Re: Open Source vs. Commercial

Eyal <ez_bikbon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<42a1f866@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > are doing than commercial developers, so there is no gain to society from
> > FOSS the way there would be if a better and more efficient way of producing
> > diamonds were discovered.
>
> There is huge gain because production cost is lower, and resources can
> be used for other things.

How is the production cost of FOSS lower? The resources used to produce FOSS
are NOT available for other things. The time a programmer uses to write FOSS
can't then also be used for other purposes.

>
>
> > the economic sense, just the accounting sense. The resources that are devoted
> > to FOSS are then not available for other things and this then represents a
> > very real economic cost. "Free" software is not free at all.
>
> FOSS is free because many people prefer to write software instead of
> going to the cinema, work in their garden, go fishing, or any number of
> other activities that contribute nothing to the economy. Those amateurs
> who produce FOSS for free generate value from the spare time they'd
> otherwise spend on just having personal fun.

That's an odd assumption, that FOSS programmers always have nothing more
productive to do with their time than create things they give away to other
people for free.

>
> So amateurs don't take away resources from any other activity.
> Professional (paid) programmers who produce FOSS also don't consume more
> resources than if they produce Commercial software. So the bottom line
> is that FOSS does create value for free.

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your argument. If FOSS programmers are
consuming just as many resources as commercial programmers then their product
costs society the same as commercial software. The only way FOSS would create
value for free is if FOSS programmers have nothing else of value that they
could be doing or creating with their time.

> I've made the point I wanted to make clearly and logically.

Given all the major flaws in your argument, you might want to reconsider that
statement.

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