Related: borrow, debt, shar, trade Anytime you think "thank you" toward someone, you have received a gift. I think of gifts as very mild debt, and when you reciprocate the gift, you have made a kind of trade. Trade is required for specialization. Specialization is tremendously valuable because it increases productive efficiency and helps groups achieve goals that individuals cannot. Direct trade (such as barter) is good, but indirect trade (such as with money) is much more valuable because the traders are not required to have simultaneous coincidence of wants. If you want to trade eggs for apples, but the apple tree owner may not want eggs right now, or ever. If you will have to trade your eggs with someone that has one of the things on the apple grower's list of wants - such as pecans - but only if the pecan tree owner wants eggs right now, or ever, etc. So gifts are not the same as barter or currency, but have some properties of each. One differences I observe is that gifts are 'loose' across *time*. I can give you eggs now, and this fall you 'might' (notice this is not a 'must') give me apples, or even apple pie. Repayment is not guaranteed, but is certainly a happier affair when it does occur. I think most people want to repay, but it is difficult to know how, especially when you are not sure what the giver wants. A public area to display the goods and services we want and those we offer might help increase the number of gifts, and consequently the amount of trade. Because time and absolute value are less important, gifts are also more easily be used to indirectly pay others. In this way, gifts are similar to currency because they are less direct than barter. Gifting organisms decrease both scarcity and profit when locked open through a Property Left trade freedom agreement such as the GNU General Public Law. ----Human Resource 1 A gift is a nice thing but not if you're trying to make a living. If people want to make programs and charge people money for them, let them do it. If people are willing to pay money for a better product, let them. If people want to give it away for free and destroy the current market we have set up, fine. We can all go back to harvesting potatoes. Hey, wait - I hate farming! ----Human Resource 2 Do you see gift giving as detrimental to society? Would you dislike a few raspberries bushes? How about 5 kinds of grapes. Maybe a pecan tree? Or an almond? I will pay 50% of the cost for such plants to anyone willing to sign a contract with me. The contract requires you to propogate the plant once (give or sell the propogation under the same license) within double the amount of time the plant would regularly propogate. ----Human Resource 1 People don't want to raise their own food. They can already go get seeds, etc. for next to nothing so why aren't they all running out to plant them? Because they'd rather someone else do that who likes to do it or who can do it much more efficiently. ----Human Resource 2 What will our current employer do when the gifts of Free Software become too valuable? ----Human Resource 1 Lose money, I guess. Maybe the whole free software thing is just a power trip - they have the power to topple the big guys and turn the industry into a small group of elite programmers. Again, I'm left to farm - yuk. Thanks a ton, free software! I have a friend who will soon graduate from college. Unfortunately, he has no job. I propose that we help him out. Since he has college education, it would not be fitting to get him welfare from the government. Therefore, we must secure his employment. I propose that we allow him to sell us the oxygen that we breathe. This is, I think, an untapped market potential, that could generate several private sector jobs. Here is what happens. My friend will move around the cubicles all day with a fan. With this fan, he will blow the air into our cubicles. For this work, we will pay him 1 cent per gallon of air that we consume. I think that we can all agree this is a fair price, for the benefit of breathing. My point is, if you can get something for nothing, that is better than getting something for something, even if it puts somebody out of a job, as long as your means of getting it are ethical. However, we shouldn't assume that "free software" is going to be right for everybody. Allow me to explain. A week ago, I was looking for a good software program to manage my checkbook. My wife had been dutifully keeping the expenses recorded in a checkbook register with a ballpoint pen. This method does not work too well, so we are looking for a better way to do this, which as I envision will require the use of the computer. I went to Google and looked up "freeware" with "budget". Unfortunately, I could not find anything for free. My next step was to look up "shareware" with "budget". Here, some programs presented themselves. Some for 10 dollars and some for 20 dollars. I downloaded a trial of a 10 dollar program with good reviews. When I actually got around to trying the program a few days later, I found it to be too hard to use, and too buggy. So I uninstalled it. My dad runs a budget on his computer so I asked what he would recommend. Quicken or Microsoft Money, he thought. So I priced them at the store. 