cschwarm

I personally find the 'Non sequitur' more obvious: "If we lose the use of C#, we will lose them [applications written in C#] too."

It's obviously possible to port C# applications to other programming languages. One example is Tomboy, which was ported to C++ (the port is called gNote). Also, a GNOME developer once tried to port a C# application to Java: His conclusion was, IIRC, that it's rather easy since both languages are very similar. This shows that even if the community looses all free C# implementations, it would not loose all the C# applications.

Anyway, what I find more interesting: You seem to say that Stallman usually argues his case properly. I find this hard to believe.

Could you show me any important argument made by him that does not rest on a logical fallacy? I'd be deeply grateful.

> "Do you really think that the stability, low cost and quality of Open Source software is independent of the Free Software ideology?"

Well, I do. Open Source is basically just Economics.

An initial release of source code happens because there's often no (more) alternative usage for it. From a product point of view, it's often unfinished. Turning it into something that could have an alternative use -- such as being sold as Closed Source Software, for example -- usually requires additional efforts; additional investments of time and money. Another reason for releasing the source code is the "death" of former Closed Source Software: Either it was killed by competition or because people's wants and needs changed. No or little future profit is to be expected.

In both cases holds: The opportunity costs of releasing the source code are low or even zero. One looses nothing by releasing the source code. If you'd loose something, you simply wouldn't release it. And every Open Source advocate is fine with that.

As for contributing to Open Source: It simply pays. If a developer is sufficiently annoyed by a missing feature or a bug to justify make a patch, it will happen. It's pure self-interest. It's economic behaviour.

The next stage is the more important one: Why send the patch upstream? That's simply, again. First, the opportunity costs of sending the patch is zero, again. The developer couldn't use the code of the patch for anything else. Second, sending the patch upstream, will save him effort. If he (or she) wouldn't send the patch, that's basically a fork so he or she would have to waste his time solving conflicts, etc. Sending the patch upstream is, in most cases, pure self-interest. It's economic behaviour.

Accepting a patch is usually also rational, for it improves the source code for the original developer.

In other words: each stage of releasing initial source code, making patches that fixes bugs and improves the functionality, and accepting these, is entirely self-interest and economic behaviour.

No need for any ideology.

Your argument that Open Source wouldn't exists without Richard Stallman, is basically useless: How could we know whether it wouldn't? It's an empirical question that cannot be tested with an experiment.

However, we can make some analogies: Solutions are often invented when problems exists. In nature, the eye was invented several times independently because it helped the creatures to survive more often.

So, it seems save to say: Without Stallman, something like Open Source would have been invented by others. In fact, Project Gutenberg -- free distribution of classic texts -- was invented in 1971, already. The first BSD "distribution" was assembled in 1977. Several others released source code without ever having heard about Stallman and Free Software, before.

Again, no need for any ideology.

Assuming your premise is correct: What did you expect?

The origin of modern America dates back about 400 years, the origin of Europe about 2000 years. Also, the reason for many early US immigrants was to escape ancient European social structures. Europe was already crowded before America was explored: there simply was less room for outside influence from other parts of the world.

Even so, there are also quite a few attitudes, customs, social structures, and institutions in the US that would seem out of place in (most of) Europe. In fact, the sentence may even hold true for many comparisons within Europe.

I doubt, one could conclude that -- due to such differences -- one country or nation is more liberal then the other.

I think you got a point, namely that the initial question is flawed, but I don't agree entirely. Anarchists might want no government, at all.

However, even anarchists could participate on the side, for example by making a general suggestion ("Remove the government.") or by making particular suggestions ("Remove taxes", "Remove legislation", etc.). So I'm not quite sure what the original blog post is really about.

After studying the side -- and I find the idea quite interesting --, I think there are some flaws in the basic design. For each suggestions can have at least one counter-suggestion. For example, the counter-suggestion to "End the Drug War" could be "Continue the Drug War". Strictly speaking, everybody is then probably going to make two votes, endorsing one and opposing the other.

In fact, every topic may have several distinct proposals. For example, the topic "Drug regulation" may have the proposals "No regulation, at all", "Regulate hard drugs, but not marijuana.", "Regulate on a local level", "Regulate all drugs, even alcohol and tobacco", and many others. In such a design, nobody needs to vote against a proposal.

