FC: Cato's Julian Sanchez replies to CEI on Linux suitability

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[This is an interesting exchange because Cato and CEI are both prominent 
libertarian think tanks in Washington and typical allies who agree on many, 
many topics. Then again, not everyone at a think tank agrees with all their 
colleagues, let alone their allies. Previous Politech message: 
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04007.html --Declan]

---

From: "Julian Sanchez" <jsanchez () cato org>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: DeLong on Linux
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 12:43:51 -0400

Declan:

I had a few thoughts on Jim DeLong's anti-Linux essay.  Feel free to post if
you think Politechnicals might be interested.

 A preliminary observation: Jim closes with the suggestion that government
keep its "hands off." As a reply to the Times's vague statement that
government should "support" the development of Linux -- which could mean
sending Linus Torvalds a monthly check, for all I know; they're not too
specific -- that's sensible enough. But if the question is just "Which OS
should government use?" then the state quite literally cannot "keep its
hands off" without abstaining from computer use altogether. If it goes with
any proprietary software, after all, the state necessarily acts as a market
participant, and becomes a huge buyer of software licenses. This cannot help
but affect software markets: the question is not "should the government have
an influence here?" but "how can that influence be minimally pernicious?"
The most plausible answer would seem to be: by spending less taxpayer bucks
(viz., using software that doesn't need to be licensed) and, most
importantly, by not excessively subsidizing any one firm (viz., Microsoft).
It's also a little odd that DeLong cites IBM and several other large
companies' recent calculations that, even given the money they'll have to
spend on in-house coding and development, it's more cost effective to go
with Linux than to pony up the money for licenses from Microsoft. It's not
enough, after all, to point out that those who adopt the OS may have to pay
for some programming or support work; one has to further ask "compared to
what?" DeLong, as far as I can tell, doesn't.


We also see the incentives point trotted out: when software is
non-proprietary, programmers won't be willing to develop applications. Given
the large number of Linux applications, especially when one considers the
relative youth and small percentage of computers running the OS, this claim
seems premature, if not in outright defiance of reality. The proper response
to an observed empirical fact inconsistent with your expectations is not:
"but I've got this theory!'" Barring good reason to be suspicious of the
facts, one ought instead to wonder what might be wrong with the theory. NYU
law prof. Yochai Benkler's piece "Coase's Penguin"
[http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html] provides a reason to doubt the
conventional wisdom on this: when the production function is sufficiently
granular (viz., capable of being split up into small tasks) and potentially
distributed over a large programming community, the incentives problem
becomes trivial. Pure coding pleasure, reputation effects, or any number of
other incentives can do the trick. The "viral" nature of the GPL license,
which DeLong sees as a bug, is actually a feature in this regard. It means
that even when a firm must pay a coder to develop something they need, the
rest of the user community gets to "free ride" on that innovation. That may
sound a bit commie, but it's also the way cultural production has worked for
millenia. Whenever we enjoy works in the public domain, we free ride on the
efforts of previous generations. It may be true that, even once Benkler's
analysis is taken into account, the inability to fully internalize all
benefits will result in somewhat less code produced at the margin. But as
economists are forever telling us, one has to look at both sides of the
ledger: weigh the difference in code produced under proprietary and open
models (if Benkler's right, maybe not nearly as large as DeLong seems to
think) against the benefit to the thousands or millions who can benefit from
that code without cost and, perhaps even more importantly, use it as a
stepping stone to further innovation by incorporating the source in new
programs. I suppose it could turn out, once these things are considered,
that DeLong's still right.  But on the basis of the analysis he's given us
so far, the only verdict we can return is "not proven."

pax-
-js
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Julian Sanchez  -  jsanchez () cato org  -  http://juliansanchez.com
"Everyone may seek his own happiness in the way that seems good to himself,
provided that he infringe not the freedom of others to strive after a
similar end consistent with the freedom of all."
                              -Immanuel Kant
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