From: Allin Cottrell (cottrell@wfu.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 07 2002 - 09:19:27 EST
A fellow named Graham Seaman sent me the following question after taking a look at the OPE-L archive. He asked if I might forward it to the list and since it seems on-topic I am doing so. Graham's question is: "I'm interested in the value of commercial software. This is a fairly live issue among a small group of people I know, in which I am in the minority position of arguing that commercial software can have no (substantial) value, due to it's infinite reproducability at minimal cost; the main counter-arguments are that if it's integrated in the M-C-M' process, then in practice it has value; and that infinite reproducability is a red herring since any given program is only actually sold a finite number of times allowing us to retrospectively know its value. I don't like a value which is only determined by consumption, but maybe I'm misunderstanding Marx.. (note the question is only about commercial software, eg. word; not one-off commissioned software, or software used directly in production (eg for CNC machines)" Allin Cottrell.
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