>>You could have talked about the Internet itself. But "non-market" is
>>inappropriate to both contexts.
>>
>>Nothing in the OSS concept prevents people from making money: in the words
>>of the folks at the Free Software Foundation (e.g., see
>>http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html ), "'Free software' is a
>>matter of liberty, not price.
>
>So you think that Linus Torvalds is primarily out to make a lot of money?
>
>Very strange belief...
Linus might make a LOT of money, if he chose so (and he's not the author of all Linux, but only of its kernel). But anyway, the point of the markets is not making few people overwhelmingly rich, but producing wealth for efficient producers and good products or services for the consumers (yeah, I know that I'm preaching "in partibus infidelium", but I declared in advance my beliefs and allegiances :-) ). It's when markets don't work properly that you see cases of parasitic rent. Sadly, in most cases, this happens when well-connected players are sheltered from competition by the action of the governments. The main reason why Internet access provision is such a competitive, low-margin business is that, unlike other forms of telecommunications, it's not been regulated from the beginning. Now the virus is spreading to the voice communications, thanks to voice-over-packet technologies, and the big boys are scared to death.
Enzo