Karl Marx Shrugged?

nesf

thebman wrote: »

However the release of it under a free license prevents it from being a self-interest act. That is entirely altruism. It can't be anything else. He/she could put it up on another site and charge a fee for it and it wouldn't take any extra effort on their part but he/she doesn't.

I don't know. I'd consider it altruism if they were willing to release it anonymously but having such a body of work attached to your name is worth something.

thebman

nesf wrote: »

I don't know. I'd consider it altruism if they were willing to release it anonymously but having such a body of work attached to your name is worth something.

If anything it tells potential employers or your current employers your willing to work for free and their chumps for paying you so I don't know if I'd want that associated with my name.

There are a lot of people that release software without claiming credit or have credit attributed to an alias that is not associated with them.

To say all open source programmers take credit for releasing the code is a misleading statement IMO as it is most likely not the case. Many people do contribute to Open Source projects knowing they will not be credited as they have contributed such as small amount of work but they do.

Also it is misleading to say that just because they get credit, it means that it is the reason they do it. On many sites, you'd need a user name to upload the code in case there is a problem so they can contact you and it isn't necessarily to get credit.

oscarBravo

Dar wrote: »

I wouldn't consider it altruism - free software developers do get something in return. Many get paid for the work they do, the others do it from a sense of personal satisfaction.

That's the definition of altruism that proves altruism doesn't exist, right?

oscarBravo

donegalfella wrote: »

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Free software is not a viable desktop alternative for the computer user who wants an indistinguishable Windows clone without paying for it.

I've tried Linux as a desktop OS myself. I found it clunky, finicky, and difficult to use, and peripherals were a nightmare. I simply don't have the patience to spend 4 hours reading man documents and tweaking configuration files in a vain effort to get my computer to recognize a name-brand digital camera. On my MacBook Pro, I just plug it in and it works.

As has been pointed out, MacOSX wouldn't exist without the Mach kernel. Linux is getting better all the time, and Windows is getting worse.

Is there any completely proprietary desktop solution that's threatening Microsoft's hegemony?

Permabear

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thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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Sorry I think that is a nonsense attempt to explain away something that clearly shows people don't always act in self-interest.

It still doesn't explain people that don't even take the credit and just contribute of which there are many but you don't know about them because they didn't take credit or they knew they wouldn't get credited for the work.

I don't consider it satisfactory to try to explain away something like that just because it doesn't suit your ideology.

Permabear

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oscarBravo

donegalfella wrote: »

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Check, check and check.

That's a bit like saying that a modern Boeing airplane wouldn't exist without the jet engine.

Which is true.

OS X is a lot more than just the Mach kernel—and most of the elements contributing to a polished, refined, and usable OS did not derive from the open source community.

And most of the components of a modern Boeing airplane don't derive from gas turbine technology, but it still wouldn't exist without the jet engine.

Now you've put the Beatles in my head.

My work here is finished.

People have been saying exactly this about Linux for 15 years—it's getting better, soon it will be a real contender, blah blah blah. But Linux isn't catching on. It might be a fine OS for geeks...

...and my kid sister, and thebman's da, and many others like them.

...but it has serious limitations for the average computer user who is more interested in actual productivity than in recompiling his kernel and rooting around in /etc/sysconfig.

That's a pretty tired stereotype. I'm a hardcore geek, and I haven't compiled a kernel in several years.

According to the latest data from Hitslink, Linux has an operating system market share of 0.88 percent. Do you really think this is "threatening Microsoft's hegemony"?

That link ignores Linux as a server operating system, which is where it's hitting Microsoft hardest. Plus, you didn't answer the question.

thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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lol, I'd say the statistics on that are misleading at best. How the hell do you total up the marketshare of something that is freely available from about a thousand different sources at least?

Permabear

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thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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That's fine but it seems pretty clear to me that he was most likely meeting with the people at the top of these projects and not the people that contribute anonymously from the bottom.

People contribute time, effort and money without providing any details about themselves on projects where this is allowed.

However you can't talk about them because you don't know who they are. Reminds me of, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" thing.

If someone contributed to such a project anonymously and then discussed that they did this in anyway you would claim that is where they sought credit so it is impossible to prove its existence unless you witness the person doing this anonymous contribution without their knowledge.

BTW I had a sinus headache when I wrote my previous post so it might be more aggressive than I intended so sorry about that.

Permabear

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oscarBravo

donegalfella wrote: »

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Which doesn't change the fact that Free Software provided the technological foundation without which the resurgence of MacOS wouldn't have been possible.

Your question was "Is there any completely proprietary desktop solution that's threatening Microsoft's hegemony?"—so don't you think it's fair to look at stats on desktop usage? The server market is an entirely different discussion.

Conceded - but the discussion on the server market still proves the point that it takes Open Source solutions to seriously threaten Microsoft.

My answer to your question is that no desktop solution—whether free or proprietary—is seriously threatening Microsoft's 88 percent market share in the desktop market at present. However, the emergence of web-based applications and of mobile devices is going to have a significant effect in shaking up that market over the coming decades, and I would be very surprised to see Microsoft retain its dominance as the market shifts.

Web-based applications - interesting. What does the share-out of the web browser market look like these days? What about the web server market?

Permabear

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earwicker

This is pure self-interest at work.

But how can you prove it is "pure" self-interest? It may well have elements of self-interest, but that wouldn't make it "pure."

Permabear

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oscarBravo

donegalfella wrote: »

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Nope. But I can claim that the Free Software movement developed the Mach kernel to the point where it was sufficiently useful to form the core of Apple's shiny new operating system.

