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Re: Another POV
by Mike Hearn on Monday 13/Jan/2003, @08:17
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[ So, the only "right" thing to do, is to only do things that bennefit society as a whole? I'm sorry to say it, but the world is not that rosy, and I don't think it ever will be (and I'm not entirely sure I /want/ it to be in all respects). ]
Well, in general I believe you should try and do what is right not just for yourself but for everybody else too. I'm not especially religious, but it seems that this is important for society to work. That's kind of a fundamental assumption I've made as it transcends technology and is pretty general. If you think sometimes personal gain at the expense of others is OK, then my whole argument kind of falls down, and we'd have to try and argue that one out first.
[ In my oppinion there should *not* be any such laws. I don't want to live in a society where everything is controlled and regulated...... If you restrict the, so called, free market, is it then still "free" ? ]
Well the "free" market is something of a misnomer. In fact the market is quite heavily regulated even in America, which has the freest of all the markets. We have laws against attempting to create or extend monopolies for instance. That's because the free market is not in fact infallible, and it's perfectly possible to "play the system". We have laws against fraud, laws for enforcing contracts etc.... all that's needed to make the free market work smoothly, because otherwise you could warp the rules to your own advantage unfairly. So I don't think a law against proprietary platforms would be all that unreasonable.
[ A platform does not have to be something a lot of people use or even be publicly available to be "a platform". You could have a platform developed for a specific purpose for a specific (possibly closed) audience, and then develop applications for that platform - it's still a platform, and I don't think that it's nessesarily bad that such a platform be proprietary. It *may* be bad. ]
Well it really depends on scale. In principle, if an organization makes a proprietary platform on which 3rd parties build *competing* products, ie operating systems, then I think that is bad. On the other hand, if the platform is only used for non-competing products, perhaps all from the same company or doing very different specialist tasks then maybe that isn't so bad. I haven't given a great deal of thought to that situation.
In reality Apple aren't any threat realistically, I'm arguing it as a matter of principle. Apple will never have enough market share to pose any credible threat to either Microsoft or Linux, but nonetheless, I believe what they do is wrong anyway.
[ You are saying that you would be sued, but that the suit would be poinless. In that case you *are* free to develop it - it's only a matter of resources on your part to be able to win the lawsuit. ]
That was merely an example. There may well be patents on throbbing buttons or something, and anyway who is realistically going to fight a company with as much money and lawyers as vicious as Apples? It's not worth the trouble. Even if you did manage to do it, it'd be like Wine, an unofficial "ghost" implementation, not really a level playing field competition-wise.
[ And their existance is proof that it *is* possible to develop alternative platforms even though proprietary platforms are allowed and in widespread use. ]
Yes, but look at how hard it's been! Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of volunteers have put in over a decade of work and we're still not there! And Linux will have a viable chance of actually competing head on with Windows once Wine is nearly perfect, which won't happen for a long time :)
Using huge numbers of volunteers like this is a big economic hack basically. The fact that somehow it's all held together for so long isn't really a good way to say well proprietary platforms are OK because all you have to do to compete is to basically recreate computing from the ground up then give it away for free.
[ Yes, I mean exactely like 'nothing forces you to use Windows'. Just becourse some specific platform is in widespread use does not disallow you using something else. ]
No, but it can be made extremely hard. Luckily my job involves tools that are available on Linux, but many people need for instance Cubase VST (because all their musical works are in the VST file format) which of course only runs on Windows or the Mac, so I have to choose between them. I guess there are sequencers available on Linux but they are significantly behind VST so if I used them I'd find it much harder to compete for CD sales than it'd normally be.
So, it's not actually disallowed, but it's so hard for most people that it might as well be. Kind of like it's not impossible to give up crack, but crack addiction is still bad because it's so hard to stop.
[ You would still have the choice of finding or developing an alternative to that app (og pay someone else to do so). ]
At the risk of falling behind in the market because I spent my R&D budget on a Linux version of the app all my competitors were using, so now my products are more expensive and not as good, so I go bankrupt (simplistic but you get the idea).
[ It may be useless (to you), but that's not the point. The point is it's free and available .... ]
Well, if I want to use a MacOS app it's useless look at it that way. There are no apps out there that say "Darwin required" (unless they are ports of non-gui linux software). They all require MacOS which is closed. So other than a fun toy perhaps Darwin isn't all that useful.
[ > * I am against such things because they warp the natural laws of competition
In your oppinion. ]
Although some of my points are opinion yes, this is not one of them. The economic theory behind the way platforms warp the free market make sense, so far nobody has seen fit to dispute them. They do indeed restrict choice and often cause people to buy an inferior product to access their applications.
[ That may be true for some (even most) people, but not all. ]
Unfortunately economics is indeed majority rule. I'd like for all games to be released for Linux but they aren't, because economics dicatates that because I'm in the minority it's not profitable to do that, so I'm certainly affected by what other people choose to do.
[ Just becourse power is normally abused does not mean it's *always* abused. I don't agree to impose restrictions just becourse something *can* be abused or *often* is abused. Don't restrict by default - allow by default and then punish when abuse takes place. ]
Unfortunately as the Microsoft trial has shown, even if they had been effectively punished (which they weren't) we'd still all be using Windows. There is no good way legally to correct the aberrations caused by something like Windows (or macos) so it's best to prevent it in the first place.
[ Maybe they'll opensource the whole thing, maybe they won't... whatever they do we already did get *some* bennefit from the thing... ]
IMHO in the long term the con of having perhaps another Windows is far greater than the short term pro of having a nicer rendering engine.
[ Feel free to explain, but I won't promise I'll agree with your arguments. ]
Well, I have tried, it's pretty simple:
* There is no such thing as a free market, because pure capitalism doesn't work, it's unstable and tends to produce a society in which the strong trample the weak. In pure capitalism there is no justice.
* So we control the free market, with laws against monopolies, fraud, insider trading and so on. The market is not infallible, it can and is manipulated, so we try and prevent that.
* That's to ensure the market acts as free as possible, and it stays free, because that's how the majority are served best. When there is competition we all win.
* Platforms are unusual in that once you build something on them, you are then at the mercy of the platform creator. If they decide to stop supporting you, you need to upgrade (eventually). If they don't wish you to move to a competing platform, they can make it extremely hard or impossible for you to move.
* Hence the fact that Linux is developed by volunteers and given away for free yet still it's hard to make inroads into the desktop.
* These factors are why Microsoft is a monopoly.
* The free market cannot cope with platforms such as this on its own, and the legal system does nothing about them (they are too new really). So, because they are so dangerous, I oppose them, hence I oppose Apple and Microsoft (and Be Inc etc, though they are now dead, killed by the economics I now describe to you). |
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