>Jerry,
>
>One of the notions about free trade is that the receiving conutry, while initially attracting the investments, will ultimately be caused to raise its standard of living to meet the requirements of the new technology/industry. Historically this has pretty much been the case though I suspect in the faster moving technologies like electronics this has happened faster (don't all things happen faster now? <g>). As an example, the cites memory chip manufacturing... Japan has some beaches that hold the absolutely purest sand in the world - great for silicon chips. They did indeed gain a huge market share by super agressive pricing and some help from Japan, Inc.. However, that chip manufacturing has migrated to Taiwam, Malaysia and to other parts of the world - all the while chasing lower production costs. Why is this the case? Because the free trade notion has essentially worked out in real life, not only for the raising of the standard (cost) of living but also in the notion that no one can
>indefinitely subsidize a loser. The world's economy doesn't tolerate inefficiencies well. Your own adherence to the Open SOurce movement is a testament to this actually.

You state my case. Japan put our electronics industry in the toilet, putting many people out of work. Same with Steel, and almost with autos. Now, Japan's economy has moved to other locations, and their electronics industry is now in the toilet as well. What is the common thread? Like stock brokers, who make money on each buy or sell transaction and encourage movement to maximize their own income regardless of the welfare of their 'client', owners and top management always make money, and they do so by exploitation. In the process they move themselves out of their home country to become "multi-nationals" whose only alligence is to the buck. They avoid their social and commons responsibility, or use it to portray a false image of their ethics, just like Enron did.

Open Source, or more apply, the GPL, does not lend itself to your argument.
Far from being the 'virus' that Microsoft management and their press lackeys try to portray it, the GPL prevents exploitation of a coder's work without their permission. I can write code and put it under any license I wish. I can keep it propriatary and sell the binary, or I can put the code in the public domain, or under a license like the BSD. Microsoft took the BSD version of ftp and included it in their OS, and never returned a line or a penny to the BSD community. All the community got was a license fee and an oppressive EULA. The BSD community didn't care. That's fine. They wrote it, they can do with it what they want. What they don't get is any improvements that MS may have added, unless they buy MS Win, but then they can't extract those improvements and use it their code, because MS doesn't share.

I can share the code I wrote, via the source, with others in the computing community and add it to the "commons", for all to enjoy and build upon. But, to prevent some unethical person or company from exploiting my work I put my code under the GPL. The GPL doesn't prevent me or anyone else from selling apps based on code I licensed under it. What it does require is that if anyone uses my code in their app and then makes that app public, and/or charges money for it, they MUST make available the source for the app in its released version to anyone to whom they gave the app. So, the GPL isn't about 'economic efficiency' it is about preventing exploitation, or theft of the commons. Efficency is measured in the difference between the cathederal and the bazaar method of code development. The bazaar depends on code sharing, which would kill the cathederal.

A parable: A community surrounds some some very nice, green pasture with running water, which everyone freely enjoys, tends and takes care of. Their cattle eat the grass, drink the water, and fertilize the grass so other cattle will have something to eat. Into town comes some greedy anti-social types. They errect some fences around the grass and they dam off the water. Then they start charging a fee for what is essentially a zero cost resource. They hire muscle to scare off the community and they buy laws which make growing grass in other areas illegal. They also get laws passed making grass their "Intellectual Propery." Their muscle steals cattle from the community and then starts selling it back to the community.... etc... enough of the parable, you get the point. The GPL prevents this, ehh, exrement.
jlk