Software Libre

I often scratch my head when James DeLong writes about open source software:

Torwalds emphasis on reciprocity as a dominant value is right. It is a word used often here at PFF to describe the workings of the IP system, and to explain why unauthorized P2P violates the social contract.

But he has an awfully limited view of reciprocity in that he insists that code can only be traded for code. This may do in a research context, but once one enters the world of affairs, not even the most primitive barter economy trades like for like. Og the Cro Magnon traded meat for a finely crafted club, or a log canoe for a tent.

Now, granted, Torwalds is not talking about trading exactly the same code, but this is still a strange and unnecessary conttraint.

This is, shall we say, a strange and unnecessary argument. We on the libertarian side of the fence often extol markets, commerce, and for-profit institutions, because they work very well and provide us all with a lot of goods and services we value. But I think we too often fall into the trap of assuming that market institutions are always superior to non-market institutions, or (even worse) that for-profit institutions are always superior to not-for-profit ones.

But that’s silly. The essence of the libertarian position is that decentralized, voluntary institutions are better than centralized, coercive ones. As it happens, markets are one of the most important examples of a decentralized, non-coercive institution. But it’s far from the only one. Churches, private charities, universities, think tanks, and families are all examples of private organizations that do good things without primarily relying on the profit motive. I can’t remember ever reading a libertarian attack churches because they rely so much on volunteers rather than paid workers to get things done. Volunteering at your church is an example of reciprocity that doesn’t involve an exchange of money. We libertarians usually praise such arrangements as worthwhile alternatives to government coercion.

An open source software projects is another example of a private, decentralized, voluntary institution. It’s the sort of thing that free-market types should be promoting, as another example of how valuable products can be created without regulations and subsidies. Yet DeLong regularly does just the opposite.

Now obviously, the fact that DeLong’s criticism isn’t intrinsically libertarian doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Here’s what he’s missing: Torvalds demands reciprocity in the form of code rather than money because the source code is actually useful to him. Ed Felten named his blog “Freedom to Tinker” for a reason. Software that comes with its source code is more useful than software that doesn’t. Being able to “tinker” with the software we use is an ability many of us programmers value, and it’s taken away from us by proprietary software.

DeLong seems to think that open source programmers are just ideologically driven zealots who don’t like paying for things. But that misunderstands their motivation. Primarily, their concern is technical, not ideological or financial. The ability to examine and change a program’s source code is valuable, independently of whether you paid for the software in the first place, and independently of whether you’re planning to share it with others. So Torvald’s motivation in trading code for code is that he actually wants the code. Not because he hates the profit motive, but simply because the code is useful to him, and he can’t get it with proprietary software.

This is a point that non-programmers have trouble understanding. When they hear the phrase “free software,” they hear “software I don’t have to pay for.” That’s not what the phrase means–it’s an unfortunate limitation of the English language. The open source movement uses the phrase “free as in free speech, not free beer” to try to explain the distinction. It’s about what you can do with the software, not how much you paid for it. This confusion doesn’t exist as much in Spanish, where there are different words for these two concepts: “gratis” for “free as in beer,” and “libre” for “free as in speech.” The purpose of the GPL is to preserve the latter for the benefit of programmers. The former is just an incidental benefit to users.

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