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Comment by InclinedPlane | Hacker News Reader

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it."

Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet?

It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it?

Done.

Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary argument?

The linux kernel is utterly free. Yet it's still developed. It's still a state of the art product. And people still make money off of linux and linux-based products.

Do I honestly have to connect the dots here?

Spoilers: if you can't or don't want to charge for the code directly then maybe you find some alternate way to charge for something else or you use another form of supporting development.

The analogy to the creation of music and movies should be so frelling obvious I shouldn't even need to make it.

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Linux is subsidized by large players who need an open platform on which to provide other services. This includes companies like Google who provide advertising based upon things that run on linux and companies like IBM who sell proprietary software that runs on Linux and support contracts for those products.

There are very few viable, large-scale open source projects that are run on developer free time alone.

Tell that to the GCC folks, GIMP developers, Blender developers, Tremulous developers, Firefox developers, Mono developers, Rails developers, Python developers...

(we all know GTK is a labor of love, 'cause you couldn't expect people to pay for it.)

Can you prove that those projects wouldn't be healthier if people were happy to pay money for them?

Can you prove they would be?

How many closed-source, for profit software projects were rescued after the supporting company went under? (I am intentionally conflating closed-source and for profit as the majority of financed projects are closed source).

What you have to consider here is the rate of progress, as well as the length of development time. Open source projects have essentially infinite development time, whereas closed-source, for profit projects have a finite development time (whenever the company decides further development isn't worth it anymore)+. However, open source projects tend to have a slower rate of progress versus financed projects.

After 6 months or 1 year, sure, the financed project will probably be ahead. How about the 5 year mark? 10 year? It becomes much less clear which project will have accumulated more man-hours.

+very rarely, closed-source projects are released as open source (e.g. Doom 3), but I think we can all agree that that is the exception to the norm

very rarely, closed-source projects are released as open source (e.g. Doom 3), but I think we can all agree that that is the exception to the norm

Well, if we compare to the list in the parent, it's much more. At least Firefox, Blender, Rails qualify. These were products that had no future in closed-source form. If they had, it would have been financial madness to open source them.

They could be healthier if we seized 20% of everyone's paychecks to fund them too, but that doesn't mean we should.

The thing you guys are missing is "that which is not seen":

http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

Just because there is some open source code doesn't mean that there is an "optimal" level of it. In other words, maybe due to the relative lack of funding, there's a lot less open source than there could be if there was a better financial feedback loop between people getting value from the software and those developing it.

This isn't just something I'm making up - I've spent a lot of time around open source, and seen a lot of good people who could have done lots more if they had had more time to dedicate to working on the code, rather than working a "day job".

Quite a few people get paid to work on GCC. Mozilla has paid staff. Rails work was paid for by 37signals, etc. Mono has paid developers, etc...

Just because you're not paying for these products directly, doesn't mean someone else isn't.

Do you think you're countering InclinedPlane's point? Because you haven't. You've explained the how to InclinedPlane's what, but that hardly constitutes a disproof.

The thing about proof by contradiction is that you can invalidate it by showing that the contradiction is not, in fact, a contradiction.

Linux is used everywhere, but it's also paid for. If it weren't paid for, it wouldn't be used everywhere.

bringing the discussion back to its original topic, the music industry is subsidized by large players as well. every famous musician makes good income from just the fact that they are a celebrity. product endorsements, festival and tour sponsorships, etc. companies pay musicians to produce music in a way that is totally abstracted from the actual sale of music.

For those wondering how this translates to the music industry, there are a few analogies.

- Independent bands who sign corporate contracts--see The Roots. - Major labels who create teen brands like Justin Bieber or Selena Gomez. They don't care if you steal the music as long as you buy the t-shirt, buy the book, see the movie, come to the show, etc. - Sync licenses. More and more mid-level bands are depending on getting their songs into movies, commercials, tv shows, etc. to bring in revenue. This is another form of corporate funding.

OP said that there would be less of it, not that it would be nonexistent.

Linux is probably an exception, and not the rule, and it is such an exception that large companies are willing to subsidize it. I've been looking for some good sound editing software, and the only solution I could find that was good at altering tempo without creating weird artifacts was closed-source and proprietary. I've also rarely played any open-source games that were as good as the closed-source ones.

The point is, if someone does something that creates value, they should get compensated somehow. Asking musicians to produce music for nothing more than the sheer joy of it is exploiting them, and impolite, besides. If someone gives you value, you ought to give value back. I don't agree that the RIAA's way of getting back that value is correct, but that doesn't mean that copyright is a bad idea.

