[mellis]

But there is a reason: to provide a free / open-source version of a useful and successful product. This software commons may lower the value of competing commercial products but it provides value to everyone else (who can use and build on it without cost or permission).

[rbarooah]

The argument is that this lowering of the cost works against independent developers in favor of already large corporations who have other advantages to rely on (such as large marketing budgets, etc.)

The point is not that value isn't created - it's that the people creating it may not be thinking about who benefits from it and who loses.

[rbanffy]

> it's that the people creating it may not be thinking about who benefits from it and who loses

In the end, when value is created in the free software ecosystem, everybody benefits more or less equally.

[rbarooah]

How does that even makes sense?

If I make an open-source heart rate monitor, doesn't that benefit people who want heart rate monitors, hurt people who make for-pay heart rate monitors, and divert my resources away from solving anyone elses problems?

[rbanffy]

> How does that even makes sense?

That's not a really useful way to argue. See http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

Your open-source heart rate monitor will arguably directly help more people than the proprietary ones (don't confuse open-source with gratis) because it can serve as a base for other solutions to different problems. What you actually did by developing your open-source equivalent was to employ your resources in a much more efficient way, distributing its returns across a much wider field.

It's true you hurt the very limited group of people who made proprietary monitors, but you benefited a much, much larger group much more than they could ever do.

[jbermudes]

It only hurts the monitor makers as much as any other competitor would. Even though they are competing against a competitor with a price of $0, that just means they need to make their product worth its price with extra features or specialization for clients. It only hurts a company that can't compete or improve, and that's a good thing for society.

[onan_barbarian]

Suppose I am a first mover, considering making the very first heart monitor, ever. Suppose that doing the research for this is going to cost me a huge pile of money. Suppose further that I know that all of the innovation in my product will be cloned by a competitor 6 months after I ship, who after I have established a design, market and framework for this wonderful innovation, will give away the product for free.

That's got to be good for society, right? I'm sure I'll just go do all that research anyway, because I'm a nice guy. And I certainly won't go off and patent the holy living shit out of each and every aspect of the monitor or anything nasty like that, because that would be bad, and we've already established that cloning products has to be an unalloyed benefit for innovation. Because it's, like, free or open or something.

[wazoox]

This is the typical argument favouring patents and more broadly, intellectual property. I'm personally against all form of patentw, and for some severe restriction of copyright and trademarking. You could have a look at the book "against intellectual property" (right wing view :), or "against intellectual monopoly" (different, less liberterian view) they're quite partial but have some compelling arguments.

http://mises.org/books/against.pdf

http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h...

[sateesh]

Also however cutting edge your research would be , it is would be most likely built upon on some of the research that is already done in the field. Any clone implementation (free or non-free) make use of the knowledge already is available in the public domain and improve in the direction your product is built on. More novel , innovative is your approach it would be as much harder for any alternative ways (free or non free) to catch up.

[rbarooah]

What you say doesn't in any way contradict the main point, except your unsubstantiated claim that it's automatically good for society.

Competing against a $0 product (which is essentially subsidized by corporate salaries) is likely to increase the barrier to entry. That will make bootstrapping harder, favoring existing enterprises. This is clearly not an unalloyed benefit to society.

The existence of a reasonable 'free' product may also deter the entrance of multiple competitors who would have advanced the state of the art. Clearly this is bad for society.

I'm not arguing that this always happens, or that free software is inherently bad. I'm arguing against the dogma that free software is always automatically good.

It's a choice with consequences and the dogma is an excuse not to think about them.

[orangecat]

The existence of a reasonable 'free' product may also deter the entrance of multiple competitors who would have advanced the state of the art. Clearly this is bad for society.

That's not clear at all. If you can't beat a "good enough" free alternative in the market, that's a signal that society would benefit more if you spent your efforts elsewhere.

I'm arguing against the dogma that free software is always automatically good.

As a first approximation, it pretty much is. Would you care to name specific free software that we'd be better off without?

[danssig]

In the short term, but the free clone only exists from the innovation of indie developer. If he is put out of business then all the things he would have made that helped everyone even more probably wont be realized.

It's not so simple, everything has a cost.