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

On 2006-07-24 21:20:52 -0400, "Nathan Baum" <nathan_baum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

If the "party line" is "free software is always good", but the truth is
"free software can just as easily be disasterous for the programmer,
the market and the consumer," surely lots of people would have fallen
afoul of free software's dark side, and they'd be terribly vocal about
it?

Not in a culture where being a winner is lauded and being a loser is a source of shame - people think they're losers and remain silent - i.e., they blame themselves not the economic forces that led to their failure.

How many people who bought e-*** at the top of the tech bubble for $200.00 a share do you hear screaming about it? There are of course many such people (not me - I knew a bubble when I saw one) but they mostly just blame themselves for being so stupid. They don't - at least not in this culture - blame the systemic forces that screwed them.

For example, I'm sure everyone here has seen the rather misleading graphs that purport to show that if you had invested $1000.00 in the "stock market" in 1929 - right before the crash - you'd still be a multimillionaire today. What they don't tell you is that in real dollar terms you'd still only have broken even in the late 1980s - i.e. no long term net gain for 60 years - and that's *before taxes*:
<http://www.internet2.edu/~shalunov/stock-market/>
It turns out that the real return from the DJIA from 1913-2002 is just 2.7% (just 1.3% from 1913-1991 if you want to exclude the tech bubble and crash) - comparable to treasury bonds. And this isn't even the broad market which includes many companies which fail outright and are de-listed (i.e., investment goes to $0.00). Such companies are removed from the DJIA and are not reflected by the relatively rosy picture painted by the DJIA. The losers of major indices are replaced by up-trending issues before the failing companies go into long decline or go belly up entirely.

Nevertheless we are given to believe that you can only win by investing in the stock market and that if you lose money they *you* are a loser.

Now, to bring this back to the original topic of discussion, how much of the tech bubble was due the over-hyped "benefits" of free software? How many people lost large portions of their retirement savings investing in companies whose business model was centered on free software - RHAT anyone? (again not me, I know a bubble, etc.)

Kent is only pointing out that we live in a culture where winners brag and losers keep silent in shame blaming themselves when they are in fact as numerous or more numerous than the winners. If we are to have anything approaching an objective view of a thing we must seriously consider its negatives as well as its positives.

One of the clear negatives of free *anything* is that it devalues the labor of those who specialize in producing it. I can see that certain free offerings can bring strategic advantage in the face of a monopoly - linux comes to mind here - but I have never understood why professional programmers would champion free software *in general* any more than shoemakers would champion free shoes or tailors champion free three piece suits. It's just plain self destructive.

I believe a large part of it is psychological. In youth the adult world can seem so overwhelming, so corrupt and sordid as to be positively frightening. There's a strong temptation to just check out entirely - not compete at all. One way to opt out of the adult world is to not play by its rules and offer one's work product for free. Now there's no need to test yourself against an outside standard (not objective mind you - markets can be pretty damned arbitrary so they're not "objective"). You give your stuff away so there's no outside, financial judgement of your work because all free stuff is inherently good, right? Combine this with the impecuniousness of youth for the consumers-of-free-stuff part of the equation and you have a large youth mind-share for "free is inherently good." Sadly they will change their tune when they inevitably have kids, buy houses and have to start planning for retirement. Then they'll see why Kent told them they shouldn't value their work product at (+ $0.00 major-props) since most lenders will not accept major-props as a mortgage payment.

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