Part theory, part vaporware:
“Open source advocates miss the fact that markets are also communities, and far more efficient and moral ones than are the mythical realms of academic dreaming.”
So says James V. DeLong, director of the Center for the Study of Digital Property at The Progress & Freedom Foundation.
The centre’s anagram works out as pff (www.pff.com).
Signed up for this “market-oriented” Progress & Freedom “think-tank” include such noted supporters of Progress & Freedom as Disney, Microsoft, News corp, Sony Entertainment and Time Warner.
“Despite its interesting insights, occasional successes and determined proponents, the open source movement is based on faulty economic theory and cannot serve consumers or producers as a model of production for intellectual goods, such as music, books, drugs or games,” says DeLong in a pff release.
“Like so much of the past decade’s worth of New Economy hype, the theory anchoring the open source movement is partly legitimate insight and partly vaporware”.
DeLong’s examples of ‘insights’ key to $$$ and include the power of the Internet to “reduce transaction costs” and “enable people to form functioning communities”; the ability of the “human intelligence equivalent of distributed computing” to “create value”; and the realization that digitization “renders marginal costs near zero”.
But, he says, “By de-propertizing everything, we will produce a cornucopia of plentitude because the need to hassle expensively over who owns what will be eliminated, and current barriers will be replaced by free osmosis of ideas.”
‘De-propertizing’. Nice one, Jim.
“Where the [open source] movement is producing interesting things, it is doing so with heavy funding from academia, foundations, or corporations, and it is far from clear why such funding is superior in any way – practically or morally – to funding through market processes,” he says.
‘Funding through market processes’
Hmmmmm
Branding open source as a “socialization of the creative sector,” he also questions its goal “to make content free, tax the hardware industry, and then distribute the revenues to the creative community according to some complicated government-run formula. ”
According to DeLong, “The Open source advocates miss the fact that markets are also communities, and far more efficient and moral ones than are the mythical realms of academic dreaming.”
pff members include:
Apple; Amazon.com; BellSouth; BMG; Business Software Alliance; Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association;
Cendant; Cisco Systems; Comcast Corporation; Consumer Electronics Association; Corning Incorporated; Diageo; Disney; eBay; EchoStar Communications Corporation; Edison Electric Institute; EMI Group; Entertainment Software Association; FirstEnergy; Florida Power & Light; Hewlett-Packard Company; IBM; ICO Global Communications; Intel; Intuit; MGM; Microsoft; Motorola; National Cable & Telecommunications Association; Oracle Corporation; Pinnacle West Capital Corporation; Procter & Gamble; Progress Energy; Qwest Communications; SBC Communications; Siebel Systems; Sony Music Entertainment Inc; Southern Company; Sprint; Sun Microsystems; Sybase; Symantec Corporation; The News Corporation Limited; The SABRE Group; Time Warner; United States Telecom Association; Venable; VeriSign; Verizon Communications; VIACOM; Vivendi Universal; Western Wireless; Winstar; and, Energy.
October 4th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
Notice that the pff states that Linux receives monies from coprorations. Why, because corporations are one of the biggest Linux customers. It behooves them to make cost effective modifications to Linux and have hackers unpaid by them and possible paid by competitors to improve these modifications for the benefit of all users. The amount of software on my computer would cost me about $35000 if I bought the cartel produced equivilent.
By using something that is free and making a few improvements companies save a lot more money than if they were to use software where they are forced to pay unreasonable licencing and upgrade fees.
Linux is a prime example of how capitalism should work. It is a market that is driven by innovation and proper function rather than insecurity (Antivirus) and disfunctional software so that the next greatest thing can be sold.
While I believe that at this point in time BSD is a better functioning product, Linux is catching up. I prefer Linux over BSD because the right to redistribute Linux comes with a price, and that price is the fact that one must pass the source of the work as well as the right for redistribution to receipients.
The way I understand the BSD licence is that one can make improvements of modifications to FreeBSD and then pass only a close source version to the rest of the world. The way I understand their license is that with BSD, one can get a free lunch. With Linux, one must pay a small price. BSD is based on the Unix of the early 70’s, however Linux is something that has started 20 years later, and it is almost as good as BSD. With some more work and a few more years, Linux will surpass BSD.