> However, I'm sure you appreciate the following facts:
> 1. NSA has public-face parts of the agency (Information Assurance > Research Office, National Computer Security Center) involved in > Computer Security issues.
> 2. NSA has a non-public-face part of the agency involved in > cryptanalysis.
> 3. Many people confuse these two faces.
> It would be better to get a clarification from RMS regarding which > part of NSA the contact was from, as "moral support" from the > non-public-face part of NSA isn't always as resounding an > endorsement as one might think at first, especially given that the > contact was in the early 1990s [when NSA's non-public-face was > apparently fighting tooth and nail to prevent exportation of strong > crypto].
I can't recall which, but I'm pretty sure it was camp (1). They were interested in secure systems, not codes.
But it's a long time ago, and it didn't mean much in the large scheme of things. I mentioned it only because it was a kind of ally in the strangest places sort of story.
> There is, for example, ample evidence that electronic computers > produced downward price pressure for human computers. But nobody > really mourns the loss of that job category...
Perhaps more timely, there is ample evidence that downward price pressure caused by competition [at various levels, among both chip manufacturers and "integrators"] has eroded the profit base of COTS PC systems, even when they include the Microsoft tax. This is given as a justification for the recent Compaq/HP merger [*sigh*, HP owning DEC! *sigh*]
Now there is an obvious social positive that comes out of this: cheaper PCs means that consumers with lower incomes can afford computers [or better ones if they could already afford them].
However, there is the risk of significant social negatives coming out of this, especially in the Houston area [Compaq's headquarters]. With the merger of Compaq and HP, many people will get laid off and the Houston economy isn't exactly robust given the recent failure of Enron.
It's clearly not a win-win situation. But, there is a curious fact:
Even in the fact of price pressure eradicating margins, neither Compaq nor HP has decided to inflate their profit margin by using Linux by default instead of Windows. This would seem to indicate that the cost of the open source software [which includes a lack of support for certain cheaper hardware components used - especially in laptops] was higher than losing some $$$ to licensing Windows.
Further evidence of this is the curious waffling of Dell [the #1 PC integrator] regarding the support of Linux on their personal desktop line [which is experiencing the most intense profit margin squeeze.]
Now, if I were going to predict a free-software-only future, it's in *exactly* this space that I'd look for it first, as the OS provides the most general services and requires the least amount of customization to serve the same variety of users / industries. [I think that more customization -> slower acceptance of free software.] What am I missing?
Disclaimer: I'm originally from Houston. Some of my family still lives there. My brother-in-law works for Compaq [for now.] I own no fewer than 4 Compaq systems [3 desktops, 1 laptop] and have 1 additional Compaq laptop from my employer. But then, I also have a Toshiba Libretto and a Sony VAIO, so I'm not *that* biased, my fondness for DEC equipment [I used to own a PDP-11 34/a] notwithstanding.
-jon -- ------------------ Jon Allen Boone ipmon...@delamancha.org
> Now, if I were going to predict a free-software-only future, it's > in *exactly* this space that I'd look for it first, as the OS > provides the most general services and requires the least amount of > customization to serve the same variety of users / industries. [I > think that more customization -> slower acceptance of free > software.] What am I missing?
Well, for many classes of users, there still isn't a GNU/Linux distribution that does what they want from Microsoft. There are a number of very popular things that don't work, etc., and most users want to run random off-the-shelf Windoze-only programs, and can't do that on a GNU/Linux system.
This is not particular to free software; it's a sort of network effect that affects any "new" operating system trying to enter the market. BeOS suffered a similar fate, and MacOS seems to be only barely big enough to stave off disaster.
However, free software doesn't recoup development costs the same way, so failing to get gobs of market share doesn't kill development the way it did kill development of BeOS.
> > I don't recall seeing any such tools described or any factual backing > > that it was downward price pressure from Free Software that caused > > those tools to die.
> Which is it that you doubt? > - That free software causes downward price pressure
In a market model where we assume that a copy of the software is a pure commodity, yes, since it has an exchange value approaching zero. Otherwise we would need to examine the software's nature as a commodity. The presence of both phenomena the same market is not conclusive either, since FS can flood into collapsed markets when unprofitable IP is released or anywhere some free software coders write it. For this reason I asked for factual backing.
