Interview of Health Care Leader Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Interview of Health Care Leader - Essay Example In healthcare institutions, for instance, leadership plays important roles at any management level. That is, effectiveness of healthcare providers depends on how leaders within the institutions perform their leadership roles. While assessing efficiency of a leader, Gunderman (2008) recommends that it is important to, first, understand true leadership qualities. This paper presents a report of an interview of a healthcare leader about leadership-related issues. The report is given using various subheadings. General Description of a Leader As noted by Mason et al. (2011), leadership styles adopted by various organizations vary from one organization to another. Ledlow & Coppola (2010), nevertheless, observe that certain traits are universally possessed by leaders in all organizations. One universal trait is ability to have a clear vision. A leader has a clear and vivid picture of where his/her firm is and where it is moving towards. That is, a leader not only has a firm grip on firmâ₠¬â„¢s success, but also focuses on implementing suitable ways of achieving a success. Good communication skills also, collectively, form a general description of a leader. In heath centers, all leaders invoke others to follow them through a clear language intertwined with passion. Self discipline and discipline towards others is also an important aspect of leadership. All healthcare leaders have discipline while solving various issues, either single-mindedly or with his/her colleague. Specific Leadership Qualities Integrity is one quality that leaders in health centers posses. Integrity, according to Finkelman (2006), entails matching inner values and outward actions. In other words, an individual of high integrity possess firm principles, which results to consistency in the inner or outer personalities. Dedication and commitment are also essential leadership qualities. A dedicated leader exhausts all available resource and sometimes takes risks just to accomplish a task. Magnanimit y, which requires leaders to give credit where it is due, is a leadership quality that improves morale of workers. However, while recognizing efforts of colleagues and junior workers, health institution leaders should be humble. A humble leader, as explained by Finkelman (2006), does not self-efface but tries to elevate all workers. Openness, as another quality, enables leaders to learn new ideas and methods of executing various roles. Openness and humility, therefore, makes leaders to be fair, which is another quality. Fairness, as a quality, compels leaders to humbly accept ideas, criticisms, and equally treat his/her colleagues. While giving others room to air out their views, leaders should be creative. Creativity enables leaders to think outside a box that hamper apt solutions. Other qualities include assertiveness, having a sense of humor, and being honest in all dealings. Personal Philosophy of Leadership Leadership is a quality that is best understood by supervisors, adminis trators, or generally, an overseer (Yoder-Wise, 2010). A leader, in any organization, leads a crowd to a right path where organizational goals are easily accomplished. While walking in this path, a leader acknowledges problems and finds suitable solutions. Finding suitable solutions involves discussions and sharing of ideas, especially with individuals with whom they share common goals. During discussion sessions, a leader organizes a large crowd into small groups and allocates them

The Benefits of Organic Food to Human Health Essay Example for Free

The Benefits of Organic Food to Human Health Essay Organic refers to the way agricultural foods is produced and processed. It is using methods and materials that are of low impact to the environment. And the primary goal is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants and people. Research published in a 2001 study showed that the current fruit and vegetables that are conventionally grown in the United States have about half the vitamin content of their counterparts in 1963. The study was based on a comparison of published USDA figures. Produced in organic farm, organic food is grown under government supervision. Therefore it is healthier for the environment which it is produce with an organic farming method that are less disruptive to the ecosystem and less dependent on chemical. . In today society, people are always in search of factors that give them an edge in maximum their health. As we all known a healthy diet and appropriate rest all has an impact on our health. Therefore there has been an overwhelming group of people that believe the benefits of organic food. Many people purchase organic food because it contains more nutrient than conventionally grown food. Its true there have been more than a hundred studies comparing the nutrient content of organic and non-organic foods. Official food composition tables, including data compiled by the US Department of Agriculture, reveal that since the 1940s the mineral levels in fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy have declined substantially in conventional foods. Combine this with longer storage, and more processing of crops and its not surprising that we may be getting fewer nutrients in our food than we were 60 years ago. The artificial fertilization associated with conventional crops produces lush growth by swelling produce with more water. On a