The Simple Economics of Open Source

[Boris Borcic]

Gordon McMillan wrote:
> 
> Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> 
[...]
> > You're conflating separate markets. Unique artworks (paintings,
> > for example) have no real equivalent in the software world,
> > because software sales are based on essentially unlimited
> > identical copies.
> 
> 'Twas your analogy.

Imho, the relationship of the two cases is more subtle than
that. In a sense, MS Windows functions as a unique artwork.
A rather ugly one for many people with a bit of trained taste,
to be sure. Ascribing the name of "artwork" to MS Windows thus
finds two sorts of partial justifications : one is the relative
appeal it is designed to have with totally unsophisticated users,
the other is the abstract generalisation of this, e.g., saying
that it captures attention just by the "virtue" of being there,
that it binds people (and markets) to it as if it had a magnetic
field, just like artworks.

As for the matter of "essentially unlimited copies", this denies
the well-known place of software licences. Open source or closed
source, software comes with licences that obviously have the power
to determine in principle the properties of duplication processes.

Please note that calling MS Windows an "artwork" is in no way
intended as an endorsement of the ways of Bill Gates. This is
best illustrated by noting that a gun may be viewed as an artwork.
Comparing MS Windows to guns is actually enlightening. When
"networked" to a society where guns are commonplace, there is
a lot of incentive to acquire one, too.

BB