Is software a commodity?

[ckaihatsu]

I can't speak authoritatively on hacker/security stuff, but from knowing a bit about cryptography I'd tend to say that security issues are more political than technical. Most hackers are not going to be able to decrypt codes using a brute-force attack -- I think the scenario you've painted would fall into more of an espionage/political kind of situation, but, again, I'm basically guessing.

[ckaihatsu]

Last Sunday's Doonesbury strip:

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20050501

[orwellcommie]

There is no such thing as the unbreakable code, there has never been and never will be.  All that really keeps people in check is their own will, a determined mind can create or destroy ANYTHING it pleases.

[ckaihatsu]

Sorry to be the one to burst your bubble, but you may want to do some research before you make such a grandiose claim.

Given that an encrypted message may be securely sent (that is, not eavesdropped on at its source), here's some food for thought:

Quantum Cryptography Tutorial
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~jford/crypto.html#1

You may also want to look into one-time pads and winnowing and chaffing.


Chris












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Two letters on Bill Gates  [computer technology/Marxist revolution]
http://www.marxist.com/scienceandtech/bill_gates_letters.htm

The Role of Software in the Context of Commodities
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Photoillustrations by Chris Kaihatsu
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[orwellcommie]

It's not a Claim it's an ideology, that being there is no such thing as an unsolvable problem ONLY problems for which no solution has been found at present.  I staunchly believe that EVERY problem can be solved some just take other means to break then others.  Enigma the German Naval code was an unbreakable code that WAS broken, they needed to capture U505 to do it but if that what it took to break the code then that's what was done.  It's really a question of changing approach and using unorthodox methods, but if one PERSON con build it then another can CERTAINTLY Defeat it!

[ckaihatsu]

I'd like to add a recent thought to the main discussion topic of "Is software a commodity?":


The process of digitization -- whereby any software and/or media becomes *perfect* in self-describability and also remains *perfectly* intact, indefinitely (if archived on reliable media -- not a big deal) -- enables virtually zero-cost replication of *perfect* copies, indefinitely.

From a purely mechanical -- not cultural-product -- perspective, these digitally based products contain an inherent quality which often runs directly counter to capitalism's privatization dynamic:


*** Whereas the goal of capital is to privatize benefits and socialize costs, one piece of (free) software/media can easily privatize costs and socialize benefits. ***













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[Monsieur B.]

I'm not sure to perfectly understand the english meaning of commodity (in french commodity means that it's used for something useful for at least one person)

I think any software (Internet browsers, forums, inventory programs, etc.) could be useful (shorten time of workers for some tasks) and obiviously need time to develop. The work done to make these software have a value, but the (real) cost to copy them when they are already complete is very low.

[ckaihatsu]

To be precise, the definition of a commodity (in any language) is anything that can be bought and sold.

Commodities truly emerged with the advent of mass production, exactly when workers were no longer artisans. With the rise of industrialism workers lost control of how and when they made their goods. Factories upended the guild system and the workers' only hope for regaining some say over work conditions lay with the building of massive industrial unions.

Many people criticize globalization for this reason -- workers were reduced to machine-like, replaceable parts on the assembly lines, while just before, in their towns and villages, they had some direct stake through their craft guilds.

The trade-off here -- without making a value judgment -- is that the process of globalization, beginning with the Western imperial expeditions -- has connected all parts of the globe and enabled a massive diversity of economic and cultural exchanges (including this posting).

Should we really want to do away with commodity production and go back to the towns and villages, if we could? (And that's an impossible "if".)

Has multinational-corporation-based, computer-facilitated global production now turned the world into a gigantic village, with some parts of the world serfs and other parts lords? The developed world's postindustrial capitalist economics have ushered in a society of anxiety-ridden bounty -- sure there's plenty, but how do we commodify ourselves properly in the service sector (non-manufacturing, that is) to make a buck so we can enjoy these global goodies?

Allow me to stretch this trend into a hypothetical, for a moment -- what if computers and machines were cost-effective enough to supplant all human labor for all brutish, mundane, and routine tasks? How brutal would the employment market be then anyway -- despite the potentially civilizing technology -- thanks to capitalist-based relations?


Digital commodities

Marx said that capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction -- when it comes to the commodity of software, it's (arguably) over already.

Digital-based goods are unique in that they're the only kind of product that immediately and effortlessly goes into overproduction.

Business types who made out like bandits in the '90s dot-com boom were wincing in private because they knew exactly how gargantuan a scam their industry was. Once a team of programmers finished a piece of software, it would be saleable indefinitely, for as much as the market would bear, at virtually no further expense, no matter how many units were sold -- hence the rise of Microsoft and its cutthroat business practices.