Speaking of the Free Software Movement and kernels—hasn't Richard Stallman been working on the Hurd kernel for about 25 years by now? How is he getting on?

Not that great, by all accounts, but that's OK - there's a completely open kernel that works just fine in the GNU operating system, much of the rest of which he developed.

Again, you're not acknowledging that the server market had traditionally been dominated by UNIX, which was not free software.

Then Microsoft came along and made huge inroads into the server market - doubtless they'd have achieved monopoly status there also, were it not for the emergence of Linux to challenge them.

Linux is nothing but a reverse-engineered free clone of UNIX...

:eek: Wash your mouth out!!

...and so it was natural that it would find a niche in the server market, either as a complement to or a replacement for UNIX.

Which doesn't alter the fact that it's Free Software, and it has comprehensively broken Microsoft's attempted stranglehold on the server market.

Apache originated at the University of Illinois. Firefox originated from source code donated by Netscape. The Free Software Movement can't ultimately claim credit for founding either of those projects, either.

I'm not talking about founding projects. Microsoft can't claim too much credit for creating products from scratch; they mostly buy or "borrow" other software (including the TCP/IP stack from BSD), build on it, then use ethically and morally questionable business practices to attempt to dominate markets with it.

Permabear

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oscarBravo

donegalfella wrote: »

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See, now you have me all tear-eyed with nostalgia...

I still prefer vi to Emacs. :P

All that proves is that you're not completely insane.

We'll agree to differ; I know from experience that we're not going to agree on anything else.

Permabear

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thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yes but there are still the people outside of that circle that aren't there for those reasons so while you can't say the entire Open Source movement is selfless, there are people there that aren't there for any other reason than to contribute to the project and they may not even have much contact if any with people on the project. I'm talking about the anonymous Wiki editors/documentation writers who will rarely get credit for their work.

Permabear

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thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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Well if they did you'd say they were doing it to get the feel good credit from the homeless people :P

Most likely they are doing it because they used the software and are giving back to the people in whatever way they can and don't have the skills to contribute in any other way.

There is nothing saying they can't add to the documentation and work in a soup kitchen anyway.

A Primal Nut

Its an interesting thread. But where most people are wrong is where they assume there is a conflict between self-interest and altruism. More people should read the Selfish Gene!

One major missunderstanding of Rand's work is that altruism is always bad - sometimes taken to the extreme. Apparently, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales criticised his girlfriend for training to be a nurse as it was altruistic - doesn't he realise she gets paid to be a nurse!

Humans benefit from being altruistic because other humans understand the concept of punishment and revenge, as Jeff Skilling found out when he misinterpreted the Selfish Gene to suggest everyone should act in their own self-interest. They also benefit from being altruistic in building social relationships which have obvious benefits for survival and of course for mating. And of course they benefit from altruism when they get paid for their work in their jobs. A lot of Rand's theories depend on this concept. Where it perhaps breaks down is with charity and social welfare - social welfare obviously exists as it helps keep the current people in power. I'm not sure that with no government that charity could take over. There would have to be some benefit to the philantropist. While there are some good theories for why this could be they aren't thoroughly convincing.

Another problem with Rand's theories is that this kind of thinking is merely statistical - there are always that minority capable of selfish acts and I'm not convinced a private police force and justice system could replace the current system.

On the other hand the problem with two much government involvement is that history shows over and over again that altruism is inversely proportional to Power, as leaders depend more on fear and strength than anything else.

A balance needs to be struck but I think what we have in Western Europe is the best of a bad lot - of course trying to bring it in in developing countries is always going to be difficult.

As for the open source debate, its clear that those involved are mostly doing it as a hobby and enjoy their work, it's not that much different from playing music or football. You wouldn't say someone who plays amateur sport is doing it for the fans interest and most musicians primary goal isn't to make other people happy. Its no different to computer programming. The fact they are anonymous is nothing to do with the positive feelings they get from doing it. Of course, in today's society its probably a less successful evolutionary tactic than sport and music, but the subconcious doesn't know that - who knows maybe it will be much more attractive in a few hundred years or even decades.

Speaking of music, sport, computer programming, you could lump charity work in with them, in terms of subconscious motivation and self-interest. I have no evidence of that of course but it is an interesting theory.

Comes back to the classic "selfless good deed" friends episode.

johnathan woss

donegalfella wrote: »

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More evidence that she was crazy and had no grip on reality whatsoever.

Have you come up with any more evidence of where your ideas have actually worked yet df ?

Apart from "Hong Kong" :pac:

Permabear

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johnathan woss

Shipping meat 12,000 miles (only viable because of relatively cheap oil) and putting local farmers out of business is a bad thing.

We should be striving to feed ourselves locally where possible.

You will not understand this because you live in a fantasy world where resources and the human capacity to exploit them are infinite.

DadaKopf

johnathan woss wrote: »

Shipping meat 12,000 miles (only viable because of relatively cheap oil) and putting local farmers out of business is a bad thing.

We should be striving to feed ourselves locally where possible.

You will not understand this because you live in a fantasy world where resources and the human capacity to exploit them are infinite.

Yes. And even sensible economists know how mad the monetarists are!

Permabear

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nesf

DadaKopf wrote: »

Yes. And even sensible economists know how mad the monetarists are!

That isn't a criticism of monetarism but a technical criticism of particular models used in macroeconomic forecasting and teaching (i.e. taught to PhD students) springing from the influence of neo-classical models of economics which is something that's weakening (i.e. DSGE models are a long way from idealised neo-classical models).