Because the question was absurd. You might as well have been scoffing at the idea that there are men who cook and do their own laundry.
I’m one of those elusive non-IT Linux users. So was the person who introduced it to me. So was the person who introduced it to him, whose brother is a Linux nerd hobbyist but works as a landscaper. Of the literal dozens of Linux users I personally know, only one is an IT professional.
And not only am I not an IT professional, I am generally pretty bad with computers. I FAILED Q-BASIC TWICE IN HIGHSCHOOL for crying out loud. And yet I find Ubuntu, a completely free Linux distribution, to be only slightly more difficult than Windows XP was to me when I switched over from Mac, and not only that but it works better than Windows did in almost every respect. Your characterization of Linux as being unusable at a consumer level is flat-out objectively WRONG.
This is precisely my point. Open source consists of tools made by producers towards the end of delivering a completely different product to consumers. By the nature of information, it benefits from a network effect where multiple producers can cooperate with each other to improve their tools. However, there is never and has never been a design consideration for consumers in open-source software, because such a consideration requires R&D investment and entrepreneurial risk, thus consuming capital. Open-source cannot be capitalized. Such a thing would compete with the producers’ markets, to which end open-source is designed to serve.
In short, open-source cannot be more than an intermediate good in the division of labor economy.
I think I understand your point, however I am going to shift it back to [primarily] physical property as that is what I am most familiar with. I work with surgeons to design implants that no lay man (patient) has any significant interest (other than safety). Yes, there is the opportunity to “patent” such emergent technologies but that is immaterial to me. The bottom line is that I learn from what has been done before despite the patent system precisely because I wish to improve the outcome for the end user (patient). Personally, I see this as a valuable goal absent of profit conflicts raised by IP. Thus, my utilitarian argument (since much of this thread has been) is that if you want the most efficient medical care, IP is only a barrier. [I’m assuming that by my description the products I create are in the same realm as a backhoe]
P.S. There is certainly another argument to be had regarding entrepreneurial risk and how the FDA affects that, but I choose not to explain that at this time since it’s not a subject of this thread.
Stranger: “What has largely happened is that open source has kept its niche of the marketplace (catering to producers instead of consumers) and the status quo prevails.”
Wut? What about Chromium, Android, WordPress, and Firefox?
Stranger: “Do you know a Linux user who is not a trained IT professional?”
LS knows me. Also, my cousin uses Ubuntu and I got another cousin who has a Droid 2. Also, most of the people I know who use a web browser use either Firefox or Chrome.
Again not trying to be contrary, but what proportion of users must adopt a different product before it becomes a consumer good? Wikipedia is identifying a slim majority over the rest by IE (“consumer good” correct?). What would be interesting is an overlap graph comparing that usage to windows users as I think windows has quite a bit higher number–implying those users chose a separate solution for their web browsing (as I have).
Edit: Yes, here are the OS usage numbers. It implies that there is a 30% gap between windows users and IE users–is this not enough to establish the other web browser products as consumer goods regardless of their monetary cost? Honest question.
There aren’t people who consumer Chrome, Android, WordPress nor Firefox?
I think the interesting thing you identified here is Android because it has an emergent market share and while the choice of OS was perhaps made by the phone manufacturer during development, it’s now obvious that the consumer has agreed with the choice if the sales of the latest phones are any indication.
Again not trying to be contrary, but what proportion of users must adopt a different product before it becomes a consumer good?
That is not the point. These goods are produced as inputs to other goods. Chrome is produced to act as an input to Google web apps, for example. It is designed to provide the best web app experience. That is how Google can afford to give it away for free and to open its source code. It cannot lose any business on its web apps by opening the source code to the browser input.
The Android software is an input to cell phones and the Android App Market.
Contrast this with Mac OS X, which is designed to provide the best desktop experience. That is a consumer good. It exists for its own end.
So one of your statements (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that there is a difference between software products that is also dependent on their intent–i.e. seeking profit thru other means or just for the hell of it?
I understand the “loss leader” concept, I’m just trying to apply it in the situation you imply.