Another point, although this one is going off-topic: As a European, I find it hard to make any informed decision on many of the topics. I guess, even as a US citizen, I would probably have the same problem, too. For example, what do people really mean when they suggest to "End the drug war"? Stop regulating drug ownership? Or allocate less money on drug law enforcement? A suggestion needs a proper explanation what activities are suggested.

Next, why should I have to browse through thousands of opinions to read about the arguments for a certain proposal? A argument needs no header, no author, no date, no discussion (as long as it's a correct argument) and I don't care how many supporters found an opinion helpful.

It certainly need no comments such as "Think of how much money and resources it took in 2007 to arrest, incarcerate and process the 800,000 citizens arrested for marijuana related offenses alone!" Well, how much money and resources were spend in 2007? I don't know. Why not just give me the facts: "According to the study by <institution>, 5 billion dollars were spend on arresting citizens for marijuana in 2007. This money could have been spend on real criminal problems." This is an argument, although people may disagree with it.

Next, the idea of votes is probably flawed, too. There is no costs when supporting a proposal except time. Active people will have more influence by voting for lots of proposals, while less active people have less. A non-vote thus has two meanings: "I don't care" as well as "I have had no time to care, yet". I'd probably find it better when everybody gets a fixed amount of votes that can be spend anywhere. This way, spending 5 votes for a certain proposal makes me loose my ability to support other topics. Everybody will then be more careful where to spend his or her votes. Votes should be movable so when I change my mind, I can express that by moving votes out of certain suggestions and into other ones.

Of course, double accounts might become more of a problem. But, on the other side, it already exists with the current design.

This way, any political area -- such as "Drug regulation" -- can have an overview on all alternative proposals, including their relative support by participants.

I'm not sure if my thoughts are helpful for the blog author. However, I certainly would find an alternative design more useful, more interesting, and I would certainly participate if I were a US citizen.

I suppose you think that maths is no science, then?

After all, there's no empirical proof that any mathematical statement is true. Even simple statements like, for example, C/r = Pi cannot be verified empirically. Following your argument, maths is just "pseudo science".

But, of course, you would not say that, would you?

However, if you accept maths to be a science, why not any other field that uses deductive logic? For biological evolution -- at least, the part you seem to find disgusting -- basically uses deductive logic: It makes a few basic assumptions, and then deduces its conclusions, using logical arguments. There's quite a lot of game theory in evolutionary biology.

Your argument, on the other hand, is based on a false assumption. Namely, that there are no empirical proofs for statements in evolutionary biology.

Because there is, sometimes.

Yes, we cannot make experiments with humans, especially not with ones we consider extinct.

We can, however, argue "by analogy". And guess what? Arguments by analogy are made all the time in empirical science. Whenever you use a bridge, you bet your life that the mathematical model of the bridge correctly reflected all the important attributes of the real bridge. All sciences using mathematical models are based on the argument by analogy.

You complain about "pseudo science". Your comment, however, lacks signs of quality as well. You seem to be ignorant about scientific reasoning and yet you dare to judge someone else's article. Why not start by fixing your own ignorance, first?

In the social sciences, it's usual to use an operational definition [1]. For many variables are constructs [2] and they cannot be observed directly.

The authors of the above paper seem to have used different operational definitions, and they all point in the same direction. So one can state with reasonable certainty that women's happiness declined in the last 30 years.

A discussion about potential explanations for the phenomenon can hardly be called pointless.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construct_(philosophy_of_scienc...

Well, that's my point. ;)

The rhetorics about "bad" major labels (or "mega-cooperations" as Stallman likes to call software companies) is just that: rhetorics.

However, there would still be an important difference: Club members are less likely to upload stuff to others, since they would harm themselves, only.

On a side note: I don't think it would need to be huge. There are quite a few small independent record labels out there, concentrating on one kind of music. So could any club.

I think your point of view is too idealistic. You're attributing too much responsibility to the record companies. Sure, a handful of them dominate the market and their oligopoly has negative effects.

But the economic attributes of the product itself is the origin of the current market situation.

Consider the following though experiment: People form a club or cooperative. There's a monthly membership fee which is used to pay recording costs for artists, administration (legal fees, secretaries, etc.), and the necessary rights to distribute the recordings to its members.

