[H-GEN] Linux games are still proprietory

[ben.carlyle at invensys.com]

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Byron Ellacott <bje at apnic.net>
Sent by: Majordomo <majordom at caliburn.humbug.org.au>
04/04/03 14:52
Please respond to general

 
        To:     general at lists.humbug.org.au
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        Subject:        Re: [H-GEN] Linux games are still proprietory

>  Theft \Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e,
>     [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See {Thief}.]
>     1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious
>        taking and removing of personal property, with an intent
>        to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
>        [1913 Webster]

> Note very carefully that phrase "with an intent to deprive the rightful
> owner of the same."  If you make a /copy/ of something, you do not
> deprive the rightful owner.  You have broken copyright law, not property
> law.

Copyright infringement doesn't entirely fit the classical interpretation 
of theft, but there's something happening when a copy is made that's like 
theft. When I copy something you have, I reduce the value of your copy. If 
there is only one copy of something in the world and I must come to you to 
use that copy then your copy is very valuable. When another copy appears I 
now have a choice. You've lost your monopoly position and now market 
forces come into play. Another copy is made, and then another. Soon enough 
the market forces stop applying because we've moved all the way from 
monopoly ownership to the ownership of a mere commodity. Your copy is as 
worthless as all of mine, and all I did was copy it. I therefore deprive 
you of something valuable and replace it with something worthless, despite 
the fact that it's exactly the same object you began the excercise with. 
What copyright law attempts to do is to protect the value of the object 
you have, not just it's physical safety. Copyright law says that what you 
create should not become worthless due to copying until an appropriate 
period has expired for you to recoup the losses you made while investing 
in the product. It's that value that is stolen, or at least diluted every 
time someone "shares" your product. It's actually the same mechanism that 
make commercial software so cheap in the first place. Despite production 
costs of millions or more you can purchase a copy of Microsoft Windows for 
only a few hundred dollars. Microsoft can recoup it's losses with 
significant interest because the value has been diluted among the entire 
customer group. Dilution to some extent is part of making the product 
worth something to the customers. Too much dilution leads to a drop in 
profits.

Anthony wrote:

> It's even possible to do business models with that philosophy: you 
simply
> have to make sure, as an author, that you collect your profits up front
> from the potential distributors, and they in turn have to make sure that
> they do a good enough job at distribution that they're not going to be
> undercut by competitors that'll immediately spring up.

> These business models work: if they didn't, *no one* would be employed 
to
> work on free software at all.

There are other reasons for paying someone to do something than to make 
money directly out of their product. Another is to make a companion 
product the the ones you really make your money out of a commodity. If you 
can make Beer cheap, people buy more pizza. When an operating system is 
free, you can sell the support an applications that go with it that much 
more easily. I'd say that's the main reason that people are employed to 
work on Linux. The free distribution chain model dilutes value extremely 
quickly, and isn't really a sustainable business model past the first step 
or two or the first few days.

And just a note to keep it relavant to the subject line:

With respect to games, I think that the open source software has made it's 
first tentative inroads (at least the first inroads involving serious 
graphical conent) over the last few years. The results are still a bit 
laughable in places, but will serve to encourage others to see such games 
a possible and nautural as open-source initiatives. I think that open 
source gaming will expand over the next few years. Although there will 
probably be a period of consolodation as only the best games and engines 
see further work. I could see at least a couple of really great games that 
see innovative long-term develoment by many people around the world.

Benjamin.



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