pound-for-pound basis, organic food has more dry matter (i. e. iron). We can expect also that phytonutrients, which are antioxidants involved in the plants own defense system, will be higher in organic produce because crops rely more on their own defenses in the absence of regular applications of chemical pesticides. Evidence is emerging that confirms this expectation. Higher levels have so far been found of lycopene in organic tomatoes, polyphenols in organic potatoes and flavonols in organic apples. A recent review of the subject estimated that organic produce will tend to contain 10-50% higher phytonutrients than conventional produce. ( Mark Jeantheau,2005) Partly because of this and for other reasons too, there are higher levels of nutrients in organic produce. Research by American nutritionist Virginia Worthington has confirmed that, based on the dietary patterns, the differences can be enough to help you achieve certain nutrients that you otherwise might not get. Despite of improve a person nutrient level intake, organic food also has a lower pesticides residue. A Consumer Union report found that fresh peaches, frozen and fresh winter squash, apples, grapes, spinach, pears, and green beans had some of the highest Toxicity Index ratings. (Edward Groth III,February 1999). However conventional-food provider also claims that pesticide residues are no threat to human health. Yet consumers intuitively know this is a false assurance. In 1999, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimated that nationwide there were at least 10,000 to 20,000 physician-diagnosed pesticide illnesses and injuries per year in farm work. Exposure to pesticides can cause a range of ill effects in humans, from relatively mild effects such as headaches, fatigue, and nausea, to more serious effects such as cancer and neurological disorders. (U. S. General Accounting Office, GAO-01-815, Page 4, August 2001). Researchers have linked symptoms such as headaches, tremor, and lack of energy, depression, anxiety, poor memory, dermatitis, convulsions, nausea, indigestion and diarrhea with dietary intakes of pesticides. It also has claimed that women diagnosed with breast cancer are six to nine times more likely to have the pesticides DDT or hexachlorobenzene in their bloodstreams compared to women who did not have breast cancer. Organic food also has no harmful and less food additives. Antibiotics, growth promoters and other additives are added to non-organic meat during the animals life and while the meat is prepared for consumption. Normal intensive farming methods mean that animals live in overcrowded, unhealthy conditions where disease would quickly spread through the herd where antibiotics not used. Although antibiotics are still used to treat organically reared animals, the healthier living conditions of the animals mean that antibiotics are used prudently to treat specific ailments, rather than as a preventative method. Once the animal has been slaughtered and the meat is being prepared for human consumption, additives are often added to it to improve the flavour, colour or texture of the meat, or to make it stay fresh longer. (T. H. Carson,2005). Organic food producers are prohibited from using additives that research has shown may be harmful to human health, such as sulphur dioxide or artificial colourings. But as our organic meat is reared more naturally, the meat has its own natural flavour, texture and colour, and does not need any artificial enhancers! Besides that, children also need organic food the most as childrens are generally fast on developing organs, brains, and detoxification, however weak on immune systems. Children also have a large intake of food per kilo of body weight. Children may be at risk of higher exposure to the toxins found in nonorganic food because the food is often made up of condensed fruits or vegetables, potentially concentrating pesticide residues. Pesticides pose special concerns to children because of their high metabolisms and low body weights. More than 1 million children between the ages of 1 and 5 ingest at least 15 pesticides every day from fruits and vegetables. More than 600,000 of these children eat a dose of organophosphate insecticides that the federal government considers unsafe, and 61,000 eat doses that exceed benchmark levels by a factor of 10 or more. (Ranchers and Foresters,1998, pp. 1-3. ). Meanwhile, artificial colorings and preservatives in food and drink are thought to contribute to hyperactivity in pre-school children, and while many still contest this issue, a recent study in the UK found that the proportion of hyperactive children was halved when additives were removed from their diets. Many additives such as preservatives, artificial sweeteners, colorings and flavorings, MSG, hydrogenated fat, and phosphoric acid are prohibited in organic food production. As a conclusion, it is so important that the organic food benefits be made aware to the people as it offers a lot of good benefits to human health. Many people usually wonder why there are so many diseases these days. Therefore, making a commitment to organic food means making a commitment to your health. Organic food is how foods supposed to be, a valuable part of any regimen intended to maintain, improve, or restore health. Although there are many different benefits that we can get from the consumption of organic food, the most basic organic food health benefit that we get is pure, clean fruits, vegetables and other foods and a lot more healthier.