In other words, no large anonymous record company owns the music, anymore -- but just normal people like you an me. But would such a club or cooperative act very differently to a record company? I don't think so:

1.) The club would not allow free redistribution of the recordings. Otherwise nobody had an incentive to be a club member in the first place and the club could not collect enough money to pay artists. In fact, the club would probably also restrict the amount of downloads per month. Otherwise people may be try to become members for a month, download all stuff, and then cancel membership to join another club to do the same thing, again.

2.) The core problem of such a club would be allocation of the collected membership fees. Which artist's music should be bought and recorded? Should the club make lots of low quality recordings or a few high-quality recordings or some mixture thereof? How much money should be spend on advertising of the recordings and club membership? These questions may be answered by some sort of Digg-Style voting but that presupposes that people are motivated to participate. In most cases, though, people have better things to do. This opens a window of opportunity for the most motivated to skew the results, for example, artists. We've seen something similar also happen to Digg.

3.) If a consumer is not sure which style of music and artists he or she likes most, it's most rational to become member of the largest club. In other words, there's also a strong tendency for the large clubs to become the larger, while the small ones are likely to become (relatively) smaller. It will also result in a sort of oligopoly where the largest clubs set the "price" for club memberships. This can also be seen elsewhere, for example in the blogging scene. Although there was nearly no commercial interest in the beginning of blogs, its readership quickly formed a Pareto distribution, as shown by Clay Shirky.

Overall, if people would really be concerned about the recording industry, they have all means to make them go away in the near future -- for example, by starting clubs and cooperatives. Most people, however, don't care that much. Otherwise, they would have already done it, right? ;-)

As a hobby programmer I had the same problem some years ago. IMHO, any programming language currently used to write web apps enables you to write "solid" web apps.

But I am wondering why you find all tutorials to be "abstract" although you already looked into some PHP tutorials. PHP has a very flat learning curve and there are tons of easy newbie tutorials out there. It's PHP's biggest advantage! One can hardly call PHP consistent or concise. But its documentation and general support is best. So why should you have problems?

After all, programming is very much all about abstraction, isn't it?

Let's say, there's a web site with 10 or 20 static pages. It's "abstraction" to replace their common header and footer by a simple PHP print statement, so you wouldn't have to edit each page for one change in the header/footer. It's abstraction to save the content of each page into a database and to add some sort of dynamic navigation. It's abstraction to design the database for "news entries" that will be displayed in a list or a detail view.

So I may be wrong -- and I apologize in advance if I am --, but maybe you simply lack some basics?

In this case, I'd advise you to start with Python. It's a consistent, concise, and well-supported language. A series of steps may include:

(1) Learning Python: http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/

(2) Learning DB normalization: http://www.databasejournal.com/sqletc/article.php/1428511/Da...

(3) Learning basic SQL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL#Language_elements

(4) Learning Regular Expressions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression

(5) Learning Django 1.0: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//

After (1), you should be able to write simple command line apps to help you simplify computer usage. (2) is necessary for understanding Relational Databases and (3) for understanding SQL, later. (4) is a prerequisite for the final step, (5). Django is a web development framework comparable to Ruby On Rails.

From a newbie point of view, it has the following advantages: It comes with its own small web server, so you don't need to deal with Apache yet. It also comes with a template engine, so you learn to organize HTML into templates. It also comes with database abstraction so you need no real SQL in the beginning, just the basics of step (2) and (3). It also comes with an admin interface and several other build-in features so you don't need to deal with these. It has lots of add-ons called 'apps' you can study to gain a basic overview on typical problems when developing web pages.

Django uses an MTV (Model, Template, View) architecture, so you can write CRUD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete) functions easily -- the core stuff of nearly all dynamic web applications.

But there are also some disadvantages: Its URL system needs an understanding of regular expressions, thus you'd need (4). But it still may be frustrating. Its documentation is rather good, but unfortunately not written with web development newbies in mind. That especially holds true for "Tutorial: Writing your first Django application".

To get around the second problem, read the following chapters in the following order:

(1) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//intro/install/#intro-i... -- Installation

(2) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//topics/http/urls/ -- This will enable you to link URLs to certain "views" and thereby to design your URL structure. You will need some understanding of Regular Expressions here.

