Len Bullard wrote:
000001c7f217$1816de70$ee04b4d8@c4u6h3" type="cite">I am all for capitalism, competition, and commercial success in the market. The root of this discussion was about standardizing a common, open document format. Open source can't be said to be about one thing, but much of what fuels it is that those outside of direct benefit from the winners (who took all), i.e. the cathedral. Whether you are a user, developer, or government, you have choices that lead to being required to pay an endless stream of revenue for something that should be a commodity or to pooling your energy to support an actual commodity. Open source, to some extent, is the embodiement of the realization that there are developers that have no real chance at competing commercially on commercial terms, but that can make a difference in their and the collective net state by creating a competitive commodity.Right. Lock-in occurs when feedback based on near neighbors becomes irreversible leading to a natural monopoly. The question is then whether or not prices are optimum for the customers. If they aren't, a competitor has an easy time taking over niches where price breaks count. Looking at the adoption of some products, it is obvious that this tends to be the early adopters, hobbyists, start ups, etc. Outside of Microsoft's competitors who are fueling this controversy, those and the venture capitalists who will benefit in reducing MS dominance in any software area by their manipulation of the start ups. Microsoft can have all the "natural monopoly" they want, as long as they don't illegally extend it (anymore), but there is no justification for anyone outside Microsoft to hand over extensions to the monopoly when it is clearly not in the public good. A public, open, agreed upon standard is something that, for most organizations (IETF, W3C) is something that all comers can reasonably recreate and compete in the market with. (Possibly subject to a reasonable patent licensing arrangement.) 000001c7f217$1816de70$ee04b4d8@c4u6h3" type="cite">The main role in government in this is in having rules that allow and encourage competition by creating rules against dysfunctional practices that are "out of bounds". These are the kinds of practices, like illegal tying in monopolies, that cause run away effects and are definitely not in the interests of consumers. This includes standards processes that are open, complete, fair, correct, and in the interest of consumers.But government interference is not always the best possible outcome. Copyrights aren't enforced and patents become a means of exclusion. What about the case where the government finances the start up then allows it to obtain patents on information developed by open sources such as OASIS at the point of market emergence? 000001c7f217$1816de70$ee04b4d8@c4u6h3" type="cite">Sometimes perhaps people are a little too caught up in the "spirit of giving" and trade away possible commercial avenues. Frequently however, developers are facing a highly uncertain and unlikely road to commercial riches. It is quite reasonable to trade that uncertain road for simple technical success and eventual possible commercial success by going open source. In fact, many will already have a full time job that they would never leave to start a software startup to try to run with an idea. The fact that some do and others produce open source "competitors" is not anti-capitalist or socialist or whatever, it is simply a result of the availability of talent and the value of all kinds of compensation such as recognition, the knowledge that you made a difference, the learning that takes place when you try to compete on the world stage, etc. The commodity mechanism also comes into play: if enough people want something and it is accessible enough to accomplish, a highly competitive open source product may emerge that has more manpower behind it, and competitiveness in the market, than any commercial product.Doesn't happen, Mike? Yes it does. Remember HumanML? The OASIS initiative ran for several years. It produced prototypes and drafts, but mainly it produced an open list with a lot of research into emotion engines for simulators. It was derided on this list and elsewhere. Yesterday this showed up in the trades: http://www.newvectors.net/staff/parunakv/AAMAS06EmotionModel.pdf http://www.cnet.com/8301-13639_1-9773239-42.html?tag=nefd.blgs Look at the dates at the end of that paper. Note who financed it: DARPA and NPS. DARPA is the same organization that set Mosaic in motion having seen the work at the US Army and other companies such as EBT. NPS is one of the bigger sponsors of VRML/X3D where HumanML spawned. The government is not a singular good force for business. It manipulates the market too just as IBM is doing this time. It's a rough game. MS plays to win because when one looks around, so is everyone else. There is no "natural" monopoly. There is competition, winners, losers, and that profoundly unnatural but shining example of fools who become tools not by being unintelligent or untalented but unbelievably naïve or worse, so enchanted with their place in the priesthood they are more than willing to entice the naïve to offer up their work to knife and bleed for the gods of open source. 000001c7f217$1816de70$ee04b4d8@c4u6h3" type="cite">She was, but, for the most part, this is not about that. Open source is not anti-objectivism. For many people, via the mechanisms above and others, it is in fact a good embodiement of objectivism. Power to the people by using the power of the people. Ayn was rightly denigrating the stealing / taxing / coopting of those who can to give / do / create to those who can't / won't and allowing the recipients to be guilt-free and even righteous about their "right" to receive. Open source is about giving, giving back when you receive, and a network effect / software-can-be-duplicated-for-free market where everyone benefits more than they put in. Just because dollars aren't changing hands as much doesn't mean that it isn't a market.Ayn Rand was right. (Yikes. Do you know that the IRS regulations tax barter the same as monetary transactions? Luckily, open source is a "pay it forward" system for the most part which is not a "transaction" legally.) sdw 000001c7f217$1816de70$ee04b4d8@c4u6h3" type="cite">len From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike@saxonica.com] -- swilliams@hpti.com http://www.hpti.com Per: sdw@lig.net http://sdw.st Stephen D. Williams 703-371-9362C 703-995-0407Fax 20147 AIM: sdw |