Stallman on bsdtalk

And here's the link:
http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2007/10/bsd … llman.html

Alright, just listened to it ... I think that Stallman is going crazy (Or maybe he always has been).
At +/-9:30 Stallman says this:

[edit]

Ok, I listened to it some more, I don't think Stallman has gone crazy, I know he has.
Stallman views all non-free software as unethical, and even described it as a social problem (see above) ... Saying that all software should be free is just as stupid as saying that all cars should be free ... It's a nice  idea (Some might call it communist idea) but it's entirely unfeasible in a free and capitalist market.

Stallman doesn't recommend using any of the BSD OS's because the ports/pkgsrc system also includes non-free software (opera, flash, nvidia-driver, ect)
This contradicts his whole point, his point is that people should have the freedom to choose which software they want to run, and not be forced to run and peticular piece of software.
I totally agree with Stallman on this (We've all struggled with MS word .doc documents, or atleast I have...).
But ... if I choose to use non-free software than that's my choice.
A nice example is the opera web-browser (non-free), firefox has improved a lot in the last year or-so, but when I started using GNU/Linux and FreeBSD opera was superior to Firefox (And Netscape/mozilla, which always sucked if you ask me) in almost every way, the other free browsers (konquerer, epiphany) either didn't exist yet or were even worse than firefox (And still are...)
So, what am I supposed to do? Use the free firefox even though I don't like it? Don't browse the web? Try and improve firefox? Or even write my own browser?
Or just use a non-free browser.
If I choose to use a non-free web-browser (And at that time you still had to pay for opera, so it was even "less free") then that MY choice, not Stallman's or anyone else's.

Stallman seems to think that free software is some basic human right, it seems that Stallman's wet dream would be an amendment to the U.S. constitution stating that all software should be free.
This is, of course, complete non-sense.
It's clear that Stallman has little or no understanding of how a free market works, the problems in the current software market (And there are problems, that I agree with him) are primarily caused by the fact that a few company's have virtually monopolized the market (Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel, AMD/ATI).
Again, I turn to the web-browsers for an example.
After Microsoft won the "browser war" with Netscape in 1999 IE had a market share of above 90%, with no compition to speak of.
As a result IE development came to a halt, IE6 contained some minor updates, and some security/bugfixes were released, but no significant updates, as we all know there are MAJOR issues with IE6's HTML/CSS implementation, and IE6 is also missing many features other browsers have had for years (A proper security model, tabs, etc.)
The reason MS stopped development on IE was because there was no money to be made, everyone was already using IE so why bother?
Then, in 2005/2006 Firefox started growing (exponentially), which finally introduced some serious competition for IE, and in order to keep their customers Microsoft had only one choice:
Update internet explorer .... And they made a pretty good start with IE7 to (Although it will probably be a few years before IE is up to speed, firefox&opera have a huge headstart).

The point is: The computer market (Both soft- and hardware!) isn't rotten because of non-free software, but because the market is monopolized by a few companys.
Windows can stay non-free and closed-source for all eternity for all I care, the reason we're all having problems with MS products (such as MS office/.doc format) is because there's no profit in making it compatible with other (non-MS) products, while in a truly open and free market Microsoft would have no choice but to do so (Because the customer would demand it!).

This post turned out a bit longer than I had intended (This is the third "final paragraph"), and there are several other points where Stallman is, in my opinion, either completely or partially wrong.
Someone at the PC-BSD forums compared Stallman to Bin Laden (I must admit, they do look alike ), saying that he was an extreme fundamentalist.
Aside from the question of whether or not it is appropriate to compare Stallman with Bin Laden, he is certainly a fundamentalist, I suppose this is a good thing rather than a bad thing, because there are also some extreme fundamentalists on the other side of the argument, Stallman serves as a "counter-weight" to those people , but this of course doesn't make his argument any more true...

Last edited by Carpetsmoker (2007-10-14 19:10:29)

He's the michael moore of computers. Just a big fat hippie who happens to also be crazy.

It really doesn't matter whether software is open source or not, free or non-free, what matters is it works and it isn't a piece of shit.

even if the marginal cost of software is free, the average cost is not. and that fact is significant.

In a free enterprise capitalist system like ours(generalising, US/capitalist european countries), the idea of something being totally free is a foreign concept. If people make something of their own accord, they should have every right to make people pay money to use it, depending on the item in question. Here's my query to you guys.
If someone invented a viral cure for any type of virus, could be the common cold, do you think they have every right to charge any amount of money they want, assuming it was entirely their own proprietary work?
Granted, there are extremes in any case, so what I'm trying to say is stallman has a point. But where does free software end? At the hands of the developer or a business looking to market?

Do you mean for the medicine? In Canada and pretty much all of Europe Health care is free.

health care is not free anywhere.

just because you don't have to hand over money at the doctor's office does not mean it's free.

universal health care creates tons of moral hazard problems, as well. it's yet another poor incentive structure.

RHT opened at 20.91 this morning, their 52wk high is 25.25, and their 52wk low is 13.70. and i'm not seeing any dividends.. so i'd say their company isn't doing too great.

regardless, even if redhat was doing okay, it doesn't mean that oss will be the most profitable solution.

you really need firms to pursue software innovation in the name of profit, otherwise there simply wont be any innovation. and you can't make much profit when you're putting money into R&D then immediately open-sourcing it.

one of the free-market solutions to this whole deal is this:
a. firm develops software closed source, sells at monopoly price
b. gov't values the software, buys patents/copyrights from firm
c. gov't releases software as open-source public good

this is an economically efficient program that retains incentives properly.

Last edited by lucas (2007-10-26 15:31:23)

I need some more sources of economic assertions, because all of lucas's sound good to me but I don't know anything about economics and what the arguments against his ideas would be .

regardless, thanks for the economic talk, lucas. I find it interesting.

