Open Does Not Mean Communal
from the kill-this-myth dept
I hesitate to post anything that involves Scott Cleland, a telecom "analyst" who has a bit of a reputation for, well, perhaps stretching the truth in order to make a point that supports the big telcos who pay him to be a public advocate. However, with InfoWorld positioning him as a legitimate critic of the FCC's open spectrum rules and hearing him make statements like: "Everybody throws the word 'open' around and says open is wonderful. But 'open' means communal. It means not owned," it seems a response is necessary. This is an old trick used by those who can't actually come up with a reason why "open" systems are bad. So they fall back on the false claim that open means communist, and that's bad.There are just a few problems with this statement, with the big one being that it's completely wrong. First of all, "open" hardly means communal or communist. In fact, it often means exactly the opposite. It means creating a platform or a standard on which multiple parties can compete, as capitalists, rather than locking people out via a government-granted monopoly. Also, the smear that "open means not owned," is used to suggest that open systems are somehow antithetical to property rights. Again, this is hogwash. First of all, when discussing spectrum, we're never talking about property that is owned anyway -- merely a bit of the air that is licensed. Spectrum is, by it's very nature, the property of everyone. That's not a "communist" idea -- it's a factual one. The various spectrum auctions aren't about owning property, they're about getting a license from the FCC to be able to do something with the spectrum that is already around us.
What Cleland is really arguing for is the idea that it's better to have government-granted monopolies limited to a few big providers (mostly the ones who back his firm), rather than a more level playing field that creates real competition in a real market. For him to suggest that an "open" system is somehow less capitalistic than one that involves a gov't agency granting monopoly rights is simply laughable.
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Filed Under: open, property rights, scott cleland, spectrum
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Open
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=: open :=
,: open is open :,
,: open is not closed :,
,: open gives us options :,
,: open is fair :,
,: open is balanced :,
,: open is not like Fox News :,
-: open means just that :- //:km
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Re: =: open :=
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Parks?
If you think "open means not owned," then you're dead wrong. Before it's even licensed, the spectrum floating around our heads IS OWNED. It's owned by the citizens of the USA (or whatever country you happen to live in, for our readers outside the USA.)
Your arguments, applied to a Parks System, would say that having public parks in cities, states, and nationally means that that land is NOT OWNED!!! Yikes. The National Parks Service is communist! Time to shut down all the parks and lease the land to a friend of free enterprise like Exxon Mobil or Asplundh. The free market will put the land to appropriate use.
On the other hand, if you're right, then Parks are communist, and then at least one could get health care in Yosemite.
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Hey Mike!!!
Please don't feed the trolls!
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Cleland
Man is a walking distortion box/press release.
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Re:
That's because you don't have your head up your ass, or according to Cleland are a pinko commie.
Sometimes I hate the press. They never seem to try to find the truth in things any more. They just want their paycheck and damn the consequences.
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Re:
Won't work? Well, tell that to everyone in the world who uses Ethernet.
Of course, it can be improved for radio - you can also switch frequencies slightly to avoid other radio traffic.
Note - not my idea - I got it from 'The Future of Ideas' by Lawrence Lessig
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Open does mean communal in this case
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Re: Open does mean communal in this case
In terms of the actual issue that Mike was discussing, the spectrum allocations, how is granting a monopoly "free commercialism"? Really true "free commercialism" of the spectrum would mean that everyone would be "free" to use whatever part of the spectrum they wanted to and there would be no monopoly right granted on it.
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Re: Re: Open does mean communal in this case
It is essentially private property of users and everybody who possess a copy.
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