Response to Message ID:
1579097----------------
>>>>>IBM makes far more money on patent licensing than it does on mainframes.
>>>>Speaks endlessly.
>>>Craig does?
>>LOL! Very funny.
>>No. That IBM makes far more money on patent licensing than it does on mainframes, this "speaks volumes" (is the more common form).
>Would making money on main frames be OK?
Provided you weren't gouging out the competition with anti-competitive practices, but rather competing on your best technological offering desiring to help those people you're "serving" ... then yes, of course. Anything people make that is tangible and useful and has the goals of helping other people, it is fine to have labor paid for its creation. But the area of digital works and software is different. As with tangible things, you
should be paid for your labor of creation, and then also for any labor on ongoing maintenance, but not on every subsequent sale because infinite replication abilities exist in the digital, which are completely different than in the tangible world.
The simple rule is:
You should be paid for your labor.
Tangible world:
One labor, one product, one unit. Ten labors, one to ten products, ten units.
Digital world:
One labor, one product, infinite units. Ten labors, ten separate products, each able to be distributed infinitely.
We've never had anything like the digital world, except in the areas of thought and our ability to verbally exchange ideas. And the digital world is only about 25 years old. The ideas involved here haven't caught up. We're still running on the tangible world inertial mindset. But if we consider the foundation there, like when we share that which we know with another person (or group), we still possess it, and they now also "have a copy" as well, yet that person hearing the information can use their own experience to improve upon the conveyed idea. God's uniqueness in them can improve both. The digital world is like that. It's the first other form of this ability we've ever had, and it is actually quite amazing because it's non-temporal. I can impart knowledge today, but you may not see it for three years. When you get it, it's there just as I imparted it. As such, its needs and requirements are different than other things. It requires a different consideration in our lives.
The bottom line:
We need to hold God ahead of ourselves in all our considerations. We think that if we write software and create this grand empire then we can help out X people in some positive way because of what we've done. And we might be able to do exactly that, and even more. But that's us applying ourselves only and in so doing through artificial control means (patents, copyrights, closed source code, controlled works), we are not allowing anyone else to take our offering and add theirs to it, to produce the even greater work than was possible through your grand effort alone.
What is it that God can do? Well, He's the author of the universe. He knows all things. So ... not only can God do far far more, but He can direct it toward better ends for everybody. He can use all of the skills He gave all of the people to guide all of the projects to all of the places He wants them to go, rather than being placed in the position of, through man's pride and His allowance (for men to behave this way), taking what man holds out and then using that offering for His purposes.
There's a big difference in giving everything to God and letting Him guide and direct it all, verses God using what man holds out to guide and direct for his Godly purposes. God can and does use both to accomplish His purposes, but one yields a harvest of men in service to God, and a yield unimaginable, while the other yields a harvest unto man and Earthly lusts/things, and yields a harvest of God's allowance. One is of giving and multiplying, the other is of usurping and adding.
It's a new mindset. And it is a correct one because it places God in control ... which is where He is anyway ... but in this case it is man recognizing this and handing Him control of our lives, asking Him to guide all things, rather than us trying to be in control and push all things as we feel they should go.
There's an enemy here upon this world, our adversary, the devil. He preys upon our weak, sinful flesh. And we cannot defeat him. Our flesh is in sin, and when he comes we are overrun. Only by turning to God and asking God to fight our battles do we have victory. And only by turning to God and giving up the fruits of the entirety of our lives to Him can they be multiplied out to so many.
Read Philippians 2:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%202&version=NIV"3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others."