I think that Franz has downward price pressure from CMUCL as much as from LW, but I think they get the most pressure from non CL development environments which are sold dirt cheap in comparison, have tons of integration support, buzzword compliance and third party certification battallions. Erann Gatt understands this I think. Perhaps I can get some feedback on this hypothesis.
I see this is the real threat to Our market, not other CL programmers who want to share their work. Considering where the state is directing funds these days I think that the remaining lisp market is going to be flooded with competition and that means more downward price pressure coming from forces much larger than free software. The encroachment of commodity languages also shrinks the CL market in general thru standardization and commodification of the entire development process. Java, .Net etc... are our competition, not any of the free software systems. I have seen nothing from vendors indicating they treat the Free Software community around CL as a threat.
I understand that you see yourself as just bringing an opinion to bare and asking people to consider a question. I hope you understand that many people take that as divisive and unproductive considering the competition we're all up against. I propose that we redirect our discussion towards cooperation across commercial and free CL projects in the face of the issues facing the CL community as a whole.
-- Craig Brozefsky <cr...@red-bean.com> Free Software Sociopath(tm) http://www.red-bean.com/~craig Ask me about Common Lisp Enterprise Eggplants at Red Bean!
> and Gnome and KDE would eventually have put it out of business > entirely whether lesstif happened or not.
Now this plainly ain't so.
Gnome/KDE only address the GUI aspects of what OSF had to offer, which was hardly the whole pie. I *know* you know this, as the lead developer of the HURD. OSF had problems - that much is sure - but Gnome/KDE came on the horizon far too late to be effectively anything other than an afterthought. For example, DFS was too heavy-weight to work effectively in a world without ubiquitous broadband.
And, of course, the politics of UNIX vendors in the 1990s is enough to choke a horse. But then, they didn't see Microsoft as the enemy [instead, it was IBM] and by the time they looked down upon the lowly PC market with enough respect to recognize it for the potential threat that it was, their lunch had already been eaten...
I'm sure Gosling had fun designing Java, but why was Sun even researching embedded devices as a market space? Because they were king of the hill and looking to grow into the next IBM? It doesn't look that way from where I sit...
> And that's a *good* thing, because Gnome and KDE actually work > well compared to the previously existing options.
I find your notion that advances in software [such as Gnome] necessarily involve a winner-take-all end-game [visa-vie Motif] to be disturbing. There's no particular reason - given 1000 or so counter-factuals - that Motif couldn't have evolved into something better like Gnome. So, given that it could have, why *shouldn't* it have? And if it should have, how can it be *good* that it didn't?
Now, perhaps I'm just weird, but when *I* say things similar to the thing you said above it isn't because I am truly happy with the world because it's playing out the way that it ought to [normative-sense]. Rather, it's because I disagree with the class of outcomes in general and find it philosophically satisfying to see advocates choke on their own vile point of view [i.e. the world is playing out exactly the way that they described it]. But, even then, I can't help feeling sorry for the misguided fools all the same.
-jon -- ------------------ Jon Allen Boone ipmon...@delamancha.org
> I've spent about 1/2 of a year working on some Lisp tools. Ignoring > small numbers of tens of thousands, let's say a year of salary is > $100K to me, so let's say I'd have been paid $50K to produce that > code.
[...]
You have produced something that you think is of value to people, but you fear that the (inevitable) presence of free equivalents will make people not pay you for it, making you wonder whether it was worthwhile creating this stuff in the first place.
And I sympathize. It is a bit of a conundrum. Other industries use patents to make their inventions proprietary. Would that be a useful tool for you to use?
On the other hand -- why should anyone (but you) concern themselves that you've chosen a method of making a living that, er, doesn't work? You clearly have a great number of options available open for you, but you seem to insist on making a living in this one area (commodity software), that's probably not a viable area?
-- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) la...@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
In article <sfw8z8773je....@shell01.theworld.com>, Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:
> ... > And Google may put librarians out of business, indeed, computers and robots > may put a lot of low-end labor out of business, but whether the world will > be better with those people having no jobs is quite open to question. > If there's one thing more than any other that troubles me ethically about > computer science today it's the degree to which it is losing people jobs. > And if it doesn't trouble you, it should.
i think you are looking at the problem the wrong way. essentially hat you are saying is that computer science (or technology in general) enables us to produce more with the same effort / cost or the same with less effort / cost, something i would consider a benefit under any circumstances. how the benefit is distributed is a plitical or societal decision. but without making the technology available, the society doesn't even have a choice.
would you be troubled by tool manufacturing (hammers, knives), because some of the tools are misused to kill people?
> ...
hs
--
don't use malice as an explanation when stupidity suffices
> On the other hand -- why should anyone (but you) concern themselves > that you've chosen a method of making a living that, er, doesn't > work? You clearly have a great number of options available open for > you, but you seem to insist on making a living in this one area > (commodity software), that's probably not a viable area?
Perhaps they shouldn't care.
Perhaps you're right that we are not a community after all and that people who have bad things happen to them are on their own.
Perhaps I am just roadkill.
Perhaps I should just expect to be kicked in the teeth and nothing more.
Perhaps I should apologize for having cared to try.
* Eric Moss <ericm...@alltel.net> | Actually, I got it, as the paragraph you copied shows. My point in that | paragraph was that Erik's story seemed irrelevant in that it compared | your concept (volunteers giving on individual bases) to a gov't. program | he despised.
There was no mention of any government programs anywhere. Sheesh.
/// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.
> Gnome/KDE only address the GUI aspects of what OSF had to offer, > which was hardly the whole pie. I *know* you know this, as the lead > developer of the HURD.
My point is that if you attribute the death of the OSF to competition of lesstif against motif, then Gnome/KDE would have killed it even more effectively.
Of course the OSF had many products, and its demise is not attributable to the loss of competitive success of any one of them, I think.
> I find your notion that advances in software [such as Gnome] > necessarily involve a winner-take-all end-game [visa-vie Motif] to > be disturbing. There's no particular reason - given 1000 or so > counter-factuals - that Motif couldn't have evolved into something > better like Gnome. So, given that it could have, why *shouldn't* it > have? And if it should have, how can it be *good* that it didn't?
I don't actually have a winner-take-all attitude. After all, both Gnome and KDE are great, and I'm the first to say that successful free software projects are pretty much always cooperators rather than competitors. This is an oversimplification (there are things that are competitive in the usual sense), but I think it's mostly true.
I was responding to what I took to be an implied supposition that lesstif undercut motif and contributed materially to the demise of OSF, so I was taking that as a presupposition for the sake of argument, not advocating it in my own voice.
> Perhaps you want to ask about the *first* copy rather than the > marginal cost of the Nth copy. The marginal cost of the first copy > of some package software is certainly very large. But here > *everyone* is selling way below cost.
Actually, many open source advocates recommend a business practice which involves charging the first customer the entire cost of development and then giving it away free afterward, with the main benefit being that you get [presumably gratis] maintenance. This is the net effect of charing my time to Company A in order to create or modify some open-source software which is then subsequently distributed under a GPL(like) license.
Most commercial organizations take the cost of development and amortize across the total projected ship volume. If they don't think that they will ship enough to at least break even, they drop development and pursue more financially rewarding products.
So, it is not necessarily the case that a product shipping for $100,000 per copy is being sold for way over cost. It depends on the number of copies projected to be sold.
It also appears that you're applying economics inappropriately. It's true in the physical world where material costs outweight all other component costs that marginal revenue per item versus marginal cost per item are relevant metrics for determining whether or not to produce another widget.
But, that doesn't apply to the software world since the cost of materials is essentially zero. In order to retro-fit standard economic models to the software industry, it's necessary to amortize development costs across all projected ship units. Otherwise, the initial unit cost of much software is high enough to be essentially infinite and will not, therefore, be produced for a lack of market.
-jon -- ------------------ Jon Allen Boone ipmon...@delamancha.org
> So, it is not necessarily the case that a product shipping for > $100,000 per copy is being sold for way over cost. It depends on > the number of copies projected to be sold.
*Marginal* cost.