Oxygen Product and Recycling in Artificial Ecosystem

Oxygen Product and Recycling in Artificial Ecosystem Discovering Terrestrial and Aquatic life The Ecosystem Simulation Purpose/ Hypothesis The purpose of this experiment was to create an artificial ecosystem in order to observe the natural changes in life. The column was put together including a terrestrial and an aquatic section to see how the two interact as one. Plants, insects, and fish were added to the column in order to observe how oxygen is produced, used and recycled. The eco-column experiment was done in order to familiarize us with testing water for pH, temperature, and dissolved oxygen levels. Along with familiarizing the participants with the process and meaning of certain environmental tests the eco-column simulation helped to show how life and nature works. It gave insight to how one element affects another in nature. The eco-column simplified the mast works of nature. Methods Two liter bottles were brought in and the bottoms were cut out of all but one and the tops out of all. After cut, the bottles were assembled together and taped. The eco-column was composed of three different sections; aquatic, decomposition and terrestrial. There was a filter inserted between the decomposition and the terrestrial chambers in order to catch the soil that would try to make its way down to the aquatic chamber. The eco-column was first assembled September 24th. For the aquatic chamber water was brought in, nearly a gallon, from local lakes, ponds, and creeks. For the decomposition and terrestrial the soil was taken from local forest. After assembling the column and inserting water and soil there were instructions to insert rocks, sticks, and insects. After assembly was complete test were done. The aquatic chamber went through various test including turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH and temperature, along with subjective test such as odor and color. Observations were comple ted, as well as soil test. At first the columns were tested every week, but after 3 weeks the teacher instructed the class to complete test and observations every two weeks versus every week. The teacher gave out aquatic plants in order to help with dissolved oxygen levels. Once the dissolved oxygen levels and temperature became constant and safe fish were placed into each of the aquatic chambers of the eco-columns. The eco-column experiment lasted around three months; from September to December. The tests were completed five times. Dissolved oxygen and temperature were both tested using a probe in which was placed in the water. The pH levels were tested using a a special paper stick pH tester. In order to test turbidity water samples were taken from the aquatic chamber and put in a machine which read the level. The soil test were completed by taking out a cup of soil from the eco-column the week before. They were then tested for various elements such as; pH, nitrogen, potassium, an d phosphorus by putting them in the directed containers in which powder was added to test for the specific element. The eco-column was taken down on December 3rd. The water and soil was dumped outside of the school and the bottles were given to our teacher in order to be used again. Results The table below shows how the dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH levels changed throughout the experiment. It is visible that the pH levels and temperature remained fairly constant over time. The temperature remained around 21 degrees Celsius and the pH levels neutral, 7. The dissolved oxygen levels however were constantly changing. The first day of our experiment, September 24th, the dissolved oxygen level was 1.0. At that level the water was unsafe for marine life, such as fish. There was barely any oxygen circulating throughout the chamber. A week later the level was up to 7.6. Our teacher stated that the range of 7 is a safe number. She ensured her class that they would receive plants and fish when the levels were suitable. About the second week in she added a plant into the aquatic chamber which really helped with the dissolved oxygen levels. Once suitable (about the third week) the fish were added and one can see from the table that the tested fields remained fairly constant . Water Quality (figure 1) The table below shows the observations of the aquatic, decomposition, and terrestrial chambers over time. When the eco-column was first assembled, the water was not in very good condition. It reeked of sewage, was yellow and from the chart above the dissolved oxygen levels were as low as they could be. Not only was the aquatic chamber bad, but the decomposition and terrestrial habitats smelled fowl, were full of mold, and life did not survive. From the chart one can easily see that over time the conditions greatly improved and by the end was an ecosystem sustainable for life. By October 22nd the eco-column had greatly improved. There were signs of growth, clear water and the mold was nearly gone. By the last day of the experiment there was no smell, no algae and no signs of mold. From observations and data it is clear that the presence of plants and animals helped to improve water and soil quality. They helped to minimize bacteria and fungus while improving the state of the air and o xygen levels. Observations of Biomes (Table 1) Discussion Identify two Food Chains or Food Webs in each of your habitats (chambers). Use arrows to illustrate these food chains and food webs; complete sentences are not required. Use extra paper if needed. Aquatic Chamber Decomposition Chamber (top soil chamber) Terrestrial Chamber On separate