These statements seems to imply that what you get from your tax program is not the code in itself, but the headache-reducing service associated with it.

So what would happen if the code was free ?

would you :
1- grab a copy of the code and run the program by yourself ?
2- pay the company and run the program as one of their clients (with added benefits including, in case there is a software-related problem with your tax return, that it would be their responsability and not yours) ?

IMHO, the company would not loose many clients, if at all

“Nobody’s saying that. “Free” is a confusing word in the English languange…perhaps you mistook it to mean “gratis” (free of money) instead of “libre” (free of control).

If it was the former, nothing could be further from the truth; there are lots of people making money on “free” stuff and as the economy matures to accept this “hedonism”, more people will find ways to make more money off it.

If it was the latter, I can only welcome you into the 21st century where your customers are finally flexing their muscles and the end result is in your best interest.”

kien, how have “customers flexed their muscle” in demanding that companies relinquish control of the source code?

Lessig gives his books away for free (or, charges for the book but doesn’t care if anyone copies it and gives away the copies). The difference between software and a book is that with a book the “code” (i.e. the written words) and the product used by the user (i.e. the written words) are one and the same. With software, the source code and the binary are NOT one and the same. Indeed, the user doesn’t give a damn about the source code at all. So, giving the source code to the user does not increase the user’s “control” of the product. So, there’s no advantage to the user for the developer to give the source code. If governments want to demand the source code in order to sell to the government, that’s fine, but I foresee mountains and mountains of source code locked away in a vault, unexamined by anyone and serving no purpose (like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark). What in God’s name is some government going to do with 10 million lines of source code for a particular product? Look for backdoors that were put in for espionage purposes? There’s no way that a group of people unfamiliar with the code would be able to do a proper examination of 10 million lines, so it’s a waste of time. About the only thing one could do with it is recompile it and give away the copies, and we’re right back to the “free as in beer” stuff that you try to deny.

I heard Lessig give a talk regarding copyright for the “arts” (which I agreed with about 40%). He gave an examples where some video political spoof borrowed music and clips from earlier sources, and argued that, for the good of society, the holders of the copyrights of the earlier works should not be able to prevent the use of their work in derived works. This doesn’t apply to software in the same way. Lessig is way out of his element when it comes to software. If somebody wants to use an idea of an earlier software program in his own, then that’s one thing. But to demand the actual source code is something else.

Indeed, nobody here has given a decent explanation of why source code should be given away for free. Mr. Brown asked how Intuit could stay in business if they gave away Turbo Tax for free. You responded by saying that you’re not asking Intuit to give away Turbo Tax for free, you’re merely asking that they relinquish control of the Turbo Tax source code to the customers (like the customers give a damm) (and, I suppose, follow Lessig’s example and allow others to compile that source code and give away the resulting copies). Intuit would not benefit from such a practice, and the customers wouldn’t benefit either because TurboTax would never have been invented under such circumstances. And don’t try to tell me that an OSS group would’ve created TurboTax, because guess what, THEY DIDN’T. And sorry, but there’s no way in hell that I’d do my taxes using a program written by God knows who, in his spare time. My taxes are too important to risk preparing them with some shoddy OSS program.

“If you dont understand what free culture or free content have to do with free software, I suggest you begin, assuming you WANT to understand, by reading Koleen Kotally’s “punitive” sentence against Microsoft for its predatory abuses during the browser war, allowing the desktop monopoly to charge whomever for the use of file formats set by some or its softwares’ APIs. It helps if you start by reading some MS EULAs (only possible during instalation, of course). Lesson two can be to follow the unfolding billionaire self-exploding suicidal legal attack by SCO against former allies, hopefully also its money trail. Groklaw may help on this.”

p rezende, you’d be more convincing if you and the others didn’t attack Microsoft so much. Microsoft makes only 10% of commercial software in the world. Destroy them (as appears to be your real agenda), and you still have 90% of other commercial software houses that are not interested in giving their code away for free. How old are you, twelve?

Creative Commons would be wise to stick to worrying about copyright for music, movies, books, plays, and other “art”. Software isn’t an “art” per se, and Lessig’s arguments for why copyright is “bad” for the “arts” don’t apply to software.

If people want to write software for free, they will. Those that don’t want to shouldn’t be forced to and shouldn’t be forced to give their stuff to other developers for free. There’s already plenty of REAL free public domain software and Free BSD software (which might as well be public domain, if it is technically not). That software has its place, as does software whose code is completely private and software whose code is available under licenses more restrict than public domain or free BSD (like the licenses that commercial companies use when releasing code, or the GPL (which claims to be a “freedom” license but is anything but).

I’m glad I got out of the software biz, because you guys are devaluing the profession. Programmers used to be looked up to as “rocket-science”-type smart guys, but now they’re regarded in the same mode as mechanics or plumbers, both of which take some brains but are professions that anyone can do with the proper training. And by insisting that software be free, you devalue the programming profession in accordance with the perceived value of the programmer’s product. When people perceive the value of software to be zero (in monetary terms), they won’t perceive programmers to be much more valuable than zero.

As for the 90% of software is in-house custom stuff that’s never sold so that it doesn’t matter if its value is “free” or not, well as one who wrote both in-house software and commercial software for the masses (available in shrink wrap in stores), I can tell you that writing in-house stuff is a tedius excersise in boredom compared to writing software for the masses. So saying that everyone who wants to earn a living by writing software must do so by writing in-house stuff is a sad development. Besides that, it cuts against your own argument. Why is it so important for software to be “free”, when your movement doesn’t even affect the 90% of software that’s in-house? Let the 90% be “free” and let the other 10% be for sale. What’s wrong with that?

Anyway, you do what you like. I became a programmer in the 80’s, got rich, and retired, so I really don’t care. But you’re cutting your nose off to spite your face. Of course Lessig doesn’t care, he’s not a programmer. He’s a misguided idealist. But he (and guys like RMS) are getting you guys to do harm to your own profession. It’s almost comical.

I wish you luck with that strategy and I truly hope that I am wrong in predicting it to be seriously flawed.

If each of us reach out to implement one’s strategy of choice at the same time, we increase each one’s chance of success. That’s the WSF spirit! 🙂

cheers

I wish you luck with that strategy and I truly hope that I am wrong in predicting it to be seriously flawed.