🚀 go-pugleaf

Michael I Bushnell writes:
>In article <iViHeB6w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk writes:
>
>   Software is basically information; just as when you pay a plumber
>   to fix your bathroom, he gets to keep the information about how to
>   fix your bathroom and can sell that information to someone else as
>   well, so when you pay Microsoft to provide you with desktop
>   publishing capabilities, they get to keep the information about how
>   to make your computer do DTP and sell it to someone else.
>
>When a plumber fixes my bathroom, I am free to watch, to take notes,
>to write books explaining the procedure, to tell all my friends how to
>do it, and even to go into competition.
>
>When I buy a floppy from Microsoft to "instruct" my computer, I don't
>get to do any of these things.

Well... not so.  You may reverse engineer any program, at least up to
the look and feel business, and sell it... undoubtedly this is where
all spreadsheets other than Visicalc came from, for instance.

The difference between software and more typical economic services is
more a matter of degree.  Anyone can learn how to plumb given a
reasonably small amount of time and effort, possibly a teacher.  Not
anyone can write emacs, and even those who could, would waste a *large*
amount of time doing so.  

Unlike normal services, however, software *is* copyable in a very
inexpensive manner.  Plumbers might be out of business if anyone could
plumb in zero time, as a result of seeing a plumber work once.

No, the real idea for futurists to worry about is this: unlike *every*
important economic activity in the history of the world up until now,
digitized information "production" is an activity with (potentially)
zero marginal cost per unit made.  That is to say, once the initial
investment (programming) is made, there is an effectively infinite
supply of product.  Cars, food, and man-hours of service time are
*not* like this.  Obviously then even with a fair profit included,
if a program will be used millions of times, it should cost each user
practically nothing.  Our law and common sense are still struggling to
come to terms with this fundamental difference.

For instance, what is "theft" of information?  Certainly, most people
condemn copying copyrighted programs, but then, most people do it
anyway.  

-Leonard