From: peter@globv1.hacktic.nl (Peter Busser)
   Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 11:45:16 +0000 (GMT)

   > You can have a great deal of faith in the ability of a free market 
   > to serve both producers and consumers efficiently.  If people have 
   > money to spend on a product or service, a free market *will* find 
   > a way to provide it.  

   The free market works, as long as you *only* look at money. But if
   you look at the information side of the free market, then it is
   clear that such a thing as a "free market" does not exist.

The question is whether a free market or a forced market works better
in the face of an unfree information flow.  If the people who are
doing the forcing are the ones who aren't getting the information,
then they are forcing everyone to do the wrong thing.  In a free
market, prices do more than determine how much you pay for something.
They also carry information, about who wants what, and how badly.

Free software businesses need a software market that is free, because
right now, proprietary software dominates the market.  There are many
ways that proprietary software businesses could force disadvantages on
free software, e.g. patents.

-russ <nelson@crynwr.com>    http://www.crynwr.com/crynwr/nelson.html
Crynwr Software   | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | ask4 PGP key
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