Done that. If I understood what you wrote and the pieces your main points are that:

 - Free software development is more efficient than proprietary
 software.
 - Software should be free because it can enforce controls on people.
 - To become the only kind of software development, free software
 development needs to find a way to get money to developers.

Yes those are the main propositions.

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It's interesting as an idea, but solely as that. This won't work.

The

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reason why free software has worked so well so far is the

connection

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between users and developers: the user is the develloper.

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This is one reason that free software works, but a minor one. The main reason free software works is because it is a much more efficient developmental paradigm. Perhaps as much as 10x more efficient. This is explained more

in

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the DCLUG speech, but mostly in the article, Why Microsoft is a

Dinosaur.

I disagree. I believe that then power of free software appears when a user has a problem and solves it and can share it with others. His solution evolves with the feedback from others and becomes several solutions to several people problems. I believe that this is more than a minor reason, it's the reason why free software works.

Stating it like that and emphasizing the feedback loop eliminates the disagreement between us. Because the interaction of minds in intellectual products is the reason for the greater efficiency of free software. So it is same idea expressed in different ways. So we agree here.

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The proof of the huge efficiency gains from free software is GNU/Linux.

I prefer effectiveness to efficiency. Means getting results while effectiveness may mean to optimize a single step of the solution.

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The structure they propose is not different from proprietary

software

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companies, it's just like them,

I don't understand this statement. FreeDevelopers is a worldwide, inclusive membership organization that will be fully democratic. How is this like Microsoft or any other proprietary company? This structure is more like NASD/NASDAQ, VISA/banks, Medical Associations/doctors, or bar associations/lawyers. It is constructed as a self regulatory

organization.

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It is more like these SRO entities, but will go far further than they do, because FreeDevelopers will have its own marketing entity.

My this is just a question of belief, but I don't believe that a single entity (FSMC) can represent either the diversity or the power of free software.

What if the FSMC employs a diversity of local marketing or free software people to sell/maintain/service at the local level?

It isn't clear yet if that should be employees or local independent consultants/marketers, but there needs to be a coordinating body between the multitude of developers and a multitude of local marketers. Without the coordinating body, the marketers will always end up controlling the multitude of developers (as in proprietary) or not paying the developers (as is currently with open source).

The main economic problem is a collective action problem where developers have to act as a collective entity, otherwise they will be individually weak.

I understand marketing has giving to people what they want or need. I don't believe that anyone who is not in close contact with the developers can effectively market a software product, especially if you take into account cultural differences. Having a single entity doing this for all free software is just a task too big to be done.

This is a good point. But the confusion is that the diagram is not totally complete. There will have to be national branches of the FSMC and even more local branches too. But they would need to not compete with each other only on price, but rather need to act as a transmission system to signal to the FSMC what software is being demanded by the market, so that that marketing information can be relayed to FD, so that interested developers can produce it, if they want to serve that market segment.

What I do believe is in a network of "Independent consultants", as the document calls them, that can be either persons or companies. The nodes of this network will have 2 things working for them: the knowledge of a certain market and an understanding of free software that allows them to contact directly the free software community.

Yes. This is very important to get the local marketing information to the developers. However, it is still not completely clear whether this local marketing function should be independent or as employees, though independents will probably be more efficient.

Companies like freedevelopers.net-marketing would eventually appear as the network develops itself, not before, and probably not as a single company.

I am not sure I understand this. If a single point distribution company is not needed, it should not be used. So, if developers could be paid without it to develop free software, why do it after? The main proposition for the FSMC is that without it, the collective action problem will end out causing competition to death and no developers will get paid.

If developers can be paid without the FSMC, it is certainly better not to have a single point distribution system before or after. But how does your system pay the developers without one?

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but like the ones who were beaten up by MS. I believe this proposal was done with the best of intentions,

but it

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has no way to survive, at least not in the big picture.

What are your reasons for this statement? This is a conclusory opinion. And I have an opposite one. The only way to think about which is right is to have reasons as a basis for either opinion.

I hope I have exposed them above. If not, let me try to clarify: - No single entity is able to represent all free software solutions. - No single entity is able to effectivly represent any software solution to all or even most of the world's cultures.