sheet Identify and briefly discuss the biogeochemical cycles which are taking place/which are present in your EcoColumns. Do not merely state that â€Å"they are all present†; instead, provide more specific information The sunlight brings in warmth , energy, and oxygen. While the animals ( fish and insects) breathe in oxygen CO2 is produced. The CO2 is then taken in by the plants and oxygen is released. The cycle then repeats. Is your ecosystem column a closed or open system? or is it something in between a closed or open system? Explain how this (closed, open or other) influences the ecosystem column overall. The eco-column is in between an open and a closed system. It is closed in the sense that it is isolated from the rest of nature. It is open because it has all the regular cycles and interactions of an ecosystem but just in a smaller, and confined. Although it is technically a closed system it is open because it has natural cycles. What kind of niches are available/present for the various organisms in the column? Be specific, descriptive, and use terminology that is pertinent to the topic. The fish niche is to clean up the algae present in the aquatic habitat. While the aquatic plants niche is to take in the CO2 produced from the fish and produce oxygen in order to keep the fish alive and dissolved oxygen levels high. Discuss evidence of ecological succession taking place in your column (or in the column of another lab group if you have not observed any signs of succession in your column). Our eco-column started out lifeless. The water was dark, the smell was unbearable, the chemical levels were high, and the dissolved oxygen levels were low. Over time the water began to clear, the smell went away the chemicals leveled out and the dissolved oxygen levels rose. The presence of plants cleared up the water and made it livable. After the first plant other plants were able to grow and the ecosystem was able to support life (fish). Discuss the stability and sustainability of the ecosystem columns in the lab, including your own. After the first week my groups eco-column became stable, the levels remained constant from that point forward, ours was also capable of sustaining life. However, everyone’s eco-columns weren’t as stable. Several groups struggled with clearing up their water and raising their dissolved oxygen levels. Because of this they were unable to have fish. One groups water turned black due to a fungus and eutrophication occurred. Discuss three trends or patterns which stand out as you think back on the data which you have been recording for 6 weeks. These trends or patterns should apply to the water quality tests or other observations which you have made over this multi-week time period. Briefly discuss these three trends or patterns, providing possible explanations based on environmental science principles. My group’s pH, dissolved oxygen, and temperature all follow the same pattern. They started out very low, rose quickly, dropped, and then leveled back out. Many of our terrestrial insects died so this could have possibly affected the levels, as well as lack of sunlight. Explain what eutrophication refers to and how this occurs. Apply this explanation to your ecosystem column. How might eutrophication take place in your column? Explain fully. Eutrophication refers to the increase in nutrients in water such as nitrates and phosphates; it depletes the oxygen and turns the water different colors. Eutrophication happened in one group’s column but not ours. Eutrophication could happen by nutrients from the soil in the terrestrial chamber dropping down to the aquatic chamber and polluting the water. Once the water is polluted the oxygen depletes and the water changes colors and becomes unsafe. Pick another group in your class. How do your data compare to theirs? Brainstorm some causes/reasons for any differences. Since we worked at lab stations other groups were always around. I observed that most people had similar results to us. Good temperatures, steady levels of pH and dissolved oxygen with rather clear water. Some groups however were not similar. Some had bad levels, could never get oxygen levels to healthy state and had vast amounts of mold and algae. Some eco-columns were lifeless because insects and plants were unable to survive. Finally, address any sources of error in this lab. This should be narrated in a â€Å"cause and effect† manner and talk about specific problems. A good example would be â€Å"water did not drain from the terrestrial chamber so †¦Ã¢â‚¬  while a bad example would be â€Å"we messed up the measuring one day.† The only error my group could find in the lab was the soil test. We could never get enough soil to do the test, so our data is very scarce and not one week could we actually complete the task. The only time we had enough soil was the last time and the results did not seem to be very accurate. I believe something could be done to improve the soil test and raise the accuracy. Conclusion Before this experiment I was clueless on the various water and soil test; as well as how to conduct them. I now feel confident that I could complete each test on my own and I am aware of the temperature, pH level, and dissolved oxygen number needed to sustain life. This experiment was very helpful in demonstrating how an ecosystem works and how everything needs and plays off one another. The eco-column gave us the opportunity to experience biogeochemical and life cycles. We learned what is necessary to sustain life and I feel as if that was the most important thing learned from the eco-column experiment. References Botkin, D. B., E. A Keller (2011). Environmental Science (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley Sons. The EcoColumn. (2013). Retrieved December 12, 2013, from Annenburg Learner website: http://www.learner.org/courses/essential/life/bottlebio/ecocol/ EcoColumn Lab. (2013, February 7). Retrieved December 14, 2013, from Teaching Real Science website: http://teachingrealscience.com/2013/02/07/eco-column-lab/

