Hi all,
many thanx for re's addressing really different aspects. I try to move back to my point, from which my thinking starts, and this is scarcity as a precondition of economy. I accidentally pick Josef's state:
freedom and "free of danger" exclude each other. Freedom means risk. If you want safety, you have to give up freedom.
You compare apples and pears. You can combine freedom, risk and safety in a carthesian product. Freedom means freedom - and nothing more.
However the essential question is: how to extend freedom? There are two paradigmatic answers.
a) the economic answer: you extend freedom on one side at the cost of another side. This has nothing to do with immorality or stuff. It is how market economy works: You can only bring you forward if others are not brought forward. You only get a job, if others not; you only get a costumer if others not etc. Here scarcity (sometimes hidden) is a precondition of economic success.
b) the free software answer: you extend freedom on all sides. This has nothing to do with higher morality or stuff. It is how free software works: You can only bring you forward if others are going forward, too. You only get success if others get the success with you. Here richness (here in human sense of creativity etc.) is a precondition of free software success.
Ok, all schemes are too schematic;-) - but this is roughly how it works. In reality you'll find a lot of a/b-mixtures. And again this is not "bad", it is just like it is in a society where beside free software we need money for something to eat etc. - well, sometimes;-) [I for myself decided to reduce my goodpaid job to two days, because I want to develop free software and free theories. Nobody must do it like this, others have a business or drive taxi]
However, we should clearly face the dynamic of these two different logics, because it is important what messages are send by FSFE for example. And the general message of FSF is: extending freedom through extending b-logics. And the message of FSFE is: extending freedom through extending a-logics? This cannot be true.
Well, I know these textes about commercial free software etc. There are really _not_ main parts of FSF-philosophy. Or some statements from some programs. I only want to say: Don't put them in the middle and change the b-message into an a-message. Roughly said.
One more word to scarcity: Natural scarcity does not exist, because everything, what we have is produced. So richness and scarcity and the way we live is produced (this includes the inherently limited earth and its substances - but this is not my point here).
MJ Ray writes:
Stefan Meretz stefan.meretz@hbv.org writes:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/magic-cauldron/x227.html All these models base on making things (or services etc.) scarce. And scarcity and freedom are a contradiction.
A lot of those things are naturally scarce. Models 9.1 (loss leader), 9.2 (widget frosting) and 9.5 (expiration) are artificial restraints, though, and are not really based around Free software, merely Open Source.
This is my point: making things to be an "economic value" implies making them scarce. And ESR proposals are combining free software with scarcity.
9.3 is on programmer performance, 9.4 on physical products, and 9.7 on content performance, which are naturally scarce items. There is no need to artificially restrain the liberty of the code to create that scarcity.
9.3 is on support, e.g. selling specially adapted free software and giving support to this special adaption. The counter model is having the support from the fs community. 9.4 is on physical products, right, this is a problem for GPL-society;-) [see Interview with Stefan Merten (not me!) with NetTime http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/wilma_hiliter/nettime/200104/msg00127.html]
9.5 and 9.6.? These are ugly tricks to extend scarcity directly into free software (via giving software free only in future or using a brand).
The point is not whether those tricks base on artificial restraints or not. The point is how to deal with scarcity? Software is always scarce (especially good one). But it is a difference to go in a-logic the redmond way or to go the free software way in b-logic. This is the point.
Therefore, having shown cases where scarcity and freedom co-exist and allow non-zero valuations, I reject your assertion.
Rereading it I find them confirmed.
But what does your defense mean??? Do you support ESR's trial to extend a-logic into the field of free software? I am confused.
Bye, Stefan