Agreed. That is why there must be local branches of FSMC. But the single point entity is not to solve this problem that you state. Stating it this way, you are right that if you can do it only with local entities, it is a better solution.

But I contend that if you only have local entities without a coordinating single entity, the local entities will compete to death because the GPL allows them to just take the code without paying the developers. And then the industry has a major problem.

So the problem the single entity solves is the payment to the developers by making sure that the local entities include the real cost of the development of the code as part of their cost structure when they market the goods.

 - Marketers have a natural power over developers (even if most
 developers don't want to recognize this): they know the customer and
 understand what he/she wants.

Yes. This is explained in the CommCo. That is why the CommCo has the marketing company owned and controlled by the FreeDeveloper entity. These 2 entities can balance out the power of the marketers with the power of the developers.

In the proprietary companies, the developers are not unitied, so they have no countervailing power to offset the marketing arm of the proprietary company, so you end up with Microsoft, where the marketers have all the power and most of the wealth, and the developers are just replaceable human inputs.

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BTW I believe it's impossible to have a single entity doing the

role

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proposed for freedevelopers.net. Can someone explain me why, on a networked world, someone proposes a single entity point of access

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The CommCo is not a single point of access. It is a single marketing company distribution point, because otherwise GPL software can't be funded and

the

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industry stays inefficiently proprietary just to pay the developers.

If I understand it right freedevelopers.net model of paying developers depends on the effectiveness of FSMC.

Yes. The FreeDevelopers part is the development/production arm. The FSMC part is the marketing arm to sell the software that the FreeDevelopers produces.

For the reasons stated above I don't think this will work.

Do you still think it won't work after the further explanation? If so, tell me where you disagree still.

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So we need a single marketing company to pay the developers. But a

single

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distribution point is not a problem for developers, because they will

own

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the marketing company as a community. Also, the development is still free

and

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open like it is now and will be uncontrolled by the marketing entity.

Sorry, this makes me remember how Jeff Bezos on unions ("our employees don't need a union because they all own the company"). A single distribution point IS a problem for a lot of developers, that have learned to contact directly with their users and have seen the feedback loop work for them.

I don't understand. If the developers can get paid for their work directly from their customers, it should be done that way. The CommCo is constructed to solve the problem where developers join together from around the world to produce major free software projects. But once those projects are done, *others* just take the code and sell it to their customers without paying the original coders, who did the work. This is the problem the CommCo is established to correct.

Unless I'm completly missing the point, freedevelopers.net model depends on controlling GPL projects distribution, creating an artificial scarcity. In my opinion this will not work, as proprietary software model won't work.

No, the CommCo is not to create artificial scarcity. It is to ensure that the cost of the development of the code is included in the price to the customer, so that it can be relayed to the developers who created the code. Unless the developers are paid to develop the code under a free software model, most will do it under a proprietary paradigm, even though that is less efficient as a development model.

Also, it is fair that people who do the work get paid for it. If they personally don't want the money, they can give it to charities. However, most developers have to pay for food, shelter, clothes for their kids, so they need money. Right now, they get their money at another job and then code for the movement in their spare time. This is another inefficiency, since if they are paid to code fulltime in free software, the world is better off with more and better applications.

Something more like the "Street Performer Protocol", user donations or some kind of "work recognition" awards.

This is not a bad idea, because the issue is fairly paying the developers for the work they do. So we are now just talking about *how* best to do that. Again, if there is a viable way to do that on a individual developer or entity basis without the CommCo, it should be done that way. But if there was an easier way to do it, it would have been done a long time ago.

Supporting a worldwide freeflow of money (like a worldwide cheap, localized paypal-like service) that allowed these recognition systems to work would be, in my view, a more effective help to free software developers than any other structure.

The problem with this structure is not the lack of a micropayment system. The problem is that with the GPL, competing marketing companies can take the code and not include the cost of development in their cost structure. So, they will exclude the cost of development to get a marketing advantage.

What is needed is a superstructure that makes all the individual, local marketers include the costs of development in their selling price. This is why you need a single point distribution system. So all the local marketers have to pay for the development cost for GPL code.