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There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

lambdassociates.org

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Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#31

Post by lutorm »

Mz wrote: post #25

I am reminded of the saying in the military: Freedom isn't free. (I think Heinlein said it was paid for with the blood of patriots.) The article says his time is worth something, and that is a big part of his point: To get all this "free" stuff, you have to have some intelligent, capable person giving away skills and knowledge they could be making money for. I spent a lot of time giving away information. The informat…

But you are manufacturing a problem. If you don't think free software works for you, don't write it. Not everyone's a capitalist fanatic and feel like they must be "paid" for (in money) for everything they do. Like you say, plenty of people do volunteer work without any expectation of return apart from feeling like they've helped someone. How can you argue that this "needs a good solution"?

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#32

Post by pbhj »

anatoly wrote: post #19
pingswept wrote: post #11

"There is no such thing as free software." This isn't true. It's just exaggerating to make a point. As a counterexample, http://pysolar.org . I wrote the code for free, because I wanted the experience. You can have it for $0 under the GPL. That's free software. The truth is more like: "Free software is often subsidized by governments or companies." But so what? So is proprietary software. With that revision, I don't…

What about the opportunity cost? You paid for this code with your time, which otherwise, if you felt like it, you presumably could have used to earn money. If your time is worthless, then indeed the code costs nothing; is it? That's the point the author's making.

If he otherwise would have used the time to smoke dope and watch TV then arguably that tranche of time had 0 financial value associated with it. This assumes that he's equally recuperated by coding and so the coding doesn't impact the hours in which he is gainfully employed.

Presumably you think that having a crap at a free public toilet is not free because it takes you time to do it.

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#33

Post by lutorm »

anatoly wrote: post #19
pingswept wrote: post #11

"There is no such thing as free software." This isn't true. It's just exaggerating to make a point. As a counterexample, http://pysolar.org . I wrote the code for free, because I wanted the experience. You can have it for $0 under the GPL. That's free software. The truth is more like: "Free software is often subsidized by governments or companies." But so what? So is proprietary software. With that revision, I don't…

What about the opportunity cost? You paid for this code with your time, which otherwise, if you felt like it, you presumably could have used to earn money. If your time is worthless, then indeed the code costs nothing; is it? That's the point the author's making.

The key is "if you felt like it". He didn't, not because he felt his time is worthless but because he wrote it for himself and if it helps anyone else, well that's just making him happy for having helped someone.

It's not arguing that it didn't cost anything. It's arguing that it's his choice whether he wants to cover his costs or give it away for free.

If someone was forced to license their software under the GPL, then the author would have a point. But he doesn't.

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#34

Post by lutorm »

I suppose the author is one of the people that argue that everything should be paid for by a direct transaction. If I walk to the corner store to get a beer, I should pay for the use of the sidewalk because "someone paid to put it there".

There are things that are better for everyone if the cost is borne by everyone. You could argue that because Linux or Emacs are free (as in beer), there's some sort of circumvention of capitalism going on that robs the economy. But how about the fact that thousands of people now can learn how to run a unix system and write program that would otherwise never have paid to do so? I believe there is a net benefit to society there, just like with publicly funded streets and publicly funded research. It induces activity which otherwise would not happen.

Only the most fundamentalist capitalists would argue that common investments are never good, and this strikes me like the same kind of rant. And I'm sorry, but that doesn't convince me one bit.

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#35

Post by ewjordan »

omail wrote: post #24

This article is difficult to understand because it is written as a flamebait rather than an objective critique. Here is what I understand so far. His primary point is that for a FOSS project it is not easy to have it economically self-sustainable. I believe he is almost correct on this point and counter arguments exist elsewhere in this thread and on the internet. As for whether FOSS is useful or not or how to solve…

Further, the funding of a lot of free software has already taken place because a company needed to scratch its own itch. After that, the question is, "Does keeping this software closed source provide us a significant competitive advantage?" If the answer is "no," then there's really no point in not sharing the source. Anyone that thinks shrink-wrap sales of their pet Lisp dialect are going to make up the cornerstone of a viable business model is freaking deluded; these things are dime a dozen, and the market is next to non-existent.

Pretty much all of the open source stuff that comes out of Google comes out for this reason; they're not in the software sales biz, so if they develop something neat that helps them get things done but is not core to their business, they give it away. Economically speaking it's neutral to positive for them (helps PR quite a bit, and gets programmers invested in the Google ecosystem), and positive for everyone else.

My immediate response to the article: no shit, software takes time to write, even the most hardcore FOSS advocate wouldn't claim otherwise. But once those costs are funded (which they will be if you need the functionality yourself), if there's no money to be made by keeping the results a secret then you should be indifferent to opening it up. Yes, this means that FOSS is driven more by big companies than by basement programmers, because they generate a lot more code, but nobody ever claimed otherwise, except when constructing strawmen to knock down.

I was going to bring up the obvious point that most of the Internet runs on FOSS software (convenient not to mention Apache in a rant like this, arguably the producers of the most successful FOSS in existence), but upon checking, I can't call him out for hypocrisy - check out any non-existent url (for instance, http://www.lambdassociates.org/doesnotexist), at least he's actually drinking the Microsoft Kool-aid as he rails against the poor quality of open source.

