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I have a bad feeling about this

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Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#101

Post by davidw »

moonchrome wrote: post #97
davidw wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But giving them artificial monopolies is bad - right ? No, not in and of itself. It's a messy compromise. Things like software patents are pretty much just bad . Copyright, in a limited form, seems to be good. Patents on things like medicines can be good in that they pay for research. All of them should be more limited than they currently are, most likely. Linux works, but who's to say it's 'optimal'? Given the hug…

>Linux works, but who's to say it's 'optimal'? Given the huge amount of value it creates, I think relatively little filters back into the development of the system. And that's the crux of the problem. You seem to think that it's optimal if it puts money in to developers pocket. I'm saying it's optimal it provides more value for less cost to the consumer. Market is about consumers not about producers. >If no one pays…

> You seem to think that it's optimal if it puts money in to developers pocket.

No, I'm saying that if no money flows to developers, it's suboptimal because consumers lose out too.

It has to be a balance, and IP has been a pretty good, if imperfect, way of achieving that balance.

That's not to say I don't think IP needs an overhaul. I do, however, think that IP is part of the solution and not just 'bad'.

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#102

Post by davidw »

bwarp wrote: post #82
jlarocco wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why is money the sole metric of wealth. How much value does open source provide - take linux for eg. which is used in pretty much every aspect of computing these days - from cell phones to super computers - how much value has it provided to the consumers and allowed developers/researchers/manufacturers to produce ?" What unit would you use to measure the value it provides, if not money? "Apply that to every major op…

Does value need a standard or a measure? No. Value is a different thing to different people. Money is not required for value to exist. There should be no intellectual property. There should be fair reward for positive contributions to society. Reward not protect. Provide an incentive rather than a pay off. At the moment, society is based on money not value. It's founded on providing as little value for as much money…

> There should be fair reward for positive contributions to society.

That's hand waving. Specify how you propose to achieve this.

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#103

Post by henrikschroder »

edanm wrote: post #79
lwhi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I don't buy it. This is exactly the sob story that's served up to us by corporations like Disney and conglomerates like the RIAA. People create art for reasons other than making money. We're never going to end up with a world that's devoid of musicians, artists or authors. However we could plausibly find ourselves living in a world without these multinational corporations.

It's not a sob story. It's basic logic. You haven't refuted anything I've said, except for claiming that the story is one given by the likes of Disney and the RIAA, which is irrelevant and untrue. The only valid argument you've said is that people create art for reasons other than making money. Which is of course partially true. But obviously, to a lesser extent. I'm sure many people on HN would still program without…

The absolute overwhelming majority of software produced is not affected by copyright, since it's never distributed, it's only used internally in companies.

There is also a large amount of BSD-style licensed software out there, that won't go away if copyright goes away, because it's already free.

Of course a part of the software industry is about producing proprietary software for sale, but that's a small part of the industry as a whole, and I'm sure some of those companies can find ways to survive in a world without software copyright.

So a small part of the programming workforce might be out of jobs, and an even smaller part of those might then in turn not be creating good software, so the total amount of good software produced might go down. But that's a lot of mights and ifs and buts. Perhaps the opposite is true, perhaps removing software copyright might lead to more good software being created, since everyone is free to re-use and re-mix and build upon all existing software, not just that which is currently OSS-licensed?

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#104

Post by rmc »

dasil003 wrote: post #94

On a tangential note, I'm wary of relying on the job creation argument to validate new technology. The reason being that new technology can kill jobs. Particularly as programmers, one of our main goals is to automate things that previously required warm bodies. I don't feel guilty about this because I would never want to do those jobs, but on the same token, not everyone wants to be a programmer. And in the long term…

Although there are some jobs that are killed, there are some jobs that are created. The nett jobs is an interesting metric.

Some jobs should be killed. Thanks to technological innovation, less people don't have to work in fields collecting food. More people can work indoors etc.

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#105

Post by bwarp »

davidw wrote: post #102
bwarp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does value need a standard or a measure? No. Value is a different thing to different people. Money is not required for value to exist. There should be no intellectual property. There should be fair reward for positive contributions to society. Reward not protect. Provide an incentive rather than a pay off. At the moment, society is based on money not value. It's founded on providing as little value for as much money…

> There should be fair reward for positive contributions to society. That's hand waving. Specify how you propose to achieve this.

That depends on how the person wishes to be rewarded (within reason) hence my previous comment about how "value" differs per person.

