Free and Open Source economic philosophy

I've been told more frequently lately that Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) isn't capitalist, and it's starting to bug me. People are under the impression that when people make something and give it away, the result is communism. The problem with this argument is that communism involves the government making the market decisions for the people. Decisions like which technology to use and which to scrap, how things should be made and from what natural resources. FOSS is immune to decisions like this because any decision made can be voluntarily rejected by any group of people, no matter how small. The project can be forked and taken in a new direction. People looking for a software solution then have another choice and that choice is made by them, not the government. Then, almost as if to spite those comparing FOSS to communism, the more popular project gains momentum from more feature requests, bug reports, and patches while the less popular projects stagnate from disinterest. Darwinism at its best.

Now imagine you run a company and buy all your software solutions from one company. All of your internal documents, databases, website content, and business logic are stored in that company's proprietary formats. You have almost no ability to change providers because the cost is too great to convert the proprietary formats. The company makes the design decisions for its software and you are left using whatever they provide. This proprietary system sounds a bit like communism to me.

I think it comes down to the fact that people equate capitalism to spending money and the philosophy that you get a better product when you buy the more expensive one. Unfortunately this is only true for material goods when the technology behind competing materials are at similar points. Sure a hardbound book will last longer than a paperback and the hardbound book costs more because it uses more expensive materials. Software doesn't have hardbound or paperback versions. The cost of the software product is the value the company puts on the feature set of the product. It's a made up number. The same software has been seen priced at hundreds of dollars, re-marketed and priced at one hundred dollars, then given out practically for free (FrontPage).

Please help to rid the world of these misconceptions. Also, remember FOSS before you purchase new software.

Thanks

Another Amazing Open Source Project

Woah, I just found BigBlueButton through a mailing list, and it blew me away. It's an entire remote conferencing suite, and its open source. Only downside? It uses flash. Oh well. It reminds me of a certain software project by a different company that likes to charge people, but theirs is completely closed source. This is a roll your own solution! Desktop sharing, webcam sharing, chat, document sharing, voice conferencing. It even works with an asterisk server for telephone voice conferencing. I would love to host services like this for schools, groups, and companies. There's something very capitalist about using open source projects to lower your costs and give you the competative advantage over your competitors.

I really hope that the UW looks into this. Right now UW Madison is offering subsidized copies of the "other" software to students, staff, and faculty. The information goes through the company's servers and is not under any control by the UW. Ideally the UW would roll it's own solution rather than outsourcing it to another company, then any teacher could use it to broadcast lectures to students, sick or otherwise, over the university's network and the information would never put a burden on the outside network.

We have moodle, lets take classroom learning to the next level UW.

Comming Soon, New Site

Say Wha? Elliott's actually going to have a site rather than just a blog? Well, yea. I've accumulated a bunch of little projects that I want to share with the world. Little hacks, essays, and resources. For example, just a few minutes ago I put together a search bar for UW-Madison's MadCat.

So, the blog will be staying at http://blog.elliottrezny.com and the new site will be at http://www.elliottrezny.com, which previously redirected to the blog.

Identi.ca? Pretty Cool

Just took the time to familiarize myself with identi.ca. For the uninformed, it's an implementation of an open source microblogging service called StatusNet. Different sites can have their own setup and link them to other sites. I'm interested in the idea of a house StatusNet. The goal would be to connect every appliance in the house to it. As long as the implementation is fast enough, it could provide useful updates like "Cloths dry. Laundry ready to be cycled." or "Front door unlocked" with a picture of course. Right now, it could be a cool way to connect different app based computers around the house. How about a MythTV box that tweets when it records a new show? Of course, hosting your own would keep the info private.

Look me up, http://identi.ca/erezny