Re: [fsf-community-team] Argument from economic nessesity

[Simon Bridge]

On Sun, 2009-12-13 at 20:18 -0800, Edward Cherlin wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 19:11, Simon Bridge <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Something popped up on the NZLUG lists today - anyone want to respond?
> > (Note, this is the argument from economic nessesity, which we see idn
> > various forms often. Good practice. The trick is not to get drawn into
> > side issues.) Here it is:
> >
> >> Playing devil's advocate here, and there questions are in no simple
> >> way to convey to new-comers to the game
> 
> All straw men.

The straw man would be the implication that free software proponents
expect programmers to work for nothing. But I thought the argument is
closer to a false dichotomy - vis: programmers must either produce
non-free code or starve.

However: the specter of the starving programmer is the same kind of
straw man as the starving artist of thick copyright proponents. The
purpose is to scare programmers into chaining their code.

> 
> 1) Free Software companies hire coders. I will just cite IBM and Red
> Hat, but there are plenty more. Other companies write Free Software on
> contract. Governments have begun to think that all code they
> commission, except secret defense and intelligence code, should be put
> under Free licenses. Media, including textbooks, also.

The existance of free software based companies is empirical proof of the
falsehood of the argument. The author, though, was of the position that
this state of affairs would not continue.

The counter is that his economic model is out of date.


> 
> 2) MS complains (on behalf of its poor, put-upon customers ^_^) that
> Free Software sysadmins, coders, and other professionals cost more
> than people who do Windows. This appears to be because Free Software
> is more productive and of higher quality, so those pros are worth the
> extra money. 

The stuff about WSJ seems extranious from this part of the world - is
there a context I don't know about? As it stands, it neither follows
from nor supports any of your arguments.


> The Wall Street Journal is the most implacable enemy of
> Free Software in what is known as the Mainstream Media (MSM). WSJ
> considers Freedom bad for business. The business of the largest
> companies, that is, the ones with the greatest amounts of
> anti-competitive market power, the ones most likely to spend money on
> WSJ ads. The actual economy, which counts benefits to small business
> and to consumers as essential measures of the effectiveness of free
> and competitive markets, is no concern of the WSJ.