[MLUG - DISCUSSION] economics of opensource

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

http://madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=3405

A pretty interesting story.

I still like the beanstalk explanation of why opensource works though. 
There is a giant endless beanstalk (rememebr Jack?) and the higher you 
climb the beanstalk the greater the treasures to be found. Take the 
explanations and little ascii art below to explain. Yes, I'm a great 
artist! ;)

Socialism leavs everyone milling around the bottom of the beanstalk 
without really reaching any of those treasures.

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Capitalism is where everyone forms a pyramid with each level holding 
those above them up so that a few can scamble up and reach the 
treasures. In theory those who reach the treasures take what they need 
and then pass the leftovers on down the pyramid so that everybody gets 
some. In practice this means those higher to the top get more while 
those on the bottom, doing the heaviest work, get the least. Because of 
the structure of a pyramid there will always be more people on the 
bottom than on the top and the higher the pyramid grows the more people 
are needed to support it. This creates a practical limit to how high the 
pyramid can grow.

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Opensource creates a ladder out of people. In practice this means the 
first few people do the hardest work but that treasure can be 
distributed much more equally and people can climb much higher much 
quicker. This means that everyone gets more because there is more 
treasure to go around.

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The six socialists all stayed on the ground. The six capitalists got 
three people above the ground - one of which was able to reach a second 
level. The opensource dweebs got five of their people off the ground - 
each of those people managing to reach a higher level and overall 
reaching the fifth level. Of course that's all just a conceptual game 
but in practice it seems to work out very much like that. Evolution 
would seem to favor the society that follows the opensource model 
(balanced capitalism).

There are very few truely scarce goods in this day and they are growing 
fewer as we learn to produce things that are still scarce. Diamonds and 
other gems for example can be created better and cheaper from machines 
than they can be found naturally. They no longer are scarce and 
therefore their value is now artificial and will eventually fall. Food 
is plentiful (lacking only the proper distribution method to get it 
spread to all who need it). Living space could be plentiful as we have 
the means, if not yet the motivation, to colonize the seas and space. 
Without scarce resources capitalism really makes little more sense than 
socialism. Who needs the ultra-rich when they, and their goods, can 
easily be replaced? The music industry, phone companies, etc that have 
historically been very rich are now learning this to their woe. Diamond 
companies are starting to have this problem and are battling it with "If 
he really loves you he'll buy you the REAL [expensive] thing." 
marketing. Food companies have had this problem in the US for a long 
time which is why the government has the disturbing (and very bad) 
system in place for encouraging farmers not to produce their full crops. 
Again, creating articial scarcity.  IT jobs no longer make big wages 
because IT workers are no longer scarce. All markets are subject to this 
change. We can fight and slow down the change and drag out this painful 
in-between stage or we can rush head on towards the change and get to a 
time when everyone has more of everything. Sadly the later probably 
won't happen - there is to much FUD about such changes for these changes 
to happen quickly.

--
Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>
http://kavlon.org

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