Types of Conversation Essay -- Communication, Misunderstanding

Question 1: Describe the situation and why the conversation will be a difficult one. This August, during my short vacation back home, I am planning to have a difficult conversation with a former fellow who I have known three years ago while I was serving in the Taiwanese Armed Forces. We were best friends at that time; however, due to a series of misunderstanding occurred in the last month of our service, we stopped talking to each other ever since and eventually became estranged. Now every time when I look back at our withering friendship, I cannot help but feel regret about it. And I am planning to have a difficult conversation with this friend, trying to recover our long past friendship. It will be a difficult conversation for us for several reasons. First, we have not stayed in touch since our discharge from the armed forces. Several years have passed and now it seems imperative that we re-establish an effective communication channel and get to re-know each other in the shortest possible time. Second, when dealing with the â€Å"what happened† conversation, we must manage to revisit all the misunderstanding occurred two years ago, so that we are able to exchange our stories. Lastly, we need to properly and openly express our feelings, a challenging situation that I am not comfortable with. Considering all these factors, I anticipate our conversation to be both a difficult and a challenging one. Question 2: Discuss the what happened conversation. The â€Å"what happened† conversation centers on a disagreement generated by misunderstanding between two parties (Heen et al, p.26, 2010). In such a difficult conversation, we must first understand that it is rarely about getting the facts right, but rather, it is about conflicting percep... ...ore about his story and recognize the misunderstanding involved, but also directly encourage him to reveal more of his story. This will lead to effective communication between us. Second, I must speak for myself with clarity and power, so that I can express what I am thinking and feeling. As I am usually not a confident speaker, some preparations will help me identify the key issues in my story, so that I can give him the whole spectrum of my story during our conversation. I must provide the context and the development of my feelings during those past events to help him understand me better. By carefully examining all the above-mentioned tactics, I found that a difficult conversation is all about communication. By openly expressing my story and actively listening to his story, I should feel confident that I will eventually succeed in such a difficult conversation.

HCS 455 Policy Issue Worksheet Essay

Please complete all questions in this worksheet and answer the questions thoroughly, with the use of sources where indicated, and wherever else you feel is necessary. List an issue you believe will have a profound impact on the future of healthcare in the US. An issue that will have a profound impact on the future will be caring for the elderly, especially those who suffer any chronic condition, and those who need to stay in a nursing homes or received home care. Why do you believe this issue is so significant? (Include sources to back up your statements) There will be a shortage of professionals that are trained to care for elderly in the future. According to a data collected 10 years from now there will be about 10,000 people each day that will be celebrating their 65th birthday. This means that this is twice the amount that we have at the moment. Mion, PhD, RN (n.d.). What are some of the root causes of this issue? (include sources to back up your statements) There will be too few doctors, nurses and other health professionals receive any formal training in how to provide the best care for older patients. Mion, PhD, RN (n.d.). Meaning those doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers that are trained properly will also be around their age. Some insurance policies do not cover some of the expenses for nursing homes and this is a burden for their families. What are some possible solutions to this issue? (list at least two different possible solutions) A possible solution for this issue is for the government to provide better long time care for the elderly by allowing legislation to pass a law. If you were a policymaker, what policy would you implement to address this issue? Why would you implement these policies? How would you determine if these policies were successful? If I was a policymaker, a policy that I would implement is to provide better health coverage to the elderly. The reason that I would implement this is because by the time they retired they won’t have the money to cover for their expenses, and if the government reduces the cost that they will pay towards their health coverage then this means that patient which are the elders will have to pay a portion of that and some of them will not be able to afford it. The only way to determine if these policies were successful is by collecting data from all health care agencies, making sure that elders are receiving the health care they need. What services should be address or what should be change.

