July 7, 2008

• Why free software will never overtake proprietary software

  As much as I love the opportunity to
  get software free of charge, and as much as I love the idealism of
  the free software community (they claim that “free software”
  means libre, as in “free
  speech,” rather than gratis, as
  in “free beer”; but really “free” is a good word,
  since in truth free software is usually both libre and
  gratis), they are
  fighting a battle that they cannot possibly win.

  This
  is not because corporations are wealthy and powerful juggernauts that
  even whole governments, let alone private individuals, can scarcely
  rein in (though they are, and this is a problem).

  No, it
  is for a much deeper reason: we live in a capitalist
  society. Everything costs money.
  Computers cost money, servers cost money, utilities cost money;
  transportation costs money, food costs money, clothing costs money,
  housing costs money.

  Any
  programmer who is sufficiently qualified to work in a proprietary
  software company would be ridiculously naive not to take the job. You
  can do basically the same things that you would be doing in free
  software, except you actually get to put food on the table. In fact,
  you usually get to live comfortably upper-middle class without having
  an especially stressful or difficult job.

  Theoretically,
  we could charge for free software, make it libre but
  not gratis (the GNU
  GPL expressly allows this); but with the source code available to
  anyone, it wouldn’t be long before prices started being undercut and
  eventually the code was being distributed for free. So this is hardly
  a practical solution. Proprietary software conceals its code for a
  reason: it’s an essential part of controlling redistribution. That’s
  also why you have to enter a CD key whenever you install new
  software; otherwise it would be impossible for software companies to
  turn a profit.

  Nor
  are proprietary companies cesspools of demonic evil; companies like
  Google, Blizzard Entertainment, and yes, even Microsoft are almost
  entirely composed of decent, intelligent people who are very good at
  writing software that people want, and in return receive a healthy
  paycheck for their efforts. There are a few exceptions (the Sony
  rootkit scandal comes to mind!), cases when proprietary companies
  overstep their boundaries and start to restrict people’s rights; but
  on the whole these companies are interested in making good products
  and getting paid good money to do it. Actually, software companies
  are, on the whole, much more ethical than most other types of
  corporation; all the really horrible atrocities committed in the name
  of profit have been done by heavy industry and pharmaceutical
  research firms. Medical software companies (a shoutout to my cousin
  Scott!) in fact have done an excellent job cataloguing medications,
  linking pharmacies, and tracking for interactions, cleaning up the
  mess left by big pharma. The software industry even tends to come out
  with its head above closely-related industries, like music
  distribution and computer hardware. (In fact, Sony was really acting
  in its role as a music distribution company, rather than a software
  company, during the rootkit scandal itself!)

  Indeed,
  that’s something that applies to intellectual property in general
  (the free software community hates that phrase; they’d like me to say
  “copyrights, patents, and trademarks” separately, but this
  is one case where I really do mean all three at once); in some ideal
  fantasy world, it would be wonderful if artwork and ideas could be
  distributed freely to all, and if there was no need for companies to
  take our money and trademark their advertisements—indeed, it would
  be best if there would be no advertisements at all. But we don’t live
  in that world, and it would take the most radical social and economic
  overhaul in the history of the human race to make such a world
  possible. At least a dozen Communist Revolutions in sequence, and
  mind you they have to actually succeed rather
  than institute genocidal dictatorships and cold, technocratic
  policies.

  In a
  world of Star Trek-style post-scarcity economics, we wouldn’t need
  copyrights and patents, trademarks would make no sense, and creative
  people could be successful without having to charge for their work.
  (Actually, even physical property might well become unnecessary and
  anachronistic.) But that world is very far away indeed; frankly I’m
  not sure we can get there in 300 years. Fusion power, food synthesis,
  and robotics would grant us less scarcity,
  to be sure (frankly, warp drive has nothing to do with it!); but
  could they really increase the quantity of resources enough so that
  everyone could have anything they wanted? Could we really create
  enough usable stuff to
  overcome the greed within the human soul?

  I
  doubt I’ll live to see such a thing.

  In the
  meantime, I’ll continue to use Windows and play Starcraft and Command
  & Conquer instead of Linux and those dumb little free games that
  can be found by the dozens online.

  • 10:03 pm
  • 6 Comments