing", i.e., housing so abundant that what you pay is close to the maintainance costs, which I estimate would be on the order of $50-60/month (excluding electric/gas, water/sewage and garbage disposal expenses which most of us already pay for separately). I can't seem to figure out why, when there is so much land in the U.S. [1], the rents are still so crushingly high [2]? I only have a partial answer in rent controls [3] and zoning laws. [1] http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population-lived-in-one-city/ http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population... [2] http://shine.yahoo.com/green/simple-life-in-manhattan-a-90-square-foot-home-2472666.html http://shine.yahoo.com/green/simple-life-in-manhattan-a-90-s... http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113345-10728-1-how-do-your-finances-stack-up?ywaad=ad0035&nc http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113345-10728... [3] http://www.baycitizen.org/columns/elizabeth-lesly-stevens/small-time-landlord-vs-big-time-tenants/ http://www.baycitizen.org/columns/elizabeth-lesly-stevens/sm... @pnathan: I reposted this above, hoping it gets more visibility. Once again thanks for the rent reminder.
- pnathan 15y ago
  Well, as someone in the rural US, I don't want to see the landscape peppered with suburbs. I think suburbs are a terrifically ugly invention and have a number of nasty externalities (a rant for another time). So places like where I live (semi-rural northwest) are incentivized to make it difficult to expand. I like urban apartments/condos/flats, I think those are a good solution, but as a culture, outside of the urban areas, people like houses.
- omouse 15y ago
  You should look up state-planned housing and in general, socialist , communist and anarchist ideas. I think the communists hit a dead end with their ideas of the state controlling everything while the anarchists have alternative ideas (which are continually borrowed though to various degrees).

by pnathan 15y ago

ajross 15y ago

This is a fallacy. It's equivalent to arguing that any increase in productivity (which is precisely what this is: less effort expended to develop software) is bad. But it's wrong. Over time, those freed from obsolete jobs are employed by society to do new stuff (stuff that wasn't practical before because of labor costs) and we all benefit. And even in the short term this is pretty much just plain wrong. Almost all GPL software is written by people paid to develop GPL software.

