[LINK] what to study about foss

anthony hornby ahornby at darlug.org
Mon Sep 25 16:36:51 AEST 2006


Hmmmmm,
Ipcentral is backed by the ironically titled "Progress and Freedom
Foundation".

Whose mission is stated as:
"Its mission is to educate policymakers, opinion leaders and the public
about issues associated with technological change, based on a philosophy
of limited government, free markets and individual sovereignty ...."

So whats the problem?

1. Technological change - the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
movement is technological change of the most profound type.

2. Limited government, free market - FOSS generally succeeds entirely on
the merit of the code, it sinks or swims on whether it remains useful to
the community. Can't get much more free market than that.

3. Individual sovereignty - most FOSS licences such as the GPL strongly
protect the copyright of the creator and their intentions for how their
creations get used. Can't see a problem here.

So you have to wonder why the PFF seem to spend an awful lot of time
muddying the waters about FOSS when it seems so closely aligned with
their mission <rolls eyes>.

Seems a free hand in the marketplace is not intended for everyone based
on how able they are to compete - just for those already established in
the PFF "club".

Anthony.

On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 16:03 +1000, Brendan Scott wrote:
> Deus Ex Machina wrote:
> > http://weblog.ipcentral.info/archives/2006/09/what_to_study_a_1.html
> > 
> > "The NSF gives a UC Davis team funding to study how various FOSS projects
> > emerged.
> > 
> > I skeptically accept FOSS as a contributor to the technological
> > community. On the one hand, FOSS enables many talented developers to
> > contribute and refine their skills. Plus, a few FOSS technologies have
> > gained industry wide acceptance and adoption. On the other hand, when
> > someone is going to study how successful FOSS projects work, I hope they
> > can answer these questions begged by the revolutionary hype- hoopla of
> > some FOSS supporters. 
> > 
> > 	1) what explains the inability of FOSS to respond to consumer and market
> > 	driven demand, as in the case where FOSS failed to develop accessibility
> > 	features for its desktop applications in Massachusetts.
> > 	2) given the years FOSS has been around, the "man hours" dedicated to
> > 	its projects, and the myriads of eyeballs peering into its code, why has
> > 	FOSS generated only a few commercial successes?
> > 	3) most admit the limitations of FOSS in segments of systems and
> > 	architectures. Given this, shouldn't FOSS adopt licenses to ensure its
> > 	"mixture" with mass-market proprietary technologies, as that seems the
> > 	only route for long term adoption and viability?
> > 	4) do companies such as IBM and Red Hat rely on innovation in FOSS
> > 	technologies for their service businesses? What does this say about the
> > 	"innovativeness" vs business aspects of FOSS when firms can still make
> > 	money even if FOSS technologies improve incrementally or not at all? .
> > 	5) how do FOSS companies compete for developers. After years and
> > 	hundreds if not thousands of FOSS projects, are there "all-star"
> > 	developers courted by project leaders or companies?
> > 	6) how much say do FOSS volunteers have in proposing ideas or
> > 	directional changes in development efforts? Is this anyway to treat
> > 	folks who lend their work to giants like IBM and Red Hat, who then turn
> > 	around and make money off that.
> > 	7) finally, is there any plan to oust Moglen-Stallman and replace them
> > 	with reasonable representatives such as Oreilly-Torvalds?"
> 
> <laugh>
> 
> I think the term for this is "framing".
> 
> The answer to all of these questions is: "It's the free market.  Stop thinking that monopolies are desirable and everything will become clear." 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Mr Anthony Hornby
Associate Director, Resources and Technology
Library and Information Access
Charles Darwin University (CRICOS 300K)
Phone: +61 8 8946 6011
Email: anthony.hornby at cdu.edu.au.no-spam
(remove the .no-spam)

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little 
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