We consider trade in necessities when producers experience wildly different marginal costs. If this can work does it even make sense for open source software to be concerned with free riders?
Every creative must consider how they will pay the rent.
When the creative product has zero marginal cost of production as it does with digital media then only artificially induced scarcity can make creativity the basis of trade. Intellectual property and rights management follow.
Shirky describes excess cognitive capacity and proposes measuring it in units of 'wikipedia'. Presumably the creatives have earned their keep and have energy remaining (the excess) to contribute to the commons.
A musician once told me that it was better to wash dishes by day than play at birthday parties. This reserved creative energy for art. Playing boring music seemed to deplete the creative excess. But is that true for software?
Ward and his farmer. Software and agriculture meet at the market. The quality in what we both do was recognized by another customer that thought a picture was in order.
A day job writing state of the art software under the direction of a business and its intellectual property concerns might just as well inform creativity as deplete it baring onerous employee agreements.
A day job tending the farm runs long because each additional acre requires additional work. The marginal cost is high. But those who have their needs in balance might still find cognitive excess to be spent tasting one season's produce while considering what to plant for the next. The farm to table movement honors this creativity.
Accumulation and enforcement of intellectual property ownership looms over music, software and agriculture. We should consider more carefully how this artificial scarcity interferes with our collective creative output more than concern for free riders not sharing the burden of new melodies, modules and seeds.