“Would it be ethical for the government to permit the traditional bakers to sue users of ‘loaf duplicators’ for infringing their monopolies?”

Which is why it is a bad idea to produce bread under a coerced monopoly. Especially when its self-replicating bread loaves.

I may be a backwards uncivilised non-capitalist fool for asking this, but how do you count the marginal cost of reinventing the wheel? Operating systems, word processors, graphic editors, spreadsheets, databases, they’ve been invented over and reinvented over again countless times in just these past couple of decades.

I mean, yes customising software and adapting it to specific needs are an economically marginal service, but reinstalling software? Do I have to re-code Windows everytime I want to reinstall Windows? I mean, the binary’s already there…

Software is an idea; it is not a physical product. When you share ideas, you become better for it. And with the help of other imaginative minds, it is very likely that your idea will become better for it. The ideal method of making money from software is because of it as opposed as by selling it. You don’t become rich by selling math, you become rich by using math.

For example, by using your mathematical skills to do some calculation as to what shape of a wall won’t fall on your head. You don’t get paid for the physical product of the wall, you get paid for the service of making the wall. Or by using your culinary skills to determine just how much flour is to be used to make the ideal bread that is right for the customer. The chef doesn’t get paid for how much flour he uses, he is getting paid for using just the right amount of flour. You don’t pay expensive bread by the pound, you pay per amound of artistry and craftsmanship and love spent in making the bread.

A lot of people are repulsed by the free software movement because they don’t see why they should be denied their right to sell their labour – why they should be forced to give their property away for nothing in return.

They believe that the GPL is all about obliging them to participate in a gift economy, like a hippy/commie cult – “Use our stuff, but if you like it, and build upon it, you must give it away for nothing as we do – commerce is evil”.

The open source movement abdicates from the ethics of liberty and promotes the GPL as (remarkably) commercially useful in many situations. And I daresay some think that by commercially exploiting the GPL, the open source movement is abusing the ‘non-commercial’ intent of the GPL.

It is very dangerous for FSF to have liberty as a core tenet, and yet make attempts to appeal to the charitable at heart by using the ‘Giving away western technology to the third world’ motif.

The last thing to do would be to give CC-NC-SA software to the third world and remind them that they are forbidden to attempt to make any money out of it by selling their labour in the form of enhancements or tailored distributions.

The IP maximalists are attempting to subjugate the world into accepting their IP on condition they surrender their liberty. I daresay developers of GM crops would be very happy to give free seed to the third world (for the first 5 years only).

The FSF cannot risk confusing their ethical principles as those of charity, instead of liberty.

Give a man a fish. vs Give a man the liberty to utilise and build upon the knowledge he obtains to fish, and to pass this knowledge on to his fellows, that they may enjoy the same liberty.

Let’s not demand that the west should give its knowledge to the third world free of charge.

Let’s better demand that the west should not prosecute the third world for enjoying its freedom to share and build upon the knowledge it legitimately purchases.

Maybe one day, the west may even consider so liberating its own citizens.