Hear us Roar
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Open Source and the Obligation to Recycle
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rent-seeking is not helpful |
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2002-01-03 12:19:45 |
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ichbin4
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In the previous comment, BrettGlass argues that releasing the code for dead projects is a bad idea because it will hurt the projects' remaining competitors. While his conclusion is true, insofar as the disappearance of the competitor's code allows the existing firm to obtain a rent (continued profit without continued development), this is hardly an argument against Tim's suggestion. On the contrary, it's another argument for!
Market groundrules (like IP law) are supposed to exist for the benefit of consumers, not firms. The rights that IP law grants firms are supposed to be the minimum necessary to give the firms incentive to produce desirable things that would otherwise to unmade -- no more.
If a firm goes out of business because someone offers an equivilent free, that is an UNAMBIGUOUS net plus for the society. Why? Because society gets whatever its employees spent their time making (and at a reduced cost) AND the workers can go off and earn their money making something else useful for society that it would otherwise not have.
A great deal of failed industrial policy is based on the notion that helping a nation's firms to avoid competition (including free competition) is a net plus for the nation. A wonderful parody of this dead-wrong idea can be found in the satire of the 19th century french writer F. Bastiat, who composed a "petition" from candlemakers for relief from their unfair competitior, the sun.
(Bastiat also took the notion that exports are good for a nation and imports bad to its logical conclusion, proposing that all ships carrying goods overseas should sink when they leave port).
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