markets was Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: [discuss] Open source software News

[Simon Waters]

Ralph Janke wrote:
> 
> The justification for patents is that they are for the common good of
> society. This is one of the principles of
> socialism. The idea of socialism is to restricts individual freedom for
> what it is claimed to be good for the whole of society.

Doesn't that kind of encompass rather a lot - like most of the legal
system.....

> We are just starting to see the opening of markets. So far we never had
> a free market society, but a lot of closed markets competing with each
> other

This reminds me of the communists who say "we've never had a proper
communist government because....".

Neither free nor open markets are likely to be a universal good or
panacea, and it scares me when such totalitarian dogma is spouted by
people who should be bright enough to know better (not mentioning any
economists by name).

The world is too complicated to solve all its problems with simple
dogmas, and the reason markets are regulated and closed is because
historically it was found desirable to regulate and control some markets.

It maybe we need to go further in opening and deregulating markets, but
the idea that such free trade is inherently a good thing is simplistic
thinking. Even the arguments that free markets are efficient is based on
some very questionable assumptions.

I suspect a lot of the support for free software is generated by market
failure, we have a dominant supplier who is innovating VERY slowly,
failing to address key issues (such as security, and reliability), and
abusing that monopoly position. This is absolutely typical of situations
where markets have been regulated in the past.

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