Downside of Free Software
Market Failure
Free software isn’t free, and we’ll end up paying.
The downside of Free Software: Because it's free, the market doesn't work in the same way as for most commercial products. Some software, even the essential plumbing of the Internet on which we all depend, becomes an externality, and that makes it a problem.
What's an externality? It's a cost that you bear, or an advantage that you enjoy, that you haven't paid for. If a factory pollutes a river and the fishermen downstream find that their catch declines, that's an example of a negative externality affecting the fishermen.
The Free Software economy abounds with positive externalities, but the one that's got me thinking this month is GnuPG, the encryption software used by everyone and everything. It's fundamental to the Internet, in that Linux distros running 90-odd percent of the world's web servers use it to verify software updates. Without GnuPG, the Internet would need to come up with another way of keeping its servers up to date, which would cost money and effort. The money it saves – the trust it engenders – would be worth billions of dollars if only we could quantify it.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.