[-empyre-] OSW: open source writing in the network

[Dmytri Kleiner]

On 12.01.2012 17:26, adam wrote:

> Well I think the open source ethic is well aligned with capitalism.
> There is no disconnect there.

Yet, software has different economics than cultural works. Open Source 
developers are paid by organisations that employ such software in 
production, and thus the availability of open source packages reduces 
their production costs, allowing them to retain more earnings.

The same situation occurs only infrequently when it comes to books, 
there may be situations where it does, i.e. reference books or 
documentation. I can see these being supported by organisations that are 
consumers of such works, but not much else.

So, if capital will not pay creators of open works. Who will? No doubt, 
some fringe can be maintained by cultural grants and simular social 
funds, and a wider fringe can maintain itself by working for free and 
earning subsistence elsewhere (or simply being rich to begin with), yet 
this says nothing of the great majority of books, read by millions, 
produced today by the capitalist industry, which offers no way to make 
these open books.

Best,



-- 
Dmytri Kleiner