Quote:
Originally Posted by carandol
I will!  And I'm sure I'm not the only person here who is not motivated solely by greed. |
Excuse me, are you saying that people who don't pay for things they get for "free" are motivated by greed?
Quote:
Originally Posted by carandol
If it's purely a supply and demand economy, why are the people who run the MobileBooks forum doing it for free? Why are all the people who make ebooks and post them to this site doing it for free? Why is there so much Open Source Software and Shareware? Why is the Freecycle network thriving? The market economy might be dominant, but it's not the only economy at work in the world, nor necessarily the best
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Good point. I agree there exists a non market economy, which is good. However, I disapprove of basing this alternate economy on guilt trips or attaching to the use of "free" products the condition that the user pay a fee. In that case, the product is no longer free. Open source software developers, for example, don't expect people to give them money if they like the product, although they do accept donations. That's why it's open source and not shareware. You may offer money graciously to authors or developers whom you appreciate, but you're doing that out of kindness, not out of obligation. If it were an obligation, even just a moral one, you could expect it to be expressed in the licence agreement.