[PD] Re: [PD-dev] SourceForge "Donations"

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Sunday, Jan 25, 2004, at 12:56 America/New_York, Josh Steiner wrote:

> marius schebella wrote:
>
>> what else should be free then??? why does not someone build a car for  
>> me???
>> I appreciate your involvement in social ideas. and students and other  
>> needy
>> people should always have free access to basic needs of their life  
>> like a
>> bed, a place to live, food, public health system, education,  
>> (including
>> computer education and software)... but i am talking about business  
>> people
>> who earn their own money. yes, i think Pd should have a price.
>>


+ free software provides many benefits, including cheaper development
http://opensource.org/
IBM, Apple, Sun, etc.

+ digital media and the internet eliminate scarcity
	"The Future of Ideas", by Lawrence Lessig  http://lessig.org/

We need to make a model for earning a living that heeds the massive  
benefit of the lack of scarcity and programming freedom.  Basically  
people could pay have software bettered, rather than the current model  
of the other way around.  This is already happening.  For example, some  
software has been 'bought' into being free:

http://www.blender3d.org/Foundation/?sub=History
http://www.swelltech.com/virtualmin/

Other groups put development targets with price tags on them:
http://www.gnome.org/bounties/
http://www.sourcesupport.org/

Others rely on the 'Gift Economy', ie donations.  I know of an online  
filmmaker, who I have been ask not to divulge, who has made over  
US$100,000 from donations alone.  Once this idea catches on, I think it  
could be very powerful.

TightVNC: http://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=AWD&&

-Hans

________________________________________________________________________ 
____

Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to  
realize his wishes.
Now that he can realize them, he must either change them, or perish.
		                                     -William Carlos Williams