Steko 15y ago
"It's equivalent to arguing that any increase in productivity (which is precisely what this is: less effort expended to develop software) is bad." RMS is not proposing an increase in productivity, he's proposing a massive disincentive to engaging in one of the most productive, highest growth industries in the world's history. "Over time, those freed from obsolete jobs are employed by society to do new stuff ...and we all benefit." These jobs aren't obsolete. It's not like the same software will get done if all these people stop working and go do "new stuff". We just wouldn't get those advancements and would suffer greatly not benefit.
- icebraining 15y ago
  The obsolete jobs are those which depend on re-inventing the wheel, because some company needs to add a new feature or fix a bug in software X and they can't, because it's proprietary. If every software was Free we'd eliminate plenty of redundant work.
  - Steko 15y ago
    You don't just eliminate the wasteful jobs; you eliminate the productive ones as well.
- ajross 15y ago
  "RMS is not proposing an increase in productivity, he's proposing a massive disincentive to engaging in one of the most productive, highest growth industries in the world's history." You say tomato, I say tomato... Seriously: if you were explaining to a space alien what the distinction was, how would you do it? The only one I can see is all the subtle connotations of the adjectives and superlatives you chose to throw in. I mean, the automobile was a "massive disincentive" to the horse breeding industry too. The gun put a ton of blacksmiths out of work. And secretaries and typists were an awfully big part of the world economy in the recent past too... All those people (figuratively -- really the fraction of the workforce they represented) are now doing other stuff like building web apps. And the world is a better place. "Productivity" is a quantifiable metric. Either you pay programmers to duplicate effort or you don't. In the latter case, productivity is higher by definition, and no amount of adjectives is going to change that fact.
  - CJefferson 15y ago
    Look around at open source software, clang vs. gcc, gnome vs. kde vs. xfce, and many others. I see little evidence that open source leads to a reduction in duplicate effort.
    - tjr 15y ago
      Alternately, we as developers can use existing open source software with which to build new software, without having to rewrite things that are already completed and available.
    - ajross 15y ago
      I don't think that analysis is complete. Obviously the point isn't that there no duplication within free software; just that there is less. Sure, clang competes with gcc. But as recently as the 90's there were dozens of commercial compilers were competing in the market. Now, everyone (outside of a handful of legacy platforms like windows) just uses gcc. Clearly that's a gain in productivity.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  > [RMS is] proposing a massive disincentive to engaging in one of the most productive, highest growth industries in the world's history. OK, you lost me. How exactly the possibility of rendering your software proprietary enhanced in any way at all productivity in software ? Just a warning : I don't accept metrics based on how much money you extract from others, or how much people work behind a keyboard. What matters is how the lives of the people actually improved thanks to proprietary software. My guess is not much at all. If I recall correctly, the most crucial innovations where mostly public research work.
pnathan 15y ago
There are a number of factors you're not addressing, and are very convenient to overlook. One particular (example) is that it is no longer necessary to pay for software for typical (e.g., email, web browsing, Skype, music playing, spreadsheeting) activities with a computer. You can. You don't have to unless external forces constrain you to. Socially, an expectation is being created that useful software is without monetary charge. I would like the readers to extrapolate from this what happens as more users expect gratis software. If I was running a business, I would use 100% gratis software unless a really compelling reason otherwise was presented. As a software engineer, I usually recommend gratis software for most things... it works great! Why should I pay Microsoft/Oracle/etc when gratis software works so well? This means that non-gratis software companies (and their developers) are simply not receiving my dollars. Unfortunately us, we as software developers have to pay the bills, and gratis software is, well, gratis. Arguably, we can assume that software developers will continue to invent new and shinier things, useful to all, which people will pay for. But "past performance is no predictor of future performance", as stock prospectuses like saying, and I believe that to be a great statement about our industry. Who could have predicted the fall in 15 years of mainframes in 1970 [1]? I think that a viable business model for AGPL3 software still needs to come into fruition besides consulting/SaaS. Let's personalize this: I own a Macbook Pro, and have paid $0.00 for software on it; I use it probably 80% of the time I'm at home doing all sorts of geeky things. I feel bad for Mac app developers, but I don't need what they sell: gratis software does it for me. I've only paid for 2 pieces of app software on my personal computers in the last decade(not counting games - maybe I should?): - Microsoft Office for Mac (prior Mac) - Quicken (Once) Plus OSX 10.6, 10.4, and Windows 7. Until I come into a stiff requirement for a piece of proprietary software, I have no plans to change the 'use gratis/GPL software' model. It's worked well so far! I've bought about 4 (cheap) apps on the iPod, in contrast - the GPL is effectively banned, iirc. Of course, the GPL has caused some wonderful shared goods to come into being: gcc, emacs, Linux, etc. But those hard-working very smart developers don't receive money from me in general[2], because it's more financially efficient to use software gratis. I release my small amounts of public software under the AGPL3, because I believe in building a better world together, instead of grabbing each other's resources. But I think that we need to figure out a better way to make our bills get paid. To summarize: Someone around here referenced the idea of a post-scarcity world. I think common software is becoming a post-scarcity world, and I don't know how common app developers are going to survive and keep developing on those common apps. [1] probably a few visionaries, but besides them... :-) [2] modulo donations or swag

bfrs 15y ago

Oh god, the rent! Thanks for the reminder. I wonder when we will cross the post-scarcity point on housing. Considering that about 50% of my monthly expenses goes to rent, I think reducing the cost of housing is where most of my mental energies should be devoted. My partial solution is "Commodity Housing", i.e., housing so abundant that what you pay is close to the maintainance costs, which I estimate would be on the order of $50-60/month (excluding electric/gas, water/sewage and garbage disposal expenses which most of us already pay for separately). I can't seem to figure out why, when there is so much land in the U.S. [1], the rents are still so crushingly high [2]? I only have a partial answer in rent controls [3] and zoning laws. [1] http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population-lived-in-one-city/ http://persquaremile.com/2011/01/18/if-the-worlds-population... [2] http://shine.yahoo.com/green/simple-life-in-manhattan-a-90-square-foot-home-2472666.html http://shine.yahoo.com/green/simple-life-in-manhattan-a-90-s... http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113345-10728-1-how-do-your-finances-stack-up?ywaad=ad0035&nc http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113345-10728... [3] http://www.baycitizen.org/columns/elizabeth-lesly-stevens/small-time-landlord-vs-big-time-tenants/ http://www.baycitizen.org/columns/elizabeth-lesly-stevens/sm... @pnathan: I reposted this above, hoping it gets more visibility. Once again thanks for the rent reminder.

pnathan 15y ago
Well, as someone in the rural US, I don't want to see the landscape peppered with suburbs. I think suburbs are a terrifically ugly invention and have a number of nasty externalities (a rant for another time). So places like where I live (semi-rural northwest) are incentivized to make it difficult to expand. I like urban apartments/condos/flats, I think those are a good solution, but as a culture, outside of the urban areas, people like houses.
omouse 15y ago
You should look up state-planned housing and in general, socialist , communist and anarchist ideas. I think the communists hit a dead end with their ideas of the state controlling everything while the anarchists have alternative ideas (which are continually borrowed though to various degrees).