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#106

Post by tatsuke95 »

jlangenauer wrote: post #96
gaius wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is money the sole metric of wealth. How much value does open source provide Why are feet and miles the metric of distance, can't we just have near and far? More seriously: value has to have a common unit of exchange. The grocery store clerk isn't going to give you your shopping for free because you happened to write some piece of software he isn't even aware of. Money allows value to be stored and transferred. An…

You're confusing use-value (the intrinsic value of something) with exchange-value (what the thing can be exchanged for - aka price). Much of mainstream economics reduces the broad philosophical concept of value to the narrow economic concept of exchange-value or price. And it's not warm and fuzzy: what's the "value" of an unpolluted atmosphere? What's the value of good health? These things generally defy attempts to…

In no way is the value of an unpolluted atmosphere or good health some abstract concept. They have a value. The point of putting a dollar figure on it is for comparison purposes.

You may disagree with the value placed on these things, or perhaps value them differently than "the average", but don't assume that their value can't be calculated.

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#107

Post by davidw »

bwarp wrote: post #105
davidw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be fair reward for positive contributions to society. That's hand waving. Specify how you propose to achieve this.

That depends on how the person wishes to be rewarded (within reason) hence my previous comment about how "value" differs per person.

At a concrete, legal level, suppose that I as a software developer wish to be paid in money for my time working on software, and not on client projects, what do you propose? And if I write books?

What is the legal framework you are proposing that would ensure that I would be paid a "fair" price for my work? What if my work is brilliant and millions love it? What if it's shit, and no one would pay me a dime for it? Who judges?

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#108

Post by joering2 »

SudarshanP wrote: post #71
iamgilesbowkett wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you raise a very good point with "how much value does open source provide", but this question: "Why is money the sole metric of wealth." is a) ungrammatical and b) basically a tautology. money is the sole metric of wealth because wealth, quantified, is money. not trying to detract from the point you raise, just getting a bit OCD about logic and grammar.

http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

good read. I would love Paul to change this part:

"A startup is a small company that takes on a hard technical problem."

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#109

Post by moonchrome »

davidw wrote: post #101
moonchrome wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Linux works, but who's to say it's 'optimal'? Given the huge amount of value it creates, I think relatively little filters back into the development of the system. And that's the crux of the problem. You seem to think that it's optimal if it puts money in to developers pocket. I'm saying it's optimal it provides more value for less cost to the consumer. Market is about consumers not about producers. >If no one pays…

> You seem to think that it's optimal if it puts money in to developers pocket. No, I'm saying that if no money flows to developers, it's suboptimal because consumers lose out too. It has to be a balance, and IP has been a pretty good, if imperfect, way of achieving that balance. That's not to say I don't think IP needs an overhaul. I do, however, think that IP is part of the solution and not just 'bad'.

>No, I'm saying that if no money flows to developers, it's suboptimal because consumers lose out too.

But that's my point, Linux/Android, and by extension most of opensource, work mostly outside of IP protections and are able to match closed source and compete. I see no reason why Google wouldn't be able to use it's business model without IP. So even now it works, without IP the entire industry would be forced to restructure.

Again - the demand doesn't disappear - you just need to find new ways of satisfying it while making a profit. Just because it's not obvious and would cost a lot of companies their business doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Apple is sitting on billions of dollars in cash on hand and protecting "multitouch". Apple's profit is largely due to it's IP monopoly, if knockoffs and iterative improvements were allowed under different brands Apple's competitive edge after the first mover advantage wears off (and seeing how long it takes phones to hit the market with Android for eg. it's a significant window of opportunity) would be efficient production, more innovation and marketing, all of which create extra value to the consumer. So they would be forced to invest in product more aggressively, margins would shrink without innovation - you would have a more competitive market. Production would have to be restructured to even further protect trade secrets (which would screw cheap China manufacturers because they can't be trusted with IP sensitive jobs if they can sell knockoffs). Conversely they would need less to protect from legal threats.

Re: I have a bad feeling about this

#110

Post by Erwin »

draegtun wrote: post #91

>> ... recall playing with punch cards in the 1960s ... And I recall still using/seeing them in the early 1980s here in UK! They were still heavily used at that time in the Market Research industry for recording data entry (of surveys). In fact the term punching is still used in the industry to this day in reference to data entry.

They still are used, but just in a digital form. We interface with some unnamed software that requires you to recode data into 80 columns, 12 possible values per word (encoded as 12 usable bits within 2 8-bit bytes -- and only one bit can be set per word).

That turns some fixed-width layout into 80-column groups, with e.g. the requirement that the last 2 columns contain the card number, and the first 4 some record ID.

There isn't even any meta-data for that file, so someone out there must be sitting connected to a mainframe and punching in what card 1, position 5-7 contains US State ID or somesuch, before running the cards.

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