Reading Thought Questions:
Reading: Bill Gates: Open Letter to Hobbyists
Gates says "As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software.
Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked
on it get paid? ... The royalty paid to us, the manual, the
tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good
software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?"
1. Can you think of any postive outcomes from the professionally written software that Gates describes?
2. Any negative consequences?
Reading: Richard Stallman: The GNU Manifesto
Stallman says, "Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free."
1. Can you think of any postive outcomes from the freedom and open code that Stallman describes?
2. Any negative consequences?
3. Wikipedia is an example of open and free information. Describe possible postive and negative consequences of an encyclopedia that costs no money, and freely allows anyone to edit and contribute content.
Reading: Lawrence Lessig: The Internet Under Siege
Lessig says, "A 'commons' is a resource to which everyone within a relevant community has equal access. It is a resource that is not, in an important sense, 'controlled.' Private or state-owned property is a controlled resource: only as the owner specifies may that property be used. But a commons is not subject to this sort of control. Neutral or equal restrictions may apply to it (an entrance fee to a park, for example) but not the restrictions of an owner. A commons, in this sense, leaves its resources 'free'."
1. Can you think of another 'commons' we share besides the Internet?
2. What is meant by the phrase 'the tragedy of the commons'?