(3) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//topics/http/views/ -- This will enable you to write "Views", a response for a URL call, in the beginning probably just a "Hello, World" response.

(4) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//topics/templates/#topi... Templates will allow you to split your HTML into separate pieces and make them more independent. If you have done this, you can alter the responses from (3) to use the templates and return the content of variables.

(5) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//topics/db/models/ -- This allows you to model your data, for example some news/blog entries.

(6) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//ref/contrib/admin/#ref... -- This enables the Admin interface so you can enter some example data for your models without SQL.

(7) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//topics/db/queries/ -- This teaches you make simple queries on the example data. At this point, you can alter your Views again, to fetch some data and display this in your template.

(8) http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.0//topics/forms/#topics-f... -- This lets you enter and edit data without the admin interface. You may add some Views and Templates for this.

And there you are! That's the basics of web development: Fetch some data from somewhere, maybe modify it somehow, then provide views on the results by using a URL structure. Maybe, provide forms to enter and edit data if necessary.

The rest is basically just repetition thereof and some technical details (Protocols, etc.) Most of the time, Django will provide an easy means to solve these boring problems. If you got this far, you can dive into all the details: Apache, SQL with PostgreSQL, Email, Feeds, User management, Internationalization, Testing, different Content types, etc.

Of course, you may also switch the framework or language, then.

Again, I apologize if I misunderstood your question.

Well, what do you consider a proper explanation?

The core theory is in fact quite simple: People have a (serious) problem to solve and the text presents the product as a solution to these problems by pointing out its benefits. In other words: People are expected to be self-interested.

Of course, potential buyers also wonder whether the product will deliver. Since media is not interactive, you have to deal with typical objections up front. Thus, these latters tend to be rather long.

Next, you'd need the attention of the audience. Thus, you make (lots of sub-) headlines that are easy to scan and makes readers interested. Among others, curiosity is often induced to make people willing to read the rest of the text. "Do you make these mistakes in English" is a classic example. The magic word here is of course "these". It promises an answer in the text without revealing it yet.

In the text, you can use typical sales tactics to overcome buyers' fear of later remorse. Caldini's 'Influence' describes the common 6 tactics.

For example, people tend to buy from people they like. One way to make people like the seller is to point out similarities. Thus, the seller often uses a profile similar to the buyers -- in the above example: "Natalie ('A Parrot Lover For The Last 12 Years')". This also establishes the seller as an authority -- 12 years is quite some time to gain experience and thus she probably knows what she's talking about.

Additionally, you have a clear call to action. For some reason, people are either unable to figure out what to do next or they are willing to obey commands.

And that's it, basically.

As far as I know there's no agreement about an explanation on why these tactics work. Why do people obey commands by authorities? You may construct an explanation based on the different models of economic or biological or psychological behavior.

But it's hard to test which of those (if any) is the one 'true' explanation.

Yes, maybe you could sell one or two or maybe a hundred copies but hardly any more.

The more successful your fork, the more likely it's going to be packaged and distributed by the one of the top distributions for FREE. The higher your sales price, the more likely people will buy just one copy and share additional copies among themselves.

Now consider the costs: Changing the UI of GIMP seems to be no easy task, otherwise someone would have done it, already. People are complaing about the interface for the last ten years or so.

In other words: Yes, you may be able to make revenue by adding features to the GIMP, but you're unlikely to make a profit!

Notes from a copywriting point of view:

(1) Switch the first two paragraphs: Nobody cares what shopialize.com is, but what problems it solves.

(2) Remove the passive voice of the second paragraph. Suggestion: "Tell your friends about new products and the best deals in town. Discover opportunities your friends have found. Review products and ask your friends before you buy."

(3) Remove "or login using Twitter" from the first action box. Move it to the "Register" page. Three options are confusing.

To be honest, I don't like the Sign Up Form on the front page. I'd remove it, distribute "Use Shopialize to..." on two columns, and repeat the action box "Take the tour or ...". I'd also add a box with testimonials (or a small list of the latest entries), and then show the last box.

I'd also animate the slideshow. I'm also wondering why you have no second password field to catch typos? Did I miss something?

Note that English is not my first language so correct the above suggestion if necessary.

