Public Domain Python

[Alex Martelli]

"Steve Holden" <sholden at holdenweb.com> wrote in message
news:39BF981E.7D166934 at holdenweb.com...
> Grant Griffin wrote:
> >
> [snip]
> >
> > I dunno...haven't you read Eric S. Raymond's piece about the "Gift
> > Economy" of free/open software?  His thesis is basically that one gains
> > status in the Gift Economy by giving away ones work, much as one gains
> > status in a conventional economy by accumulating wealth; therefore, to
> > carve someone's name of off some piece of software they have written is
> > to commit the gravest possible sin.
> >
> However, nobody has yet explained to me how we are going to reach the
> anarchistic/socialistic Utopia where we can manage to live while donating
> all our software to the world.  Which is a pity, since despite my age I

If you're really interested in such economic issues, then I can
recommend _another_ Raymond's piece, "The Magic Cauldron",
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/magic-cauldron/.  It's a
pretty good, basically neoclassical-economics, analysis of open
source, what are its intrinsical economic gains _and where_,
including some thoughts on the kinds of software that it does
NOT pay to open-source (there aren't many, but, there are some;
and Raymond is no hot-headed evangelist determined to push a
pre-fixed agenda, but a reasonably cool-headed observator and
commentator, more interested in how things are, and how comes
they are that way, than in converting heathens to The One True
Way -- IMHO, at least).

There's nothing either anarchistic or socialistic in Raymond's
vision as sketched in Magic Cauldron: the key motive is good
old enlightened greed, with Adam Smith's "magic hand" in an
important (supporting:-) role.  My take on this is that the
intrinsic advantages of open-source software are akin to those
of (Ricardian) free-trade.  Such advantages may not make it
prevail, because rent-seeking behaviour by those advantaged
by protectionism, trying to keep profiting to everybody else's
loss, is likely, and might succeed (just like protectionism has
many friends, and has blocked much of the advantages truly
free trade would confer).  Capitalism has huge intrinsic
advantages in terms of effectiveness, but feudalism managed
to hold out in France, despite it being a rather advanced
country, until the late 1700's , to give another example.


> am still enough of an idealist to liek the idea of surviving while doing
> what I enjoy most without external constraints.

The unrestrained triumph of open (or free) software will not, by
itself, give you that, any more than, say, that of free trade would.

You may enjoy, say, writing software, but unless you're
exceptionally good at it, and the fact becomes known, and
your skill is sought by people in need of specific parts, this
will not ensure you an income.  Your actual skill will in fact
be far more easily judged than today, since the software you
author will be viewable by potential customers; those who
are really good (at things that people value enough to
commission) will have no problems; mediocrity, being of
course in rich supply, will not command a good market
price.  Any plan to pay "every programmer" a pittance out
of taxes or the like is silly -- what stops 4 billion people on
this planet _calling_ themselves programmers if that should
happen?  Who'd judge who are the programmers worth the
money, and who aren't?  Bureaucrats, accreditation boards,
and so red-taping on?  Puh-*leeze*...


Alex