macrakis@harvard.UUCP (Stavros Macrakis) (04/22/86)
A Discussion of the Gnu Manifesto The Gnu manifesto argues not only that it is a good thing to give software away, but that it is a bad thing to require payment: > Arrangements to make people pay for using a program,... always incur > a tremendous cost to society through the cumbersome mechanisms > necessary to figure out how much... a person must pay for. ... and many other arguments, which you can find in the `Gnu Manifesto' section of the Gnu Emacs manual or the online Info for Emacs. I do not intend to try to refute the Gnu M; but let me open the discussion of the relationship of copying costs and authors' royalties. Gnu M says: > ...copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently > copied other [non-fiction] authors.... This practice was useful.... > [For] books, which could be copied economically only on a printing > press---it did little harm, and did not obstruct most [readers]. I would argue that it was the invention of relatively cheap copying (i.e. printing) that caused copyright to become a good idea. Rather than try to argue this poorly, let me quote a paper of Herbert Simon that I recently read: ... cheap copying processes [mean that] the cost of developing improvements need be paid only once. Among the crucial events in human evolution have been ...advances in the technique of copying and storing information: (1) [DNA], (2) ... learning, (3) preservation of artifacts, (4) writing, and (5) printing.... Direct copying of computer software has characteristics...quite different from any of these earlier copying techniques.... In...any copyable technique, there is a problem of how the costs of developing improvements are to be recovered. [Without] adequate opportunity for recovery, there will... be underinvestment in R&D. In a competitive economy, the problem becomes the more severe the less expensive and more rapid the copying process.... ... The machine manufacturer can recover investments in [machine- dependent] software.... On the other hand, the improvements are then not used everywhere they might be, and competing manufacturers must duplicate development investments, both sources of misallocation of resources. ... programs [are] becoming more independent of hardware. Hence, the more serious problem from a social point of view appears to be to secure a sufficiently high rate of investment in software development. ... One of the obvious consequences of cheaper copying is that there will be underinvestment in program improvement unless steps are taken to reward inventors of programs or to subsidize invention.... Herbert Simon, Programs as Factors of Production, Proc. 19 Ann. Winter Meeting, 1966, Industrial Relations Research Assoc (1967): 178-188, reprinted in Simon, Models of Bounded Rationality, vol. 2, MIT Press, 1982. One of Gnu M's counterarguments to this is: > Actually, many people will program with absolutely no monetary incentive. > Programming has an irresistible fascination for some people, usually the > people who are best at it. There is no shortage of professional musicians > who keep at it even though they have no hope of making a living that way. But this totally neglects the question of whether the programming they are doing is the programming that is societally useful. The point of the Gnu M that I find more central is the question of reuse of software components. Simon does not address this, nor in fact does Gnu -- since they prohibit using components of Gnu in larger projects which are themselves not royalty-free. -s -- -s Stavros Macrakis Macrakis@Harvard.{Harvard.EDU,ARPA,uucp,csnet} Harvard Aiken Lab 111 @Harvunxh.bitnet 33 Oxford Street Cambridge, MA 02138
colonel@ellie.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (05/01/86)
> I do not intend to try to refute the Gnu M; but let me open the > discussion of the relationship of copying costs and authors' > royalties. Gnu M says: > > > ...copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently > > copied other [non-fiction] authors.... This practice was useful.... > > [For] books, which could be copied economically only on a printing > > press---it did little harm, and did not obstruct most [readers]. > > I would argue that it was the invention of relatively cheap copying > (i.e. printing) that caused copyright to become a good idea. Rather > than try to argue this poorly, let me quote a paper of Herbert Simon > that I recently read: I distrust Simon; he always takes a stand. The distinction between book production and xerocopying is an important one: xerocopying cannot be controlled. It's so flexible that anybody can do it. How many people own a printing press? The system of copyright relied on the difficulty of copying for the man in the street, compared to the ease of printing for the rightful publisher. And in spite of copyright, there have always been pirated editions, and poor students who would copy books out in longhand. Copyright was never perfect, but it was adequate. Now that media technology has developed far enough so that information can be copied easily and quickly, copyright cannot be enforced; it gives the author no useful protection. But there are other, older forms of protection that still work well, such as subscription. In the electronic global village, publication becomes an instantaneous, irrevocable act for the public benefit. If the artist means to devote much work to his creation, he had better arrange payment beforehand. -- Col. G. L. Sicherman UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel CS: colonel@buffalo-cs BI: csdsicher@sunyabva