And… Doctorow on ‘Free’
Cory Doctorow weighs in on Free.
Bits of note:
I think [Free] has exactly the same problem as The Long Tail, namely, an unwillingness to consider the wider implications of a world centred on a commodity that can be infinitely reproduced at no marginal cost.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Anderson’s dismissal of the Free Software Foundation founder, Richard Stallman, the original free software hacker who launched the GNU/Linux project that is the forebear of today’s free/open source movement. Anderson mentions Stallman, dismissing him as “anti-capitalist”.
But this is to miss one of the most important points. There’s a pretty strong case to be made that “free” has some inherent antipathy to capitalism. That is, information that can be freely reproduced at no marginal cost may not want, need or benefit from markets as a way of organising them.
…
Anderson paints a rosy picture of free, even noting the gains we all experienced as a result of the creative destruction of travel agents and stockbrokers thanks to Expedia and Etrade, but he fails to clearly and explicitly state something to the effect of: “The information revolution is not painless or bloodless. Its wrenching changes have and will put those of the industrial revolution to shame. Much of value will be lost.”
