Re: [tlug] [OT] Say _no_ to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Jean-Christophe Helary writes:

 > I rather meant that here, you have a (IP protected) process that  
 > removes the "virality" from the seeding (open) process and thus it  
 > lock the "free" DNA code into an unopenable object that serves as a  
 > commodity.

And thus makes the process decentralizable and scalable.
Commoditization is central to the modern economy.

The question is, can we achieve the commoditization, decentralization,
and scalability without turning the knowledge into property?  The
problem is not "invention"; there is ample evidence that humans can't
help inventing.  The problem is "innovation", ie, bringing the
inventions to market in a surplus-producing way.  The economic history
of China is a history of prolific invention combined with nearly-
complete failure to innovate for 2000 years.  The post-war history of
Japan is the opposite.  Thus, our intuitions about invention (and
software development is nearly pure invention!) utterly fail to
capture the economics of innovation.

But we must scale, as a matter of ethics.  The average human being
can't even afford to eat, on a daily basis, the quality of rice that
Japanese consider the bare minimum acceptable.  Let alone have a PC,
automobile, or even a refrigerator.

 > But I feel that there is something deeply wrong here.

I suspect you are feeling the consequences of Marxian alienation,
which is directly related to commoditization (specifically of labor,
but also as a general phenomenon).  As even Bill Gates does, I think.
But what are we going to do?  A world economy on a more "human scale",
where each of us can relate directly to his work, and to his suppliers
and customers, would have maybe 100 million people in it.  What do we
do with the other 5.9 billion?

 > Just like closed software tries to create a situation of dependancy.

If you don't like dependency, just say no, then.  People *don't* say
"no", however, precisely because the closed software, dependency and
all, is better for their purposes than the open software.  Given that
the dependency is external to the product ("network externalities")
can you force people to be open, and thus get the benefit of openness
without losing the innovation?  The evidence is very mixed.

 > I just watched that video of Moglen the other day and he talked
 > about mathematics and code. And I found that extremely convincing.

You're a member of the choir; of course you find the preacher
convincing.  The fact is, though, that he's peddling snake-oil, and
furthermore, he knows it -- he's an IP lawyer.  Pure mathematics is
not patentable.  What is patentable is methods that produce economic
value.  This distinction is critical.

I don't deny your perceptions.  I got into economics because I saw and
felt the same things.  But the underlying reality is bigger and more
complex than we can easily perceive; we must think carefully about it
if we want to propose ethical solutions to the problems.