Posted on 01/19/2009 10:58:22 AM PST by newbie2008
Eric Raymond, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in the book--why open source software development has been so successful, the culture of open source, under what conditions open source is likely to thrive and not to thrive, and the Hayekian nature of the open source process. The conversation closes with a discussion of net neutrality.
They start off by properly defining hackers and crackers. Good. I’ll actually bother listening to it =P
Would be interesting to see that in comparison with the more-widely-understood "Marxian nature of the open source process"...
ping
“Would be interesting to see that in comparison with the more-widely-understood “Marxian nature of the open source process”
that’s what the competition says because they don’t know how to compete.
There is nothing Marxist about open source. Open source is a function of the free market and is a direct competitor to proprietary/name-brand software. In terms of economics, as incremental cost goes down, so does price until incremental cost reaches zero then price equals zero. There is typically no labor cost involved. Production costs are neglible unless a user orders a CD. Typically there is a like a $5 charge for this. And overhead is often covered by grants or a business that sponsors the open source venture. Therefore, the overall cost of production is near or at zero.
Many companies such as Sun Microsystems use open source software such as Open Office as a way to promote their own proprietary software or operating system as with Sun. Usually a charitable foundation is set up and the contributions to that foundation are tax deductible. There's nothing un-free market about it. If non-open source companies can't compete, they go out of business. Even Microsoft is seeing open source as a necessity to survive.
You think open source is Marxist because it's free? There are many costs to the user. Often the user forsakes certain functions in an open source software that are available standard in the proprietary version. There are other similar costs. But overall the total cost of ownership to a user and especially a business are considerably lower. TANSTAAFL.
There are many Linux companies that sell their own proprietary versions that they would never had developed had AT&T not released the Unix source code. Very free market. Nothing Marxist about this.
Developers and contributors to open source software have open market ulterior motives. They pad their resumes with the role they played in the software development thereby increasing their own value in the labor market.
No, I don't think Marx would think highly about open source software. Marx would likely see it as exploitative of the developers especially when the developers are working with a large corporation's charitable foundation.
The restrictions on OSS is vastly less than on MSFT products.
I don't see it. Marx had everyone supposedly working for the common good with no payback, but OSS is capitalist, just using value contributed as currency instead of money.
Also, Marx sided with the Labor Theory of Value, while OSS doesn't care how much time went into contributions, just the value you contributed (Value Theory, more closely related to capitalism).
Checkmate.
Amazing << Hear this. Feel this, and tell me that this isn't music.
And dont sleep on these two, either.
I'm not sure whether your questions are intended to be taken at face value or are merely rhetorical.
That said, it is somewhat amusing to see all of the positions and beliefs that various posters are imputing to me, or the "education" that some are trying to give me, absent any evidence that I either hold any such positions or need any such "education".
My post was a sardonic comment about a vocal slice of the open-source community who are stridently anti-private-property, anti-commerce, and pro-Obama. Nothing more, nothing less...
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I gotta go with Hayek.
Excellent choice. I applaud your good taste. ;-)
ummm but in this case we may need some restrictions on Hayek to keep this site worksafe...
what about all those pro Obama Apple people? They aren’t exactly fans of the GPL
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