I don't think focusing the discussion would help. The problems I see are the following:

(1) The question -- when properly understood -- is empirical by nature. One would need to select a random sample in both fields, measure the innovation within the samples for a given period of time, and publish the results. While this is not rocket science, the problem is in the details: What is innovation? How would one operationalize the term?

(2) In most cases when I've read such opinion articles, the discussion does not seem to be about innovation -- in the sense of "new way of doing something" (wikipedia). There are a million new ways to do something, but only a small fraction thereof is useful. That often seems to be the unsaid meaning to those who say Open Source is not innovating. Sure, nothing stops Open Source suppliers to innovate. However, they often don't care, simply because they don't profit by doing so. There's just one exception to the rule: Software by developers for developers. This is where Open Source shines because developers understand the needs of fellow developers (or technical people, in general). In general, however, Open Source developers don't care enought about common consumers to develop a new and useful product that helps them solve their problems. Thus, they just copy existing stuff.

(3) Slightly related to (2), another problem is attention and presentation: Innovation usually doesn't sell despite the glory of the term. See the "Myths of innovations" by Scott Berkun. The first chapter points to many examples and is free to download. To sell an innovative idea, one first needs the attention of the audience. Second, one needs to present the innvovation so that it's understood. Open Source developers often lack these skills, according to their own statements. A proprietary vendor can simple hire people with these skills but Open Source developers often cannot due to lack of income. Consequently, open source is often percieved to be less innovative, even when it is.

This is why I think, pointing to examples is pointless.

I'm living in Europe -- Germany to be exact -- but never noticed any "elitist" European-style system for a University degree. So I digged out some numbers. This is hard to translate, so my apologies for bad grammer.

In Germany in 2006, 43,4% of people born in a certain year managed to make the necessary degree to be able go to a higher education system (universities, etc.). This is quite a difference to the 5-15% you assume to be "usual".

Additionally, the majority of universities here are public schools, with (recently introduced) fees of about 1000 Euros per year. This is also quite a difference to your assumption that 85% of students go to a private college.

Additionally, some traditional German qualifications ("Meisterprüfung", for example) are taught in other school forms, that are considered to be a university degree elsewhere.

Looking at the other European countries, the numbers are different, of course. That's party due to the fact that some countries require collage degrees for certain jobs not necessary elsewehere. In Sweden and Finland, for example, nurses seem to need one. In Finland, up to 71% of people born in a certain year seem to start a college education.

For other numbers, please see the fourth table here: http://tinyurl.com/dn22rh. The third column indicates how many percent of people born in a certain year start a higher degree. For example, it was 32% in Belgium according to the 2001 OECD study.

If the parent poster is correct to point out some flaws in the original article, what makes you think I am not correct when I point out some flaws in the parent poster's comment?

However, I do agree with you that words and ideologies have meaning at some point. I just think that the supposed meaning often differs; usually even for those who have subscribed to a certain ideology.

Taking about ideologies: Try to read the original article with open eyes. Some of his points do not just apply to the Libertartian position, in particular, but to ideologies, in general. Even if he misunderstand or over-emphasized some details -- how can his general arguments be wrong? You would have to argue that Libertarism is not an ideology or dogmatic point of view to counter them.

Additionally, even some of his concrete points seem logical: For instance, do you have the freedom to travel when all land is privately owned? Doesn't look like much freedom to me.

If you now argue that this is not the Libertarian position, then please take the time and explain what the Libertarian position is. How much land should be owned by the public, represented by the government? What is the Libertarian position on the commons? Who is going to defend the commons against greed and private interests according to the Libertarian ideology?

I didn't read the original article completely but your reply is just a "No True Scotsman" fallacy: Positions you don't agree with, are "no true Libertarian" positions.

But how do you know what all Libertarians truly believe?

For instance, you say: "The real Libertarian point is that we should have only the laws that are absolutely necessary to keep society functioning." This sounds fine. However, this is so general that probably even, say, a Marxist would agree. He would just not agree on what "functioning" means or what particular laws are indeed necessary.

One could argue that even apes have functioning sociaties and they have no laws that we know of. Is this the ideal we as humans should therefore establish? It would fit your definition as well.

