Commentators on Dave Winer's Wednesday post regarding free software may have missed the point, but many caught some of the assertions made, such as that "People who work for free have no incentive to please users, or even create usable software."

I don't see where in the linked-to Wired article the Clark or Dean campaigns have expressed anything like a desire to "compete" with commercial software developers.

What's strange or unusual or surprising about a non-technology project (like a campaign) building its own technology?

How about a new metaphor for software: less like Doritos ("Crunch all you want, we'll make more") and more like furniture ("I need something that fits in this corner and is high enough to let the sunlight onto my reading.") [draconian registration req'd—prefer hard copy].

Of course, the Clark campaign's move could be nothing more than a bid for the elusive Dean audience, a bid carefully laden with buzzwords like "open source." That would be what Larry Lessig calls "pandering."

On the IT-outsourcing tip—has anyone considered that the source of the phenomenon is not with free software, nor with bad economic policy, but with the fact that Indians deserve jobs too? Unlike the recipients of the factory jobs that get exported to Mexico, the programmers in India live handily; hard work and a good investment in education have paid off their. What's wrong with this? Maybe well-fed pasty Americans will soon be nursing the wounds left by their disappeared Gucci purses.

(This deserves some thought, and I intend to give it some. If you have good data about the economics of IT outsourcing, give me the 411.)