Stefan's headers [was:Names and identifiers]

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 12 Jun 2018 16:40:47 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 12, 2018 at 4:32 PM, Gregory Ewing
> <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>> There are some historical and present-day facts that don't support that
>> idea.
>>
>> * Software existed in the days before it became seen as something to be
>> sold for money per-copy. Both computer companies and programmers seemed
>> to to all right in that environment.
> 
> Third-party software? Can you give examples?
> 
> It doesn't count if the same organization (company, etc) created the
> hardware and the programming. It also doesn't count if it's hobbyists
> reprogramming their own units.

Why not? Historically, that's exactly where the software industry 
started. Commercial third-party software didn't exist until long after 
the software industry was well-established in the business market, and 
when the home computer industry began, the same process occurred again: 
the commercial third-party software market followed long afterwards, 
driven on the back of hobbyists writing their own software and sharing it 
around.


> I'm looking for examples of *third-party*
> software, of the sort that can today be saleable, but which - in this
> proposed alternate universe where copyright does not exist - would by
> force be given away for nothing.

Ah, its one of *those* challenges... "If we ignore all the facts that 
refutes my position, I challenge you to find a fact that refutes my 
position!"

*wink*

I don't think there would be any doubt that, minus copyright laws, the 
commercial third-party software industry would probably be much smaller. 
The biggest threat wouldn't be piracy in the "you wouldn't download a 
car" sense, but competitors mass duplicating your product and selling it 
more cheaply.

But even there, historically we've seen that consumers in Western 
countries will pirate software for free, they'll pay full price, but the 
majority won't pay for pirated software even if its cheaper. So its not 
clear that lack of copyright would necessarily have killed the commercial 
third-party software industry stone dead.

But to jump from there to the conclusion that there would be user-
generated software, no open source software, no public domain software, 
no corporate or academic in-house software, no freeware, no shareware, no 
hobbyist software, no freemium or advertising driven software or SAAS... 
that's a mighty big leap.



-- 
Steven D'Aprano
"Ever since I learned about confirmation bias, I've been seeing
it everywhere." -- Jon Ronson