Apache, Wordpress, nginx, node.js, coffeescript, ruby, rails, python, django, chromium, firefox, webkit, drupal, varnish, memcached, 7zip, postgresql, mongodb, php, clang, wine, dosbox, vlc, virtualbox, truecrypt, calibre, audacity, openoffice, cygwin, flac, ogg, perl, synergy ...

I'm both enjoying and cringing at all of these HNers indicating that Linux is the only major exception they can think of(thus open/free source is obviously a novelty), when many of our livelihoods likely depend on these products.

It just feels like fighting the same battles from 15 years ago. How long will it take? Before people stop trotting out the argument that "you gotta charge for everything! otherwise how does stuff get made eh?" It's old guys. It's been debunked a billion times over.

Open source ain't communism, nor is it doomed to failure. Even if you bind your hands to make it legally impossible for you to control the distribution of your work that doesn't mean that you can't make money off of it or that you must stop working.

Video games alone are a 16 billion dollar per year industry. It employs over 22,000 software developers. (http://www.theesa.com/games-improving-what-matters/economy.a...) Are you seriously suggesting that this industry would produce just as much software if their work wasn't copyrighted, or that listing 35 open-source projects says anything about what would happen to the industry overall?

You're focusing on one very small part of the software industry and ignoring the rest.

It's funny you trot out that example just as so many games are switching to "free to play" models.

I'm focusing on a "very small part of the software industry" which creates the software which runs the vast majority of web servers. Oh, and every android phone too.

All I'm saying is that if you can't accept that there is "another way" of making stuff, even hugely important stuff, then you simply have not been paying attention.

The argument that failing to charge for every single copy of software/music/books/movies must necessarily translate to a diminution of those works has been made time and time again, but there are so many counter examples today that it's patently ridiculous to make it yet again.

Do you have a better argument to make or are you going to stick with this one?

Because honestly I would imagine that reusing the same old tired FUD that companies like MS have tried to use to scare people away from using Linux or Apache back in the mid-90s would have a limited shelf-life.

> All I'm saying is that if you can't accept that there is "another way" of making stuff, even hugely important stuff, then you simply have not been paying attention.

I have done open source development for over 10 years (I was developer #3 on one of the open-source projects you mentioned), have used Linux for about 15 years, and use it every day at my job working at the company that develops the Android code that you mention. That you would question my open source credential is... amusing.

I believe in open source too (and have spent a significant portion of my life developing it). That doesn't mean that I'm naive enough to think that you can take away the licensing-based revenue from the for-pay software industry and continue to get just as much software.

It's not a matter of being open source or not. I think his argument is that you can make money without copyright. Regardless if you open source your software or not. And not only you "can", but it's also the most profitable choice of today. You pointed to the gaming industry, which is an interesting example because our industry is moving toward free to play exactly because copyright haven't been paying off recently. Although I'd argue companies are doing this extremely slow because of their own bureaucracy and incompetence.

So my answer to your question of "do you think they would be making as much money without copyright" is that they would be making much more without copyright.

Let me offer an argument which I haven't seen, but is probably not novel: people will continue to make music, tell stories and make short films even if there's no likelihood of making much money from it. It's a creative impulse that, happily, has allowed some people in the last few decades to make a living at it -- but that's not the long term history, and it may not continue.

We might not get epic movies... or we might, if CGI continues to dwindle in cost. We probably won't get as much pop/dance music... but we might.

There won't be as many huge star winners, that's all that can really be said to be likely.

I don't think that's really an argument that has anything to do with what I said. If someone does something to benefit you, in this case, writing a song that you enjoy, you should reciprocate somehow, preferably with money. It doesn't matter if they enjoyed doing it or not. I know lots of people who like their jobs, but they would be pretty sad about not getting paid.

Asking musicians to produce music for nothing more than the sheer joy of it is exploiting them, and impolite

Don't fall for their mental trap: questioning copyright doesn't mean that: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pira...

besides. If someone gives you value, you ought to give value back.

And people shouldn't be dicks, doesn't mean we should make it a crime. Morality != Law.

That's cool, but some people in this thread are arguing that you shouldn't have to pay for music at all, beyond a small Kickstarter investment. I disagree with that. And apparently, so do the majority of pirates.

Exception ?

MongoDB, Wordpress (and all other blogging frameworks), MySQL, the list keeps going... they are out there for free because the creators figured out a way for it to be free why still getting paid (service contracts in most cases).. Being free didn't even reduce their quality (it probably enhanced it)...

That the majority of Linux contributions are made by employees of companies that sell Linux nullifies your argument. Take that away, and Linux would not be near the state it is in today.

Because they needed that code in the kernel.

Now, there would always be people who want to have that music recorded, so it would still flow.

> Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done.