> But, that doesn't apply to the software world since the cost of > materials is essentially zero. In order to retro-fit standard > economic models to the software industry, it's necessary to amortize > development costs across all projected ship units. Otherwise, the > initial unit cost of much software is high enough to be essentially > infinite and will not, therefore, be produced for a lack of market.
You have asserted an interesting theorem, but in fact, lots of free software is produced. What follows from this? Let's see:
I'm not pushing to get rid of the copyright system. So supposing the copyright system remains the way it is, and supposing that your theorem is correct, then there are two kinds of software:
A) software that does get produced by the free software system,
B) software that does not, because nobody will pay the first-unit fixed costs of development.
Two observations:
First, there have been many pronouncements that such-and-such a product category is surely in segment (B), but for which soon enough an excellent free software implementation was produced, showing the category to be in segment (A). But perhaps there are some things that will never move to segment (A); still, this should give pause about further pronouncements that such-and-such a product category is surely in segment (B).
Second, your statement suggests that segment (A) is empty, when in fact, segment (A) is an impressively large segment.
So I think you are missing an analysis of why some things are in (A) and others in (B).
When you say "it's necessary to amortize...", what do you mean then? That no free software will ever get written?
> I proposed a variety of ways of making money and asked for commentary.
Yeah, but you seemed to be saying "my favorite way of making money by writing software is not as effective as I want it to be, when there is free software competition, therefore I'm being kicked in the teeth".
I'm afraid you don't get that much sympathy that your favorite way of making money doesn't work when people effectively compete against you. But that doesn't mean that you are being deprived of the ability to make a living. It doesn't mean that you are being deprived of the ability to make a living by hacking Lisp. It might mean that you will earn less than you otherwise would, but then, I'm pretty sure that someone as smart as you can count on getting an income considerably higher than the US median.
And even if your mode of making money were obsoleted, and you had to find a totally different way to earn a living, that's not "forcing you out of work", and it's certainly not kicking you in the teeth.
Buggy-whip and vacuum tube makers also had to find other lines of work. And we're not talking here about obsoleting computer programming as a way to make money, just about obsoleting one particular economic model of doing so, with others staying around quite happily earning their users plenty of cash.
And this is all assuming that free software will obsolete the dominant commercial software money-making model, which is not at all clear to me, even though it seems so obviously a danger to you.
> On the other hand -- why should anyone (but you) concern themselves > that you've chosen a method of making a living that, er, doesn't > work? You clearly have a great number of options available open for > you, but you seem to insist on making a living in this one area > (commodity software), that's probably not a viable area?
Because it could happen to you too? [for sufficiently applicable values of "you".]
What, other than custom programming, isn't eventually commodity software?
If nothing, then the question becomes how to ascertain the Time To Market of the open-source equivalents so that you can determine whether or not you can recoup your costs before the gratis version appears. Which means hiring Marketing people [ewwwww] and Business planners and Lawyers... that's no way for a one-person development shop to survive [as a one-person development shop]...
So, perhaps the independents need to band together...
-jon -- ------------------ Jon Allen Boone ipmon...@delamancha.org
> What, other than custom programming, isn't eventually commodity > software?
Nothing. The commodity software market isn't viable as a business proposition.
Other people are depressed that their favorite area of business isn't viable ("Oh, the bottom just fell out of the macramé market"), and I sympathize. But that's just how it is.
-- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) la...@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
* David Golden | Cannot "take them back? - no, he cannot arbitarily decide to stop anyone | using the patch he released, but at the same time, he can certainly, as | the original copyright holder, use a new license for all subsequent | versions of the code comprising the patch.
The kwyword is "published". Once published, some expression or idea is "out there" and cannot be taken back to be used as an "edge" elsewhere. If you are at all creative, you will see that you do things better than other people. If you intend to make a reasonable living, your uniqueness comes with a price tag higher than the competitors in the labor market who are not as creative. If you just give away your "edge", nobody has any reason to higher you at a better rate than your competitors or to hire you at all, because they can get a monkey to ask you questions and use your code, or look at all the patches you post and scavange them.