Last edited by asemisldkfj (2007-10-26 19:00:14)

I should let this one pass, but I just can't.  With respect, there is no way this can work efficiently. 

The problem is "b."  Does the company have the option to refuse government purchase?  If it does not, it is forced conversion of private property by the government, which is incompatible with a free-market system and private property rights.  If the company does have the right to turn down the offer, then the only software that will be sold are those where the company thinks there is no further value that can be added with further investment into the product.  If the product contains core technology or code that is used in other products, buying one product from a company would doom the others.  It would be equivalent to selling the company.

The result would be that the government would buy the lousy products, while those that are successful would refuse the offer and continue to sell their closed-source products.

It also expresses a very naive trust in the government's ability to provide a proper valuation.  How would the government do this?  It would most likely convene a panel who would evaluate the product and assign it a value.  I've served on many government review committees to evaluate research proposals for their funding merit.  I have also been on the other end, where I have submitted proposals for "government review."  Let me say kindly that the results are maddeningly inconsistent and often plain wrong.

I would much prefer the capital markets to evaluate a company's worth.  A company can choose, at any point, to sell itself, to seek further investment capital from either private or public markets (the IPO or follow-on offerings) or to fund itself from existing cash flow.  The *company* has the choice.

If the company does not have that choice, there will be no more capital invested in software.  No venture capitalist in his right mind would touch the industry segment, and there would be no more high-impact companies formed in the software business.  Period.  The business would die for all but the smallest companies.

I understand the frustration with closed-source software, but this is *not* the way to solve it.

What you describe (that a company can turn down an offer, so the government has to overpay to make the purchase) then makes it inherently an inefficient market. 

And it would takes *huge* amounts of money.  For example, if someone wanted to purchase Microsoft's OS division, the current portion of sales and market cap would make this worth about $100 Billion.  There is no way that MS would sell it for that -- too many other products depend on it.  So what multiplier would they accept?  Four?  Five?  I can't say.  But it would probably cost a half trillion dollars to buy the OS division.  That is about $2000 for every man, woman and child in the US.

Your econometric forecasts are decidedly non-trivial in a field that changes as much as technology does.  If the government were to have purchased the most popular word processor in the early 1980s, the standard now would be Wordstar.  And being the government, that would indeed become the standard for everything.  Forget trying to do something new to compete -- the feds have spent the money, that's it.  No deviations.

I would argue that this is a terribly inappropriate use of public money.  There are other forces that will drive open sourcing.  Solaris is one example.  Beat the existing products with better products.  And trust the markets rather than the government (but yes, the anti-trust work should keep up).

There is no company who would sell an important software product that exceeds the cost of production but is less than its value (including "monopoly" pricing).  The government could procure rights only if it exceeds the market value.  That is inefficient, particularly when there is only one bidder.

Your example about pharmaceuticals is even more dangerous, particularly since the government retains march-in rights from any work it funds from federal grants.  Since most biotech companies (who do all the R&D these days) support some of their work through grants, the government could in principle take the patent rights.  They have not done so yet, and for very good reason.

It is dangerous because you have no idea how many people and industries depend on pharmaceuticals, or how expensive or how long it takes it is to develop pharmaceuticals.  Even if the US moved to something like Hillary Care my company would go out of business (I'm in biotech).  I would lose my life savings -- all of it.  All investment in the segment would cease, and innovation would die. 

Look at what happened to industry investment when Hillary Care was being discussed.  I have had the pleasure of talking at length with George Rathmann (the founder of Amgen and many other biotech companies) on many occasions.  One of his more powerful slides charts the investment into biotech as a function of government policy.  Whenever there is a move to remove free-market incentives or patent protection, investment has tumbled.  And with that goes innovation.  Now investment picke back up when Hillary Care crashed, but keep an eye on investment into biotech if Hillary is elected.  I figure I have until then to get my next investment round, or else my company is dead.  If she is elected, that is.

For one example, like HIV/AIDS, the government certainly can purchase the product on a negotiated contract and then choose to resell the product at a reduced price (or give it away) as a public health policy.  That would be appropriate for Africa, for example, and would be a lot better than hammering at the pharma companies to reduce their cost.  The pharma companies are not in the foreign policy business.  They probably would give the government a very reasonable price to be rid of the headache.

The founding fathers were very wise to grant limited monopolies through patents to spur innovation.  There may be issues with what constitutes obviousness, or with one system fitting all industry segments.  These limited monopolies are good, and have helped to spur investment in innovation.  While it sounds like a Microsoft commercial, that part of their argument is sound.  It is that they use this basic truth to cover other practices that are not.

I'll leave the discussion now.

and what's wrong with that?
The Scandinavian countries have much higher taxes than the uk and what that gives is a free education to any level, free grants in education (that's right no need to pay any loans back), free universal health care, unemployment benefits and host of other things.

Sweden is a prime example of social democracy whereby most things are nationalised which means more money if floating amongst more people than a few.

A bit sensationalist but worth at least watching once is Michael Moores new film Sicko , there is enough proof that universal free health care is beneficial, it came out recently in England and some people came out crying after watching it, they could not believe how lucky they are as well as not believing  how bad the US health system is , draconian insurance policies instead of sensible health policies, I really feel sorry for Americans.
 

The US economy is not doing good anyway, so I am sure if you looked at other companies at the same time , they would be low.
I gave Red Hat as a example, IBM , SUN , MySQL AB , HP , Nokia, Intel are just some of the big companies who contribute and make money of open source , anyone who thinks you cannot is just living under a rock, there is so much evidence that its possible its not even funny denying it.

Last edited by lobster (2007-11-02 20:31:32)