The argument is that there would be less computer code, not no computer code. Saying that one specific project would still exist is not a counterexample.

And it's an argument, but it's not necessarily true.

Consider the costs of production and distribution.

Production. Frank McCourt's memoirs were the end result of a life of telling stories socially and on stage. People who heard him tell the stories would say "you should write a book". Today his listeners wold have videoed his performances with a camera phone, posted them on YouTube, and he would be a viral star before he knew it.

Distribution. Suppose I have a head mounted camera that simply records everything I see — it's part of version 5 of the android glasses google is working on. Then along comes a third party and releases an app that simply recognizes anything I look at that's a printed page and captures it. If I read a book, I have an digital image of its pages and an OCRed text for indexing.

The cooking smells analogy is actually more accurate than the writer realizes, because all this technology makes production easier too.

On the other hand, how many iOS apps would there be if Apple wouldn't allow you to charge for them? It would still be an ok ecosystem, but not great like it is now.

Certainly people are certainly attracted to iOS dev because it produces money, but iOS users do not have to pay for apps. It is easy to get apps without paying for them, but Apple has made it very easy to pay for them. I doubt that the absence of copyright would significantly change the proportion of iOS users who use apps without paying for them.

you're totally missing the point. the question is whether the ability to charge money incentivizes programmers to produce code. androsynth argues that the app store shows that it does. there are hundreds if not thousands of apps that would not exist if all apps in the store had to be free.

The OP strongly implies that "The presence of copyright" is the same as "The ability to charge money," and much of the discussion here also assumes that. It is simply not true, though. I would rather discuss what the OP is actually about than the thing that the OP would prefer to substitute for its subject matter to make its case seem better than it is.

my point is still the same. the question is not how people consume apps, its how many of those apps are produced.

There are lots of free apps and a lot of the nonfree apps dont make any money, but people still make new apps.

again, what you are saying is true, but it doesn't have anything to do with the argument

no one thinks that not being able to charge money = no apps. the argument is over whether not being able to charge money = less apps.

Well sure, I imagine there would be less apps produced (certainly less me too and shovelware apps where the author is trying to make a quick buck). My point is simply that apps will continue to be produced, regardless.

Besides, even if its perfectly legal to copy apps (or music or movies) and distribute them however you like, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't monetize them. It doesn't even mean that you have to completely give up the pay-for-app model either - people will still be willing to pay for something they really like (I bought a CD online direct off a musician a few months back despite already having the mp3's and I've never even opened the CD!), but obviously a lot fewer people than now. Perhaps a pay what you want model would work. This can be offset in other ways - paid support, physical merchandise (printed documentation perhaps) and kickstarter-style "I'll finish the app for $X" are just a few ideas.

I'm not saying that this would definitely be sustainable, because I don't know, but I do see some potential there and either way, people will still make apps, music and movies regardless (though it will be less[1]).

I wonder is B2B sustainable on support contracts and custom work?

[1] Maybe hobbies of the future will revolve more around the production of (free) content and less about the consumption of (free or otherwise) content? Evolution and adaptation of human behavior?

I agree. I view copyrights as unfair business practices, enforced by the government. My original comment was really in response to the open-source comment. I believe money is a bigger incentive than open-source development in the software engineering industry. Software certainly doesn't need to be copyrighted in order to sell it.

Code creators can charge for their creations, though. They don't have to, but they can. And some significant portion of open contributors are paid for their contributions, if indirectly, by working as employees of organizations that contribute to or allow employees to work on those open source projects.

If nobody could get paid for writing code, there would be less of it. No question.

Yes, if nobody could get paid for writing code, there would probably be less of it. (Barring some sort of post-scarcity economy, I guess.)

However, your original assumption does not flow from the premise--just because selling software becomes impossible does not mean programmers won't get paid. I recall reading somewhere (too lazy to find the source) that the majority of programmers work on bespoke, in-house software rather than consumer-facing proprietary software. Even if it is not a majority, it still shows that there are viable ways for programmers to get paid outside creating scarcity with copyright.

Just because people contributing to the kernel get paid does not mean they would not get paid without copyright. Companies like Google and Red Hat do not really rely on copyright for money.

Out of interest: are you in the software industry? How much of your work is open source?

you're logical reasoning is incredibly flawed. please stop arguing by way of pleading obviousness ("OMG ARE YOU SERIOUS, MY ARGUMENT IS SO OBVIOUS THAT I WONT EVEN MAKE IT!!!11")

> What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations ... there’d be less of it

the claim here is that if you disallowed charging for software, there would be less software.

> Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it?

great, linux exists and is awesome. nobody disputes that. this fact does not contradict the claim in question.

the existent / awesomeness of linux contradicts claims such as: "people who don't get paid will not create things" and "unpaid creators cannot create great things". however, the original claim is none of those statements. the original claim is merely that when you don't let people charge for software, fewer people will write it.

> Do I honestly have to connect the dots here?

i honestly have no idea what you think the connection between the dots is.

couldn't charge for their creations but of course people do charge for open-source code to be made. IBM, RedHat, the US National Security Agency, Canonical, DARPA, Google, etc. all pay for open source code to be written. If the programmers weren't allowed to charge for their code, a lot less code would be written.

> IBM, RedHat, the US National Security Agency, Canonical, DARPA, Google, etc. all pay for open source code to be written.

IBM: sells tons of proprietary software.

Redhat: genuine open source deal. Legit example.

Government: money comes from taxes. I don't think I fancy a world where information goods are mostly paid for through taxes.

Google: makes most of their money from the proprietary bits of their software.

My point isn't that IBM etc. make money from open-source software. My point is that they are all charged money by people writing open-source software.

I don't think they're actually charged much - more that they employ some experts who work on the software.

It's pretty difficult to charge for goods that are not scarce.

I don't get the difference? The NSA hiring experts to work on SELinux extensions is the same as the NSA paying some experts for the SELinux extensions.

The scarce good in this case is the experts' time. In some cases, this works out well as a way to create open source software: if there's a big entity with lots of cash, who really needs that thing and can pay for it in its entirety. But what's being charged for is generally the developer's time, not the software. This is easy to see because, whereas the NSA may pay for SELinux, the next person down the line does not pay for it - they're getting it for free.

This has important implications in terms of the ability to spread the costs around. With proprietary software, it's possible to do so: charge 100 people $10 instead of charging one person $500 and letting the other 99 people copy it for free. You make more money, and in some cases, the market will clear when it wouldn't for the single-payer model.

I think this actually shows up fairly clearly in what's open source and what isn't: stuff that would be a one-off consulting job in any case may or may not be, stuff that's more consumer-oriented is more often proprietary, and stuff that's used by lots of developers as infrustructure is quite often open source.

It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it?\

I guess you don't know much about either Linux or business. Let me give you an example. Red Hat pays people to work on Linux, because that increases the market for people who will buy Linux support. IBM pays people to work on Linux, because that increases the market for people who will buy servers. Linux even only has a GUI because a bunch of old Unix companies sat down and formed the X consortium and paid people to write it, which they did because a common GUI would mean more software got written for Unix in general.

So go and head and make your point but do it with a Linux made ONLY of hobbyist code. If you can even compile such a thing (don't forget Cygnus funded a lot of GCC development so they could sell embedded hardware!).

Naming an example (Linux) doesn't contradict "there's be less of it".

That's right. Charging for software was microsoft's big invention. It took, what, 30 years to realize that the software had enough value beyond the hardware.

I guess the flip side is, if there was no free software, there would be no pay software.

He said "there’d be less of it", not "there'd be none of it".

> How much of the internet runs on it?

How many of the sites on the internet are open source though? A quick glance through the top 100 according to Alexa gives me 2 or 3 (wordpress and wikipedia, and really wordpress is more about the content, which is not open source, generally speaking.)

Site on the internet is something like a live performance.

You can't have copies of it because of its transient nature. Sometimes you do have a bootleg but your mileage may vary still.

I mean the code. The argument was “there would be less code if you didn't have the right to own code”, and I'm saying that although the internet runs on open source software, the vast majority of popular internet sites run closed-source software.

On top on an infrastructue of open source software.

Where would Linux be without Windows and Mac OS X to borrow ideas from?

I'd argue Linux is an open source reimplementation of Solaris more than of OSX or Windows.

Moreover, much as I love it, most free software usually has a huge gap in usability and QA, because those are the boring parts of writing software.

Probably somewhere more efficient but with less useless (but admittedly cool looking :)) eye-candy.

The main reason common distributions have features similar to Windows and OS X is to make transitioning easier. Really serious people using e.g. Arch with XMonad are more efficient with very little Windows/OS X influence.

And hey, Linux could borrow those features even more easily if Windows or OS X were open source. Windows being open source would be complicated, but Apple is a hardware company and would work well enough with an open source OS at its heart.

Reading the article now (15 minutes later), the objections seem to be addressed in the next sentence. Was the essay edited after publication because of InclinedPlane's comment? If so, I wish writers wouldn't make "phantom edits" that add or remove substantial content, as it makes it difficult to engage with their writing.

You cannot simply substitute software for music, literature, or film. It does not work that way.

> Linux

Only most lines of linux code are written by people who are paid for doing so. If it wasn't for companies that put money into linux development linux would be a lot less useful.

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