Who is to tell whether something is a copyright infringement? Just doing something wrong is not enough -- somebody needs to discover it before they can get reparations. This is the hardest part of all of this.
| Well,yes
Thank you for at least acknowledging the point.
| - but you wouldn't have the code at all if you hadn't agreed to the | license - think about it "I just got the source for SQL Server from | Microsoft, and now the big meanies won't let me change the license for my | tree and resell it" - sounds silly, doesn't it?
Please note that I have not used _anything_ from Microsoft since the Altos computer I got with Xenix back in 1985. I have _never_ bought a license from Microsoft for any of their DOS-based crap. Saying X is good by pointing out how great it is relative to Microsoft's crap does exactly _nothing_ for me -- I am _already_ free of their evil control.
For a long time, I have argued that the _only_ purpose of the Open Source and Free Software movement _today_ is to fight Microsoft, and that this is an against-fight, such that the whole movement would disperse into nothingness if they actually won. Regardless, I have found other ways to fight Microsoft than to give away my livelihood. So that is no longer the only solution. Productive thinking about the impact of free software has to return to a state of "unsolved problem", because I am no longer interested in any "better than pure evil" argument, and I think offering this argument over and over is deeply insulting to those who at least try to take you seriously and at least _try_ listen to your arguments. Microsoft is _completely_ irrelevant. They have no more power over you than you give them. Just do not give them any.
| The GPL is NOT public domain.
Since you have to tell people this, you cannot have paid much attention. Please do not restate the obvious -- it tells people that you think they are idiots who missed it or that you are.
| You can still set up your own tree, but, without negotiating alternate | terms with the original copyright holder, it'll be GPL... Again, this is | usually thought to be a feature, rather than a bug.
Would you _mind_ trying to think about the issue? We all know all the propaganda from the Free Software side. This is about when and how it is _not_ a feature.
You strike me as one of those recent converts who gets tricked into walking the streets offering people "personality tests", which is great for the "cause" you work for, but what is at stake here is not whether someone believes it is "beneficial" in some absolute sense, but the _relative_ beneficialness of some political ideal to all alternatives.
/// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.
> I've spent about 1/2 of a year working on some Lisp tools. Ignoring > small numbers of tens of thousands, let's say a year of salary is > $100K to me, so let's say I'd have been paid $50K to produce that > code. And not only have I produced it but I have taken on risk by > producing it which I would not have taken on if I'd worked for > someone else;
Let's assume that the extra small numbers of tens of thousands of $$$ pay for Kent's risk.
So, who here makes a 6 figure salary and works primarily (or exclusively) on open source software?
[Just in case anyone isn't aware, there is (today) a labor market for people to work on closed-source software with 6+ figure salaries attached.]
Even though I am sympathetic with Kent's plight, I do expect him to do the economically rational thing, all other things being equal. So, unless he can make a comparable salary working on open source stuff, I don't actually expect him to spend any significant time on it...
-jon -- ------------------ Jon Allen Boone ipmon...@delamancha.org
> > I proposed a variety of ways of making money and asked for commentary.
> Yeah, but you seemed to be saying "my favorite way of making money by > writing software is not as effective as I want it to be, when there is > free software competition, therefore I'm being kicked in the teeth". > [more non-responsiveness elided]
So basically you're saying you have no suggestions.
I heard the joke about the buggy whip already. It's getting old.
I went to trouble to make the situation concrete so that you'd have a nice clear situation to offer concrete suggestions about but you're jumping immediately to flattery, as in
> I'm pretty sure that someone as smart as you can count > on getting an income considerably higher than the US median.
perhaps to cover for having nothing really useful to suggest? I'm just guessing of course. All I know for sure is that you're short on details of how I'm supposed to do better. I've offered you details and you've responded with nothing but off-topic remarks, veiled put-downs, and casual dismissals.
I did, by the way, say that although we are talking about me, part of the reason is just that I had data about me. I said I don't think there are any really unique aspects of my situation, and so there are others likely to be in the same dilemma. So even if I am as smart as you find it suddenly convenient to acknowledge, what about others who are not as intellectually well-endowed as I am told I am? If _even I_ can't understand how to turn a buck in this situation, what about the mere commoner. Please have pity. They are lost without your guidance.
> What, other than custom programming, isn't eventually commodity > software?