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#36

Post by nova »

lutorm wrote: post #28
tokenadult wrote: post #6

"Emacs was supported financially by people working at the MIT AI Lab, which means that it was funded by Uncle Sam. It was not invented by Richard Stallman contrary to popular myth, although he did grab the sources and improved them and tried successfully to claim as much credit as he could. It’s real cost in market terms was effectively many thousands of tax dollars and it was paid for as such by Joe Schmoe." This is…

But what kind of point is that? If it was really paid for by the taxpayers, it should be free (free as in free beer and free as in free speech) because it was funded by taxpayers. How is arguing that it should not be free any kind of solution to this (imagined) problem?

Exactly. The real disgrace is all those technologies developed with taxpayer money and yet patented, closed or restricted.

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#37

Post by nova »

lutorm wrote: post #31
Mz wrote: post #25

I am reminded of the saying in the military: Freedom isn't free. (I think Heinlein said it was paid for with the blood of patriots.) The article says his time is worth something, and that is a big part of his point: To get all this "free" stuff, you have to have some intelligent, capable person giving away skills and knowledge they could be making money for. I spent a lot of time giving away information. The informat…

But you are manufacturing a problem. If you don't think free software works for you, don't write it. Not everyone's a capitalist fanatic and feel like they must be "paid" for (in money) for everything they do. Like you say, plenty of people do volunteer work without any expectation of return apart from feeling like they've helped someone. How can you argue that this "needs a good solution"?

A coherent capitalist fanatic wouln't like intellectual property at all!

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#38

Post by mixmax »

lutorm wrote: post #27
BrentRitterbeck wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need access to the source. If you don't like how the software works, you have two options: (1) Don't buy the software, or (2) write new software. My point was that many people feel they have a right to the source code. It's not a right at all, no matter what Stallman says.

You do have a right to the source code if it's free software. Your argument is analogous to saying that the right to vote is not a right at all, because it only applies to democratic countries. There are no universal rights, yet there are rights.

That's a strawman argument.

Of course you have a right to the code if it's free (as in freedom) software - that's the point!. If it isn't you don't. The parent was pointing out that many people feel that they have a right to the source of closed source software because of FOSS. Which they don't.

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#39

Post by Mz »

lutorm wrote: post #31
Mz wrote: post #25

I am reminded of the saying in the military: Freedom isn't free. (I think Heinlein said it was paid for with the blood of patriots.) The article says his time is worth something, and that is a big part of his point: To get all this "free" stuff, you have to have some intelligent, capable person giving away skills and knowledge they could be making money for. I spent a lot of time giving away information. The informat…

But you are manufacturing a problem. If you don't think free software works for you, don't write it. Not everyone's a capitalist fanatic and feel like they must be "paid" for (in money) for everything they do. Like you say, plenty of people do volunteer work without any expectation of return apart from feeling like they've helped someone. How can you argue that this "needs a good solution"?

I did volunteer work for about 25 years. I've spent a lot of time in that realm and thought a lot about it. I don't mean to imply that what is currently being done must stop. But I agree with the author that his time has value, so if other people expect him to keep giving it away for free, it's basically a parasitic expectation. If he wants to give it away for free, that's his choice. But if he isn't independently wealthy, time put into a FOSS project competes for time he could spend making money or with family and friends, etc. Good projects generally require substantial time and effort. It is common for volunteer situations to result in shoddy work, people you can't count on because they feel no real obligation since they aren't being paid, and similar problems.

I was diagnosed late in life with a serious medical condition. Prior to my diagnosis, I was too ill to pursue a paid career. Many of the idealistic, talented and intelligent people I have known who routinely give away their work for free are also handicapped in some way. (Actually, I can't think of anyone who gives away substantial amounts of their time and skill on a regular basis who isn't seriously handicapped in some manner.) If you are handicapped, doing volunteer work has the easy terms that work for you. Moderating a forum, running a website part-time, and so on are things you can do when you feel up to it and no one can force you to be more consistent. And the quality of the work is generally consistent with the fact that you are unreliable, impaired, etc.

So while I still value some of the free resources made available by other people like me, now that I am well enough to work a full time job, I am somewhat less of a bleeding heart. I still think some things need to be "free" -- in terms of rights and also in terms of financial access -- but I think many of these resources would be of better quality than is currently available if the people running them were compensated in some manner. Non-profits don't operate without budgets. They still need money. That money is typically raised from the community based on the idea that the organization is offering something of value. They aren't "beggars". They are just doing work that has human value more than commercial value and therefore needs to be monetized without directly selling services.

Re: There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

#40

Post by bayareaguy »

BrentRitterbeck wrote: post #20
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should have access to the source of the software you use, according to FOSS advocates.

You don't need access to the source. If you don't like how the software works, you have two options: (1) Don't buy the software, or (2) write new software. My point was that many people feel they have a right to the source code. It's not a right at all, no matter what Stallman says.

You don't need access to the source. If you don't like how the software works, you have two options: (1) Don't buy the software, or (2) write new software.

What about option (3): fix it yourself (or hire someone who can) if it's important to you, which in practical terms means you do need the source.

My point was that many people feel they have a right to the source code. It's not a right at all, no matter what Stallman says.

That's odd. I believe the authors of the software I use on my FreeBSD server claim otherwise.

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