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

[Holmes Wilson]

Reminding people that there's a world beyond economic value is exactly 
right, so this is good!  But I would try to keep it a bit more positive 
and non-personal.    Something like:

Businesses already take free software seriously.  Microsoft clearly 
takes GNU/Linux seriously as a competitor, for example.

But there are lots of things that businesses don't care about that have 
immense public value (public libraries, for instance!).  So whether 
businesses care about free software says noting about its importance to 
society.

As far as developers' person income goes, the vast majority do not make 
a product that gets sold in a box or provided as a paid service on a 
website-- they make internal software for organizations.  So the 
question "work for free or sell proprietary software?" just isn't 
relevant to the livelihood of most developers.  "How do I spend my time 
working on something non-boring?" is a much more pressing question for 
lots of developers I know, and free software projects are one answer :)

The question of how to motivate lots of talented people to spend serious 
time working on free software projects when certain business models are 
off-limits for ethical reasons is a serious question.  But we have 
already discovered and developed lots of solutions that don't require an 
ethical compromise, including volunteer communities, freedom-friendly 
business models, cross-company collaboration, the work of students and 
researchers, public funding or funding from private foundations--the 
list keeps growing and evolving and there's no reason to think we've hit 
a wall (though there's obviously room to improve).

I also tried to respond with self-standing points we can adapt later. 
What do people think?

-Holmes

> "Until we can take the financial aspects seriously & prove ways of
> maintaining a successful business, very few are going to take it serious."



> If that had been the driving force for humanity throughout all of
> history, we never would have gotten anywhere. What a sadly limited point
> of view. Just because you can't think of a way to make money off of it,
> is no reason to discourage those who can, or much more importantly those
> whose main concern is not immediate return on investment.
>
> A thriving public domain is an economic driver in itself. If you are
> blinkered by economics, then think of free software as an investment in
> the future. Standing on the shoulders of giants isn't very fun when they
> all have their hands out for royalties and license fees.
>
> Don't worry about getting rich. Use free software where you have a need
> for it (or simply an opportunity to avoid licensing terms & fees),
> contribute to free software where you have the ability. And then guess
> what - free software will grow, no matter what the financials look like.
> If you can find a way to make money with free software, such as
> providing services, then congratulations go for it! If not then go ahead
> and keep doing what you are doing.
>
> That's how I would respond.
>
> Mike VandeVelde
>
> Simon Bridge 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
> > >
> > > I'm not saying that making money should be the primary concern, but it
> > > should rank up there... Without some sort of stable, fixed income, how
> > > are full-time coders (needed for quality-control; see current
> > > news-crisis) supposed to get paid (customization only goes so far), or
> > > any expense be paid on marketing or any of the other day-to-day
> > > operations required for a successful, growing enterprise (paying for
> > > office-space, power, taxes, etc)?
> > >
> > > Re philosophy: I understand the what & why, but it still does not
> > > address some fundamental issues: I cannot eat, send the kids to
> > > school, or pay my rent with good intentions/philosophical principals.
> > > Eventually I'll reach a point where I'd have to supplement my income,
> > > and selling shrink-wrapped software with a limited shelf-life is a
> > > simple & effective way to address such shortcomings (albeit a
> > > cop-out).
> > > Until we can take the financial aspects seriously & prove ways of
> > > maintaining a successful business, very few are going to take it
> > > serious.
> > >
> > > The problem with the FSF campaigns where that they had a negative
> > > message attacking their opponents, and people are turned off by that
> > > approach (honey vs vinegar), and they're preaching to the choir.
> > > ms are MASTERS of marketing & manipulation, and often it more
> > > important to make people good about their choice of purchase than
> > > actually providing a good product (see vista & win-me; TOTAL rubbish,
> > > but people still bought it by the millions, despite being TOLD it's
> > > absolute rubbish)
> > >
> > > If FLOSS plans to "grow up", "go mainstream/highstreed" & be totally
> > > user-accessible (and not just a really cool tool for
> > > techies/hobbyists), then it may have to get it's hands dirty
> > >
> > >
> > > There are those out there that have managed to build successful
> > > FLOSS-based businesses; they usually operate on the basis of providing
> > > hosted services (which RMS seems to have a beef with), or the
> > > customization of existing FLOSS systems.
> > > I've not really found much deviation from these models, and IMO, it's
> > > an *extremely* limited scope compared to the entire economic
> > > landscape.
> > >
> > > Is there something I've missed? (I'm, pretty sure there's a lot