Well, I made money working for the Free Software Foundation for a number of years. I also did work for MIT on mostly free software. I know people who are paid to develop subversions (an improved system to replace CVS), people who work for Cygnus doing support and other programming, and the like.
* Jon Allen Boone <ipmon...@delamancha.org> | Erik, you give an example where a collection of non-open-source patches | were not accepted verbatim by the vendor.
Well, they took the form of requests for future enhancement, and some have been adopted verbatim, but most have been taken more seriously than I expected and led to more fundamental changes, such that my local patches would still apply, but have a destructive effect, instead.
| Presumably, one benefit of the open source model is that even if the | local patches are not accepted by the vendor [project lead], you still | may be able to find other people who can assist you in the integration | process, thereby assisting you in amortizing the cost. | | Is that something that you could have (did?) do with your ACL patches?
Well, I had the freedom to be that integrator for others. Basically, they are still at 5.0.1.
| If you couldn't have, would it have been helpful to you if you would have | been able to?
I think Franz Inc believes that anyone who builds an application on top of Allegro CL is actually providing their product to third-party customers with some "local patches" (a.k.a. "application") applied. The whole vocabulary (like Value-Added Reseller) indicates that they do not just sell you a binary-producing system.
| Would you have continued to make local modifications to Gnu Emacs if | someone else were to track Gnu Emacs development and do the integration | work for you?
That is a very good question. This would, in my view, constitute a "fork" with some particular features. A project called emacs-dl, which allowed Emacs to dynamically load foreign code, did just that for some particular needs. It is still at Emacs-20.7, even though Emacs 21.2 was just released. Here is the Debian package system description:
emacs20-dl - The GNU Emacs editor. (Dynamic Loading supported)
GNU Emacs is the extensible self-documenting text editor. This binary supports the Dynamic Loading architecture(dl). If you want to use dynamic loadable modules, you should use this instead of pure emacs20 package. Dynamic Loadable Module examples are Canna/Wnn input method support. (emacs-dl-canna/emacs-dl-wnn package)
And some dirty patch applied. Dirty means such as, Rejected by upstream authors (difficult for merge), Code from other emacsen, like XEmacs/Meadow/obsolete Mule2.3, or backported.
| How much would such a service be worth to you?
Well, right now, I am working with a new completion algorithm for Emacs (and readline, in time). Instead of expanding to stop before the first disambiguating character, I want to see the best attempt with various portions of the completed string highlighted in various colors. E.g., if I wrote m-s--s TAB, I would get make-string-input-stream with "ake", "tring", "put", and "tream" in green (only completion) and "in" in red (more alternatives), and then a new TAB would replace "in" with "out". I would want point (the cursor) to be behind the completed word, so I could just keep writing, but "i" and "o" would choose "in" or "out" and turn all the completed text green. There are design issues to work out here, but I am tired of completion that (1) pops up windows, and (2) does not learn what I really want in context.
Should I complete this work (pun intended), I am not sure I want to give it away under GPL conditions. Suppose I invent something really clever as part of this development process. I may not know that myself for a while, but if I did, I want to be able to recover more than time and cost in developing it. Suppose I write a paper about it and make a binary available -- people could conceivably want to pay me for this feature. I would have closed that door to opportunity if I had published the code. Worse, if I am not particular good at marketing to idiots, and somebody else is, just having the code in the open would allow someone to take the ideas it contains and reimplement them in a clean-room setting such that none of my code remained. This is why patents are good -- they both encourage people to try to do better, _and_ protect you from competitors who do not succeed in that.
/// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.
> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <la...@gnus.org> writes:
> > On the other hand -- why should anyone (but you) concern themselves > > that you've chosen a method of making a living that, er, doesn't > > work? You clearly have a great number of options available open for > > you, but you seem to insist on making a living in this one area > > (commodity software), that's probably not a viable area?
> Perhaps they shouldn't care.
> Perhaps you're right that we are not a community after all and that > people who have bad things happen to them are on their own.
> Perhaps I am just roadkill.
> Perhaps I should just expect to be kicked in the teeth and nothing more.
> Perhaps I should apologize for having cared to try.
