From: Francois-Rene Rideau (fare@tunes.org)
Date: Wed Jun 20 2001 - 07:09:24 MDT
>>>: Felix Ungman
>>: Francois-Rene Rideau
>: Samantha Atkins
>>> The open source movement is driven by hobbyists
>>> that like to tinker with software for the fun of it.
>> No. It's driven by the fact that proprietary software covers so badly
>> the needs of consumers that even hobbyists can make significant improvement.
>> Scary, isn't it?
>
> Do you think Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and such are
> "hobbyists"?
I tried to be concise, but I seem to have been imprecise enough that
you have confused my position with Felix'. Sorry about that.
Linus Torvalds started as such and was still when he did his
sociotechnical breakthrough of building the linux kernel community.
But that is beside the point. I do not pretend, like Felix maybe,
that ALL free software hackers be hobbyists. But I do acknowledge
that there is some truth behind this excessive assertion, and the
truth is that most free software hackers, including most of the most
significant ones, do their free software stuff as a hobby.
The reasons are multiple: first there are hobbyists, as everywhere;
second, the software development market is displaced by governmental
monopolies of IP, so that work on free software is often forced to be
as a hobby rather than being externally funded; finally, these hobbyists
can actually hack in ways that add up their efforts into significant wholes,
whereas within the proprietary software paradigm, they just can't.
Now, I am convinced that as free software will gain market acceptance,
and/or if proprietary software did not exist or would lose importance,
more and more work would be done as part of third-party funded (commercial)
developments, as opposed to self-funded (hobbyist) developments.
> I have been a professional programmer aka software
> engineer aka computer scientist aka hacker for over 20 years. I
> have lived, breathed, eaten and dreamed software.
> It is because I know it and love it that I love open source.
With the change that I can claim but 13 years of experience,
I emphatically make mine this paragraph of yours.
>>> What we need is a society where it's possible to make money
>>> on intellectual activity.
>> Exactly. And IP, aka Information Protectionism,
>> is precisely the opposite to valuing _activity_.
>> Instead, it values monopolies that consist in _preventing_ activity.
>> The legal framework I call for is Freedom. Think about it twice.
>
> A society where it is possible to make money on intellectual
> activity is not necessarily synonymous with a society where all
> products of that activity are directly sources of income or
> packaged one particular way.
Not only that: IP not only does not value intellectual activity,
but strips it from its value, by creating legal barriers that prevent it.
> Open Source does not in the least
> make it possible to make a good living as a programmer. That
> the source is open does not mean that programming skills are in
> any less demand or are any less scarce. It does mean that the
> business models will need to change. [...]
Free Software, like Free Trade, Free Speech, or Free Enterprise,
is not a business model, but a legal model.
This legal model in turn might make some business models viable or not;
but the point of them is not in any particular business model.
Yours freely,
[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
[ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ]
You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for
freedom and liberty.
-- Henrik Ibsen
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