Also, your argument that the government "returns significantly less wealth back to the economy due to waste" is weak, for you don't know what value the returning money creates. That might easily trade-off any existing "waste". For instance, what value is created when streets are build by the government? What value was created by the ARPANet investments in the Internet technology?

That's the problem with political ideals: One often defends one's own ideals althought one doens't really know what they mean.

Your question assumes that "the more inventions, the better for sociaty". While this may have been true for the last five hundred years, maybe it's time to reconsider the assumption?

This may sound foolish but please consider: What is more important? To create pills that enable old men to have sex or to solve today's energy problems? The later is not just about new technologies but to overcome the old established structures. Or consider medical treatment: Do we really new technology to heal very uncommon ills for a rich upper class when a large part of the sociaty cannot afford to have well-known basic medical treatment? The later is a social problem, not a technical one.

Another assumption of your question is that patents are the only way to secure a large investement and that there are no alternative barriers to entry for others. However, that is clearly wrong. Do you have the money to manufacture automobiles, for instance? Even if you're capable to invent a new kind of car, do you have the money to advertise it properly?

The third assumption of your question is that we may need a completely different system. However, patents seems to work somewhat fine for the material world. It just doesn't work for software. So, maybe we should not look for an alternative but for a different, a better kind of patent system?

I'm not saying I have an answer. I just think one should be careful about either/or questions.

I believe he didn't think much, but just wanted to rant.

It's easy to see that an interference from the attribute of one good to the attribute of another is usually not sound. For example, just because bricks are commodities doesn not mean everybody is able to build proper houses.

Also, if we follow his assumptions and logic, any language that would have won the popularity contest, would have been a "looser" by his definition. For nearly everybody would code in the most popular language, therefore reducing prices for programming jobs in that language.

But, of course, this logic is also flawed. For it assumes that supply of programmers increases while demand remains more or less constant, which consequently leads to decreasing prices for programming jobs. However, the popularity of a language may also increase demand for programming jobs. Depending on the relative effects, (average) prices may decrease or increase.

Note the homepage for the book: http://www.predictablyirrational.com/ has a 'reseach' section where you can download many if not all of the original papers.

Well, we seem to agree on some issues: Not all philosophy is bad or useless. Some might be. So, let's say "Some philosophy is useless." PG presents a few quotes and we may conclude, he proved his point.

But did he present any useless philosophy or just badly written philosophy? Or does it just appear to be useless because we don't immediately understand it?

The latter case basically boilds down to an argument from ignorance: "We don't understand some philosophers, therefore they must be useless (or bad or false)." Many people don't understand much of contemporary maths either, but that's hardly a good reason to call it useless (or bad or false). In contrast to maths, though, many people assume to be able to understand it.

The former case is also hardly a good reason to call something useless. Kant, for instance, is bloody complicated to read (at least, for me, and I'm German). However, his arguments still make sense -- one just needs to read the literature that explains Kant's ethics and meta-physics in a more accessible manner. They were also quite useful for other philosophers.

You say you can find bad philosophy more easily than I can find bad maths. Maybe, but since this is basically an empirical question, our small sample won't be sufficient to prove anything. On a side note: It's easy to find useless maths -- in the sense of published proofs that turned out to be wrong. Since they didn't prove anything, why have they been published, at all? For examples, look at the history to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. Quite a lot of them failed or were simply wrong. What a waste of time.

However, your test to find useless philosophy also suffers from the lack of a proper definition of "useless" and "useful". Just because you can't think of any use, doens't mean you're right -- this is just another argument from ignorance.

Let's consider ethics, for instance: It is basically useless concerning empiricial results. However, it's still useful in many contemporary discussions; for instance, animal's rights, abortion, women rights, death penalty, justice, atheism, and many other issues.

Concerning your question whether some other form of argument could possibly exist to support PG's claim? Sure, from an empirical point of view: A proper definition of "useless" and a proper random sample concerning philosophical works. This would at least support the conclusion that, say, 35% of philosophy turned out to be useless.

But PG made two additional arguments:

(1) Any resulting number of useless philosophy is due to the current philosophical method that is motivated by studying the most abstract problems.

(2) A different method that starts from studying practical problems and builds up to abstract problems will result in a smaller number of useless philosophy.

