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0xDEAFBEAD parent
From the perspective of decreasing income inequality on a global scale, when multinationals fire workers in developed countries and replace them with lower-paid workers in developing countries, that is a very good thing, since people in developing countries need the jobs more. I would be skeptical of any license which privileges co-ops over multinationals for that reason. Co-ops are likely to reinforce existing global income inequality, due to labor protections for developed-world workers. A globally rich, privileged slacker gets to keep a job they're barely doing, because they had the good fortune of being born on the right dirt. It's modern feudalism.
crabmusket
I haven't yet fully digested this comment, but I will say right off the bat that there are many co-ops in the developing world. Nathan Schneider in Everything for Everyone describes the culture shock of arriving in Nigeria (IIRC) and co-ops being everywhere, just such a normal part of life.
0xDEAFBEAD OP
Sure, I think the point I'm trying to make is that second and third-order effects can be complex and unexpected when it comes to economics.

For example, what if the dominance of co-ops in Nigeria is a contributor to economic stagnation? Do co-ops still count as "virtuous" if they're keeping a nation impoverished? Testing that hypothesis would be highly nontrivial, econometrics is hard.

Trying to license your software so as to reduce income inequality seems too ambitious. Licensing your software so it can e.g. be used by cleantech companies but not fossil fuel companies seems way more feasible by comparison.

crabmusket
Yes I don't disagree. I was using the income inequality statement as an example of what Thompson and Allworth might advise against. Software licensing might be at the wrong layer of the stack to have any impact on macroeconomics.
berdario
I think there's a kernel of truth in what you said, but you're also talking about avoiding accidental "income inequality" in this comment, and "economic stagnation" in the other.

It seems like you might've moved the goalpost a bit...

At the end of the day: any entity that works for the public good (be it a co-op, a non-profit or a state owned enterprise[1]) would be a better recipient of the free labour provided by f/oss hobbyists, than a for-profit multinational... And often economic performance is equivocated with financial performance. At the end of the day, if everyone can put food on the table[2] (here and in the developing world), I couldn't care less if some GDP metric might imply that "there's stagnation actually"

[1] My point being, that a SOE will have more bargainining power than a small co-op, and thus be able to fight unequal exchange and compensate for income inequality

[2] "food on the table" is a proxy for: food itself, shelter, healthcare, affordable heating (or cooling) and consumer goods and services (tech gadgets to learn and keep in touch with family, long distance transport to visit relatives, etc.)

djao
Goalposts are the entire problem. I read the original article ... Holy wow, undefined goalposts!

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