Industrialization and modernization took decades, while digitization has taken (roughly) a single decade.

Free, open-source software like Linux and clones of Microsoft Office now stalk the corporate software giants like shadows, even now threatening to supplant their masters.

And why is this?

The human labor costs of producing software (programming, fixing bugs, etc.) may be comparable to a book author's fee or an artist's stipend. And, once the software is complete, the distribution model is even simpler and cheaper than a book rollout -- over the Internet millions and billions of customers, anywhere on earth, can be satisfied for free -- literally.

So in the digital realm collaborative volunteer efforts yield instant abundance and overproduction, threatening the capitalist mode of production.

Interesting, no?

[Monsieur B.]

Thanks ckaihatsu for the explaination. I agree the capitalism contain the seed of his own destruction.

Unfortunately, for the threat that open source cause to capitalism, capitalism created DRM (Digital Rights Managements : something that don't allow to copy files more than X times, or to have it more than X hours, something that will be more used in the near future),  they work with hardware makers to have more compatibility with their copyrighted $ofwares and - if possible - they want hardware totally incompatible with Linux, and they try to create files formats they bought the exclusive right to use and they make incompatible to read our own data we stored by any other program who is not the program they want to sell us.

I'm a programmer and I'm working for a very capitalist industry - the car industry. But a short company who can easyly disapear because of big corporations. First, I saw copyrighted softwares as normal because the money was used for future developpement and to pay programmers. But when I saw that big corporations are not only trying to make money for themself, but are trying consously to exterminate the competition, and even the free competition of workers and free softwares, I realized the regime in which I grown is more extremist and wild than I thought first. And when I see where the money go even in the corporation I work - I'm not fool - when I see all people who quitted this corporation - and it's a lot better than bigger ones - this was also something that turned me to left.

There are programmers I know who describe themseft rightists or even extreme rightists. They find capitalism is at least the least wrong regime that exists and some of them find that left (= not extreme right for them) shouln't exists. Their mind are for capitalism. But their action don't follow what all the crap the media putted in their brain : extreme rights programmers download illegally softwares, songs, movies. The capitalism for them is something that is working, they will never say otherwise, but they are downloading a lot of stuff illegally. The capitalism work for them because they don't respect their rules. All of this make me, and make other left programmers I know, laughting...

[ckaihatsu]

Monsieur B.,

You bring up a very good point about what I call 'social reality', as opposed to objective (technical) reality. In this case we have the reality of free, open-source software that can potentially supplant the corporations' products, but then there's the socio-political reality of advertising, media channels, bourgeois culture, etc.

Technically it's now too late for the corporations -- all digital media formats have already been established and are easily used by the public: DOC and PDF for print layouts, JPG for photos, MP3 for audio/music, and AVI, WMV, and QuickTime for video (I don't know about HD). Blank media is cheap and readily mass-imprinted, even for the home user.

Programmers can port code fairly easily among the major platforms, and through the Java Virtual Machine programmers could reduce their workloads by writing code only once, for Java.

So despite their existing digital utopia your point is well-taken. As an analogy, people may still buy the music of corporate-backed performers instead of taking the trouble to explore music for themselves. This is the crux of the issue, I think.

The structural tendency towards monopolization is true -- this is the dynamic that the working class is ultimately fighting. We'd rather combine on the basis of our reality -- laboring -- instead of on the basis of their combines: family legacies, disembodied notions of wealth and property, and the law of the jungle.

I've come to see rightists as being basically myopic -- they think they're being political, but really their politics extend as far as their property line -- the more sophisticated, ambitious ones figure out how to parlay their ranting into celebrity status by becoming politicians or talk-show hosts, but that's about it. They could give two shits about the larger picture or about bringing up the peoples of the world to a level playing field.

Fortunately for us their leading edge is in a morass -- dependent on debt, consumer spending, and now losing their venture for raw materials (oil) in Iraq -- it's not even a bid for a manufacturing hub or anything. Now their desperation to make headlines is brining them into yet another 'bigger-bully' situation: intervening on the side of the Ethiopian warlords. (And I have my own doubts that oil is really as scarce as it's made out to be -- there's another racket for you!)

I'm going to go on the record now as someone who believes in the technological short-cut -- if the cost of solar-cell technology keeps dropping we may see solar cells do for energy what digital technology has done for media -- make energy as freely available as digital bits. This could potentially undermine the entire bourgeois, politician-pimp protection racket altogether. Guess we'll see....