To support (2), an argument from analogy would help: Study a model of the proposed method (thankfully provided by science) and establish the empirical fact that is produced a smaller percentage of useless results.

Of course, this can easily be refuted by attacking the analogy. The methods of empricial science simply doesn't translate well to issues philosophers care about; such as ethics.

To support (1), one would need to start from the premise of the current method and deduce that it will lead to a certain number of useless philosophy and that there is no other possible explanantion. I doubt that it can be done, but I may be wrong.

Just to present a counter-example: to establish the habit of presenting arguments in a more formal way could help to distiguish good and bad philosophy much easier.

However, the point is that PG -- although his intention is apperently to "work through a subject to understand it" -- fails badly. He hardly worked though and he probably still doesn't understand it. Maybe, if he would have studied philosophy more carefully he could have made better arguments for his case.

Which shows how careful one should be about certain words: From a philosophical point of view, namely, PG's work was useless, indeed.

Thanks for your critical thoughts. That's holds for you as well as gambling8nt, straiberman and kragen.

I'll try to answer some of your objections.

(1) You're right that "sample of 1" is an expression found in experimental science. But how do we know that a small sample is no sufficient reason to accept a hypothese if not by using logic?

Also: Read PG's essay once more and tell me: What reasons did he present to support his hypotheses, other than merely: "I didn't understand philosophy, therefore all current philosophy is useless"? He's basically making an appeal to authority, namely his own authority. Hardly a good reason.

2) PG asserts that early philosophy was inspired by maths. But was it, really? How does PG know? In fact, both fields probably inspired each other. This is one of the examples that makes some philosophy useful -- examples that PG simply ignored.

3) Just because you agree with PG (or had a similar experience) doesn't make any of you right. However, I agree that philosophy has had a quality problem every now and then. But that doesn't render all philosophy (or its method) useless.

Also: I'm wasn't trying to say: "I think he's wrong". I say: "Where are his arguments to believe his assertions that he can find a quick way?" Even the more practical sciences have had some really strange ideas when looking at them in hindsight. If usefulness is such a good guide, why did they run into these errors?

4) Indeed, all kind of thinking produces more thinking. Homo sapiens is about 40.000 years old. Then, what did they do the first 37.000 years if mere thinking is sufficient to find the meaningful and true statements?

Finally, attacking the presentation is often the same thing as dismissing the argument. For what are his arguments? PG can point to some bad philosophy, granted. Everybody can do this for all kind of fields. I can point at some really bad software. Is therefore all software engineering useless?

PG wants us to believe his assertions that the philosophical method is inherently flawed. But he presents no arguments other than his own experience, some selected examples and that's about it.

If you want to know what's useful about philosophy, look no further than Socrates: His way to ask people critical questions about the meaning of words, the reasons why they do have the believes they have, and his way to find the differences between good and bad reasons (namely by debate) still is what philosophy is all about. We need the bad thinking to find out why it's bad. Philosophy proceeds by discussing and recording these issues.

You might call it as well critical thinking.

Our small discussion here hopefully shows why this is useful. Trying to dismiss arguments makes you a better thinker.

What a poor reply. Paul Graham's essay can easily be dismissed. Some examples:

1) Graham found philosophy not useful and didn't understand it. This is basically a sample size of 1. Is this a meaningful sample or just a confirmation bias (or suppressed evidence)?

2) Graham believes the early philosophers were encouraged by the progress in maths. But was there really much progress before Euclid's Elements, written around 300 BC, one of the "the most successful and influential textbooks ever written"? Sokrates lived about 150 years earlier (c. 469 BC–399 BC), Plato 50 years earlier (428/427 BC–348/347BC) -- even Aristotle lived earlier (384BC–322BC). One might as well argue that the Greek tradition in philosophy encouraged Euclid to write his elements. The Elements might also have been inspired by Aristotle's logic. But that was obviously useless, according to Graham.

3) In hindsight, it's easy to say what's, for instance, the shortest way out of a labyrinth. But one needs to go many false routes to find out. Are these useless, then? Graham obviously thinks he could spot the shortest way out, by studying "useful" goals. But who really knows? It's easy to say: "I know what's the shortest way" but most people fail when put to a test. Even Wittgenstein was first "wrong" and wrote a rather abstract -- and Graham would probably say: useless -- treatment called "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" before he was able to articulate his critic of language. Sometimes you need a ladder before you can throw it away.

