Re: the free software paradigm [was Re: Amazon used lisp & C exclusively?

Jon Boone <ipmonger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

The best thing you can do to help this process is to do something
similar to what Paul Graham has done with Y-Combinator - help to
setup systems that make the process of forming and running a company
to sell a productized solution easier and more foolproof. Some
ideas (for gratis, because none of them are new):

* Set up a co-operative development firm where members receive
benefits similar to those available via open-source software, but
non-members must pay to license the technology. These licensing
fees can then be shared as dividends to the co-op members.

* Start up a firm to publish the programming output of independent
programmers. A software label, so to speak. The label pays
staff programmers to enhance and maintain the product, while the
innovator gets a % of every copy sold. If such a company had a
reputation for honest dealing (unlike, say, a music publishing
label) it could become the easiest way to convert programming
acumen into $$$$$.

Not things a little guy could do, but certainly the kind of thing I
wonder why we as a society don't do more of. I expected these to
happen when the web first took hold. But then reality set in.

What happened instead was that the AOL's of the world noticed that
there was no need to pay the people contributing content because they
would just compulsively do it anyway, and then there was no reason to
claim you were "selling their label" because many subscribers see the
label as "the Internet" and they can't tell the difference between
"AOL" and "the Internet" (witness the number of people who don't think
they are using the Internet unless they're using their browser).

And so the relentless cranking of the capitalist engine cranked out an
inefficiency yet again: paying content producers.

I think this is a shame, because it means that a lot of money goes to
the AOLs and money often does not go to the people who provide content.
(And don't even get me started on the whole Net Neutrality thing...)

Revenue-sharing seems to be happening slowly in niche areas, but I
guess why I'm talking about it here is that it seems to me it would
happen more if people would just all say "I demand a fee." As soon as
some people don't, they create such a problem of sifting that the
world is, for quite a measurable time, lost in the sifting illusion
that "stuff is available free". It takes a while for it to conclude
"not much there" and get back to offering to pay.

I sometimes wonder if the reason some people offer things free is that
then they don't have to endure knowing how many people didn't want it.
Nothing quite like selling something for money and finding out no one
wants it. Better to give it away to The World ... sounds big and
important.

.

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