Social Rewards – The Free Software Movement
In the case of the Free Software Movement the economic reward is expressed as a social reward – not a financial one. The Free Software Movement is a good example of a social reward system and has been around for the better part of 20 years. Its roots can be traced back to the early 1980s [1].
The word “Free” in Free Softare Movement means something very specific. Free means the freedom to view and modify the product. Most Free Software Movement product is not sold, but given away at no cost. This includes everything, documentation, source code, any intellectual property – it is a very open process.
In this movement, software developers from around the globe collaborate on thousands of projects involving millions of lines of code to create programs to help others. Sometimes the Movement creates a vital piece of software, sometimes the creation is more representative of a bowel movement.
In either case, this software is usually given away for free (as in cost), and anybody is welcome to modify the product and re-distribute it (Free as in Freedom). You use software from this Movement, even if you are unaware of its presence in your daily life. This website, along with many more on the Internet, is running on a very stable base of free/open source software… the GNU/Linux operating system.
Most websites are running at least one piece of free/open source software – the Apache web server [2]. Who pays for the Apache web server’s development? Nobody pays for it directly, however it still does have a positive financial impact on business. I can assure you that open source development has a very big social impact as well – the people that work on high profile open source software are as close to heroes as you get in the software world [3].
But, who is paying for it? Nothing happens at no cost – and in the end, it is the software developer’s employers that are paying for the development of free software. The software companies are the ones writing the developer’s checks. This is a good thing as far as most employers are concerned, the more free software that can be utilized to build their business, the more competitive advantage they gain. Some businesses are built on providing services around free software – IBM is a good example of this model. In the end, it is the employers that pay for free software development because they do eventually see a return on their investment.
Most of this collaboration happens over the Internet. In fact, the Free Software Movement would not have gained as much traction as it did without the Internet.
This movement, along with several others like it, gave rise to a new form of Internet-based collaboration…
This is an extremely wonderful and well thought out essay. I would love for everything to happen like that, and to tell you the truth–if we are ever able to build this model I will GLADLY pay $20-$30 more to keep commercials out of my life.
On the other hand, I don’t see this happening. I hope I am wrong. What you are proposing is to cut out the middle man, who gets at least $92 Billion a year to provide us with "entertainment". With this much money on the line, I really don’t see the big telecom just "giving up" their content. They will surely put up a hell of a fight to preserve the old model. Just look to what they did to "a-la-carte" model that was just floating around a couple of years ago.(ability to buy only cable channels that you want). This had an overwhelming support among the Congress and the General Public who is sick of paying $100 a month to basically watch their 3 or 4 favorite channels. There were even hearings on the Hill scheduled. And what happened? Poof! GONE! Not even a peep.
It’s not so much the networks that control the conent of our favorite entertianment shows on tv as much it is the companies that advertise. It’s sort of scary that a cat food or plastic company has a lot of control over our favorite sitcom or reality show!
Hi,
I am looking for an open source solution that I could install on my own server so I can distribute my music my self without giving away precious % to middle sites, plus getting paid in 60 plus days…
Anyone knows of something like that?
Thanks in advance,
Thierry Deruelle
http://www.dztd.ca