4) Graham also forgets that philosophic thinking inspired or formed many other schools of thought: for instance, the study of moral philosophy by Adam Smith marked the beginning of modern economics -- indeed, a useless art --, the study of natural philosophy and that of Malthus' work (an economist and demographer) lead to the discovery of "natural selection" by Darwin -- truly useless, I guess -- , the study of the philosophy of positivism by Comte started modern sociology -- yet another useless art --, theories guiding modern scientific thinking were formulated by philosophers (Popper, etc.) -- obviously useless, too --, even Russel and Whitehead's work was basically inspired by philosophy. And these are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Anybody who's a little bit careful can find these examples easily. Graham, however, failed. What does this tell us about his essay?

In summery, what he wants philosophy to do -- namely concentrating on useful stuff -- is already happening, for hundreds of years. It's called science.

"... in most cases, the people using pirated software would not pay for it if it would be not be possible to use it without buying."

In economic theory, the demand curve is (basically) constructed from the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of people. It is assumed that people with a WTP > Price (P) buy the good, and those with a WTP < P don't.

Your statement would be true if we could determine that only people in the WTP < P group use illegal copies. They would not affect a supplier's sales when they use illegal copies.

But there's no causal relation between one's WTP and one's ability to use an illegal copy. Thus, people in the WTP > P group are just as likely to do so as people in the WTP < P group.

Well, this is not quite right, for we may ask: Who's more likely to be motivated to make or search for illegal copies? Who's gaining the most profit by investing time and effort to search file sharing networks? Those with a rather high WTP or those with a rather low WTP?

If this sounds uncommon to you, ask yourself: What software is more likely to be found in any file sharing network: The popular ones -- that is: those with many people having a high WTP -- or the unpopular ones? According to my observations, the popular ones are more likely to be found. The same holds true for other products such as movies and music.

Whether these losses are compensated by advertising effects, is a matter of the circumstances: To make this reasonable, a supplier needs to sell (more) copies. People with illegal copies may advertise a product, but they are also likely to distribute illegal copies: What good is advertising if it does not increase sales?

Even if we assume that -- in the beginning -- only people in the WTP < P group distribute illegal copies and advertise them, it should be clear that it will also spread to people in the WTP > P group. The longer illegal copies are around, the more likely it will affect the sales of the suppliers.

Overall: Yes, it's possible that illegal copies do no harm to suppliers and may even help them to sell more legal copies. But these are likely to be exceptions to the rule. In general, using illegal copies decreases the wealth of suppliers.

In the long run, it also decrease the wealth of users who want or need software, for it decreases the incentive of suppliers to improve their products or invest money to make new ones.

The service you're asking for is traditionally provided by tailors.

This is rather common for dress shirts and suits. There are also online stores for dress shirts where you can submit measurements and have you shirt send to you a few weeks later. Check out http://www.tailorstore.com for an example.

However, measurement is a tricky issue: It's sounds simple but, in fact, it takes some experience to get it right.

For a long sleeve shirts, you probably have to go to a local tailor. The core problem here is to find a good one.

You may like to check http://www.styleforum.net to find sources for these kind of services. The streetware section is probably your best bet.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you meant selling open source, in general, not just to end users.

You know, I'm glad you submitted your post here. I'm currently working on an article about a similiar topic. The discussion has been very helpful.

Would you mind if I contact you directly using your support E-Mail adress? I'd be really interested in your feedback.

You may like to look at the license used by TheKompany [1].

[1] http://www.thekompany.com/products/licensing.php3

I believe he misses some important points:

(1) The core problem are professional "free-riders" -- Linux distributions being the main candidates. As soon as they include his software in their repositories, his sales will probably stop to increase.

(2) For Linux distributions, it's also hard to make ready-to-go packages. Looking at his download page, there's no sign whether his package installs properly. Can I even use it? Is it RPM or DEP? Or some sort of .run package that needs to be made executable, first?

(3) Expensive software is unlikely to be sold under an Open Source license: think dental office billing systems, for example. Everything more expensive than, say, $25 will make people get the software elsewhere or use the source.

Nevertheless, I agree that selling open source software may provide some benefits for the seller.