Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 16:52:58 -0800 From: Dan Piponi <dan@mvfx.com> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Judge: "Gates Was Main Culprit" Message-ID: <19991112165257.A45482@mobiledan.mvfx.com> In-Reply-To: <861z9vmgna.fsf@localhost.hell.gr> References: <001901bf2d4a$8d01f9d0$021d85d1@youwant.to> <861z9vmgna.fsf@localhost.hell.gr>
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I did a bit of economic theory once upon a time - from a purely mathematical perspective (so it wasn't exactly realpolitik). One of the theorems you prove is that a capitalistic economy is 'Pareto optimal' - optimal in the sense that you can't make *everyone* better off at the same time assuming certain axioms. Some theorists have seen this as the fundamental justification of capitalism. One of these axioms is that you have a free market - if I sell product X to A for price a and to B for price b but a<b then A can simply buy some X for B and sell it to B for a price better than b. This is one of the key things that makes capitalism work - that even allow you to define a concept like 'value'. Unfortunately with software you can enter into strange licensing agreements that violate this axiom. When this happens society no longer reaps the advantages of capitalism and the market can be exploited unfairly. This is essentially what M$ were up to with their differential pricing policy and why there exist laws in some countries or states to make this illegal if carried out in an extreme enough way. Just my 0.00032UKP worth -- Dan Piponi Head of R&D Manex Visual Effects, Alameda, CA 94501, USA Phone: (510) 864 0600 Fax: (510) 864 9669 web: http://www.mvfx.com e-mail: dan@mvfx.com "There is no spoon" - The Matrix (1999) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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