Free

In responding to a comment, I brought up Taran's Constant - something I haven't really defined in writing until now. The general theory behind it is that there is an overwhelming amount of people who, no matter how good their intentions, want something for nothing. Robert Heinlen wrote in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress: TANSTAAFL. Expanded, it becomes There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

(If you want to know about the picture to the left, read Ownership.)

In a wonderful, happy-clappy¹ world things would all be free. If you wanted something, someone would give it to you or would not complain if you took it. Whatever you needed, whatever you wanted, it would be yours for the asking. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in: Things have a limited supply, and as such there are people who fill the niche attempting to explain how things with a limited supply are dealt with by the descendants of those who used shellfish and stones as barter. These people are called 'economists', and are often made popular by taking very interesting and sometimes exotic positions on just about everything. Looking back at my life and knowing what I know now, I probably should have become an economist.

When I took the picture at left, I was struck by the look of the macaw as it looked beyond the cage surrounding it. I wanted to humanize it, make the picture some metaphor of imprisonment - my father detested birds in cages, as do I, and yet there is always the problem these days of something being set free only to be caught and imprisoned by another - be it an animal or a copyright or patent. We live in an era where ownership seems to mean capture, control, imprisonment - a sort of slavery in it's own right. As many people know, I'm a Free Software/Open Source advocate though I no longer belong to either camp - but the reason why I am is for much the same reason that the photograph struck me.