On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 11:10 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <e...@psu.edu> wrote:
> Owen, > To shift slightly... Aren't there conflicting metaphors here? How can > something be free, and yet be a marketplace? In marketplaces people are > orderly, follow the rules, pay for things, etc. The idea of a "free > marketplace of ideas" is inherently contradictory. Either it is an anarchy, > or it is a marketplace. What am I missing? > > Eric > Well, possibly "Free as in Beer" and "Free as in Speech" applies here. My really naive view is that I want to keep the internet protocols neutral in the sense that the internet simply delivers packets from one end to another, with no intervention other than routing in between. That was the initial design, no application based knowledge within the end-to-end delivery. Initially this was an issue of keeping the internet very clean and indeed has allowed maximal evolution. Just think how hard it would be to create new applications if the internet itself had to change for each one! The closest we get to application specific knowledge is with the port numbers which are preserved for particular apps. But even these can easily use other port numbers such as when we want SMTP to be secure .. we use a different port number for SSH encoded mail packets. So I think of the market place as being the endpoints not the transport. Thus my thoughts on "Free as in Markets" is simply service between consenting applications on the endpoints of the internet. -- Owen
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