Hypothetical: Dell currently sells computers with open source operating systems–were the open source OSes to become a majority, how would that affect your views regarding open/closed source? (Surely you can claim that would never happen but since we are speaking in the theoretical I thought I might ask it).
Hypothetical: Dell currently sells computers with open source operating systems–were the open source OSes to become a majority, how would that affect your views regarding open/closed source?
It wouldn’t. Their economic nature would remain exactly the same.
Stranger: "That is not the point. These goods are produced as inputs to other goods. Chrome is produced to act as an input to Google web apps, for example. It is designed to provide the best web app experience. That is how Google can afford to give it away for free and to open its source code. It cannot lose any business on its web apps by opening the source code to the browser input.
The Android software is an input to cell phones and the Android App Market.
Contrast this with Mac OS X, which is designed to provide the best desktop experience. That is a consumer good. It exists for its own end."
Are you saying that whether a good is either a consumer good or a producer good is determined by the producer of the good?
So you are saying that you are a communist? Or that I am a communist, because I ask you why you think there MUST be something produced? You where the one stating that studio-quality must still be produced. I think we agree that it must not, only what the market demands.
Here goes another attempt to explain what’s wrong with the concept that it’s ideas that should be protected and is scarce:
Your mind is scarce, and it’s your private property. You can protect it.
Your land is scarce, and it’s your private property. You can protect it.
Both of these properties can be transformed to anything you want, it only requires your mental (and later your action) power to do so. The brain can be used to understand unlimited different ideas, theories, concepts and hold any type of arbitrary information. The mind is limitless, in the sense that you can use it to form any new or old idea. (Do I need to clarify that I’m not talking about limitless number of ideas, but limitless in whatever ideas you choose to fill your mind with?)
Your land can equally be transformed to anything you want, if you could manipulate at a nano-scale, you could probably make whatever your mind thinks about, using some of the dirt on your ground.
After you have created products, either in your mind or on your land, you are free to sell those as you choose. You can sell your idea to your friend for a dollar and you can sell a corn to the same friend for another dollar. Now your friend is in the possession of one corn and one idea. He is the master and commander of both of these and he can do with them as he see fit.
What are the logical errors in this? What false are there in this example?
Thank goodness evolution in thought is truth, not origination of thought, or one might be stuck forever with Mises or Rothbard.
I am happy to see you are overwhelmingly outnumbered in this thread and that people are not interested in freeloading, symbol pirating, technology piggybacking, royalty weasling, hypocritical, pro IP Nazi Monopolists imposing the costs and burden of IP contract enforcement upon everyone else using force.
If not wanting to be coerced into paying the enforcement costs of someone elses IP contracts makes me a communist I will proudly wear the label.
I am happy to see you are overwhelmingly outnumbered in this thread and that people are not interested in freeloading, symbol pirating, technology piggybacking, royalty weasling, hypocritical, pro IP Nazi Monopolists imposing the costs and burden of IP contract enforcement upon everyone else using force.
Being overwhelmingly outnumbered by lower quality minds was also the burden of Mises and Rothbard, and today we still talk of them, never of their detractors.
If the ultimate argument of IP communism is mass appeal, I don’t see that there is anything else for me to add.
I will add that Rothbard denounced the Whig theory of scientific evolution, which you seem to be enthusiastically embracing.
My dad is 60 years old. He grew up without plumping. He has a highschool diploma. I taught him how to use a computer last year. It runs linux. surfing the web and doing email on those platforms is pretty easy. Installing the OS is even easier than installing windows, and my friends who don’t even know how to use torrents can do it.
It’s nothing short of pathetic that Stranger appeals to technology to defend his position on IP, hoping that people who aren’t so understanding of technology will back down. He doesn’t care about being right. He cares only about winning an argument.
Just a heads up, though. You’re not going to confuse me on IP by appealing to computers. I’m doing a master’s degree in CS/CE. So instead of going to technology for examples and confusing people in the hopes that they’ll give up, why not argue on things they understand/present the ideas of IP clearly? Is it because IP itself isn’t clear?
There we go again. No one is aruging for “communism”. No one is asking that everyone control everyone else’s minds. I don’t know why you assume this is the case and why you repeatedly erect this strawman. Are you confused as to what physical property rights are?
