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RE: A Question of Ethics (was: Overriding Acrobat User Settings)
Subject:RE: A Question of Ethics (was: Overriding Acrobat User Settings) From:"Jane Carnall" <jane -dot- carnall -at- digitalbridges -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 17 Aug 2001 12:26:39 +0100
>The open source movement has the same problem that communism has - its a
>nice idea that JUST DOES NOT WORK. Both forget one fundamental law of
>economics: there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Michael Priestley wrote:
>Yep. Absolutely. That's why Linux and Perl don't exist, and Apache isn't
>the most popular server on the web.
> If the facts contradict a theory,
>discard the theory, not the facts. Sometimes there is a free lunch.
Actually, I'd say that open source and communism neither provide a free
lunch. Both tap into a basic resource, unrecognised by formal economics,
which provides a large part of the labour on which the formal economic
system depends: people's willingness to provide unpaid labour when they see
a job that needs doing and feel themselves responsible for doing it. Both
housework and childcare are largely resourced using this method, and (as any
feminist economist will tell you) it works alarmingly well.
Jane Carnall
Technical Writer, Digital Bridges, Scotland
Unless stated otherwise, these opinions are mine, and mine alone.
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A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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