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Re: [News] Free as in Market Freedom

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
Free as in market

,----[ Quote ]
| Open source is all about free markets. Yes, we have a free market
| in the software world, but I'd argue that opening up the code gives
| customers greater degrees of freedom in two ways: lower costs (so
| that they can spend their IT dollars more broadly) and no (or lower)
| lock-in (so that they can spend their IT dollars more discriminately).
| All of this makes for a true free market in software. "Free as in
| free market," as I heard r0ml present back in his 2003 eGovOS
| presentation.
`----

http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/01/free_as_in_mark.html

It's more free than the market can ever possibly be, since software is largely electrons, silicon, etc. (not in short supply like real estate, tangibles, etc.) and can be infinitely and perfectly copied at a trivial cost. Furthermore, to *own* software doesn't deny someone else ownership (as would be the case in a zero-sum market economy).


So, in a sense, the f/oss community achieved a more perfect (Platonic sense) free market than could ever possibly be achieved in the bricks&mortar, for which a "free market" is actually an oxymoron.

I don't think it's a "market" so much as "free". Markets can be cornered, subverted, controlled, run by the mob, and access is always limited by one's caste at birth, or size of your wallet (your employer's generosity). So linux chose "free" *instead* of "market".

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