30 dollars for Money, and more for Quicken. Too much for me, I decided. So, in the end, I will probably hack something together that combines notepad with a calculator, for no money spent. My point. There might well be a free program out there. But I don't know where it is. ----Human Resource 2 here is some Free financial software GNUCash.org >>GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports. Calamar.sf.net >>This project grew out of my desire to use a financial package on my home PC (running windows 98), my work PC (running windows NT 4.0) and Linux Gnofin.sf.net >>a personal finance application ... a plugin has been written that enables Gnofin to read Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) files EuroBudget.sf.net >>EuroBudget is a checkbook management software written in pure Java 2 CBB.sf.net >>CBB is a free, open-source finance management application... ... with UNIX, Linux, Windows and MacOS, ... QHACC.sf.net >>If you think this is a Quicken replacement, you've another thought coming! GNUCashToQIF.sf.net >>Converts GnuCash XML files into QIF PyCheckBook.sf.net >>Python checkbook manager saCASH.sf.net >>saCASH is a web-based financial package, inspired by Quicken(tm). kMyMoney2.sf.net >>The Personal Finances Manager for KDE. IMONEEZ.sf.net >>IMONEEZ designed as the system to use in peer to peer payments and uses MIME extensions and smtp/imap protocol and software FreeMarket.sf.net >>FreeMarket is technical analysis software for Linux, applying mathematical formulas and models to stock market data in an attempt at predicting future price action. Rainbow.mimuw.edu.pl/~la181249/emma/home.php >>Emma - the money manager Octatec.co.uk/FIXGW_document.html >>The Fix Gateway is a FIX Engine FixProtocol.org >>he Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol is a messaging standard developed specifically for the real-time electronic exchange of securities transactions. FIX is a public-domain specification owned and maintained by FIX Protocol, Ltd. OFX.net >>Open Financial Exchange is a unified specification for the electronic exchange of financial data between financial institutions, business and consumers via the Internet. snaught.com/gbonds >>GBonds is a savings bond inventory program for the GNOME desktop environment. It allows you to track the current redemption value and performance of your U.S. Savings Bonds and keep a valuable record of the bonds you own. Gbonds is similar in functionality to Savings Bond WizardTM for Windows LinuxTrade.0catch.com >>A Curses-based Stock Streamer for Linux ----Human Resource 1 Even were I to find a free program, I would have to evaluate it, figure out how to use it, and so forth. So, free in this case, might entail several hours of searching or investigating. So, at what point is it more valuable for me to go with the tried and true 30 dollar product, rather than to search for a free one. ----Human Resource 2 But installation, evaluation and education are also required of non-free software. Even Quicken requires those things. Since that subject applies equally to both Free and non-free, it is not an important to this discussion. You already said that you spent time installing and learning how to use a non-free product but "When I actually got around to trying the program a few days later, I found it to be too hard to use, and too buggy. So I uninstalled it." ----Human Resource 1 I don't think that Free software is going to do away with the market for software. However, it will bring down the price. At CompUSA I saw some Operating systems for sale. Windows XP is 200 dollars, Red Hat is 150 for professional version, maybe 50 or so for the home version. Suse is around 30 dollars. How can they sell a free OS for so much money? What they are really selling is marketing and support. What Windows is selling is profitability for shareholders. So, free software is not going to destroy the software market, it will only make it more efficient in terms of price. ----Human Resource 2 You say Red Hat is selling "marketing and support". What do you mean 'marketing'? Do you mean the product is bought because of good advertising campaigns? Support is important - especially to larger organizations. But support is separate from licensing. * sells support too, but we make most of our revenue through licensing. You say "Windows is selling is profitability for shareholders." What do you mean by that? Do people buy NT becuase of "profitability for shareholders"? That seems strange. I think they don't. Would you? While it's true some vendors can make a little money selling boxed Free Software (by the way, Red Hat is moving away from that), that money pales in comparison to licensing fees. If you needed to equip 10,000 people with computers you could have the OS for 1,000,000 dollars less in licensing if you used Free Software. Every time you choose Free Software application that replaces a non-free you'll save about 1,000,000 dollars. That is money that won't go into the economy. Money that won't help pay for the living costs of the good programmers you displaced. Of course your users will need to install, evaluate and be educated about the software, but that is also true with non-free software. Gifts destroy jobs. Solving problems destroys jobs. But wait. Isn't that a good thing? Don't we want solutions? What is a job? Why do we work? As a society, what are we trying to accomplish? Is it important that we stall solutions, and perpetuate problems to ensure jobs continue? Let's examine what the word 'employment' means. Imagine you live in a cabin where the water must be brought from a well about .5 mile away. Now imagine you finally set up .5 mile of pipe and an indoor pump to get the water right to the sink. Suddenly you don't have a job. But that is a good thing in this case, because you are working for yourself.