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From: "Robert White" <rwhite@casabyte.com>
To: "Timothy Miller" <miller@techsource.com>,
       "David Woodhouse" <dwmw2@infradead.org>
Cc: "Larry McVoy" <lm@bitmover.com>, "Werner Almesberger" <wa@almesberger.net>,
       "Stephan von Krawczynski" <skraw@ithnet.com>,
       <miquels@cistron-office.nl>, <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: [OT] Re: Troll Tech [was Re: Sco vs. IBM]
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 17:07:31 -0700
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People want to receive "payment" for "work".

Fine, true, and desirable.

But the missing piece in the capitalist mindset WRT/software is that those
self-same capitalists don't want to pay for the work of others.

In point of fact, the common intellectual domain, in particular the great
source/sink of free software *doest* fit the pay-for-value model.

The problem is that the current business people don't understand that the
"free software" "costs" the promise to return contributions.  The system is
resilient enough to withstand a huge percentage of parasitism, so each
business wants to say that they might as well a parasite too.

The simple fact is that when you return your modifications to the pool, the
"lost cost" of the man hours and mental effort spent to make that
modification, insignificant to the value you took from the pool.

When you return value to the pool, you have not "given away valuable
property" you are paying (long due) bills for the larger type and number of
works you have already taken possession of "on credit".

Once you take that single step back you realize two things.

1) The total value you harvest dwarfs the total value you return (even in
simple man hour payroll terms) so even if you spend a substantial outlay it
is still a return on investment of remarkable proportions.

2) If software is the only thing you do, you are screwed because that
immense return on investment is payment in kind so there is no "cash margin"
from which to draw profit.

The final conclusion is that "free software" works for every business model
*EXCEPT* pure software sales.  Absolutely every other model (e.g.
"<anything> and no software at all" and "<anything> plus software") lets you
"buy" ninety-plus percent of your "software part" for pennies.  The fact
that "nothing but software" times "free software" nets zero excess cash
should surprise nobody.  Yet it did surprise the entire 1990's economy...

Irony can be so damn Ironic sometimes... 8-)

There is no rational argument that this model "should somehow", in and of
itself, with no further effort on your part, support you financially.
Especially if you have decided that said support will come while you only
fulfill the parasite role of taking what you will and returning nothing.

Rob.

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