Why Software Should Be Free

Why Software Should Be Free by Richard Stallman (Version of April 24, 1992) Introduction The existence of software inevitably raises the question of how decisions about its use should be made. For example, suppose one individual who has a copy of a program meets another who would like a copy. It is possible for them to copy the program; who should decide whether this is done? The individuals involved? Or another party, called the â€Å"owner†? Software developers typically consider these questions on the assumption that the criterion for the answer is to maximize developers' profits.The political power of business has led to the government adoption of both this criterion and the answer proposed by the developers: that the program has an owner, typically a corporation associated with its development. I would like to consider the same question using a different criterion: the prosperity and freedom of the public in general. This answer cannot be decided by current law–the law should conform to ethics, not the other way around. Nor does current practice decide this question, although it may suggest possible answers.The only way to judge is to see who is helped and who is hurt by recognizing owners of software, why, and how much. In other words, we should perform a cost-benefit analysis on behalf of society as a whole, taking account of individual freedom as well as production of material goods. In this essay, I will describe the effects of having owners, and show that the results are detrimental. My conclusion is that programmers have the duty to encourage others to share, redistribute, study, and improve the software we write: in other words, to write â€Å"free† software. 1) How Owners Justify Their Power Those who benefit from the current system where programs are property offer two arguments in support of their claims to own programs: the emotional argument and the economic argument. The emotional argument goes like this: â€Å"I put my s weat, my heart, my soul into this program. It comes from me, it's mine! † This argument does not require serious refutation. The feeling of attachment is one that programmers can cultivate when it suits them; it is not inevitable. Consider, for example, how willingly the same programmers sually sign over all rights to a large corporation for a salary; the emotional attachment mysteriously vanishes. By contrast, consider the great artists and artisans of medieval times, who didn't even sign their names to their work. To them, the name of the artist was not important. What mattered was that the work was done–and the purpose it would serve. This view prevailed for hundreds of years. The economic argument goes like this: â€Å"I want to get rich (usually described inaccurately as `making a living'), and if you don't allow me to get rich by programming, then I won't program.Everyone else is like me, so nobody will ever program. And then you'll be stuck with no programs at a ll! † This threat is usually veiled as friendly advice from the wise. I'll explain later why this threat is a bluff. First I want to address an implicit assumption that is more visible in another formulation of the argument. This formulation starts by comparing the social utility of a proprietary program with that of no program, and then concludes that proprietary software development is, on the whole, beneficial, and should be encouraged.The fallacy here is in comparing only two outcomes–proprietary software vs. no software–and assuming there are no other possibilities. Given a system of software copyright, software development is usually linked with the existence of an owner who controls the software's use. As long as this linkage exists, we are often faced with the choice of proprietary software or none. However, this linkage is not inherent or inevitable; it is a consequence of the specific social/legal policy decision that we are questioning: the decision to have owners.To formulate the choice as between proprietary software vs. no software is begging the question. The Argument against Having Owners The question at hand is, â€Å"Should development of software be linked with having owners to restrict the use of it? † In order to decide this, we have to judge the effect on society of each of those two activities independently: the effect of developing the software (regardless of its terms of distribution), and the effect of restricting its use (assuming the software has been developed).If one of these activities is helpful and the other is harmful, we would be better off dropping the linkage and doing only the helpful one. To put it another way, if restricting the distribution of a program already developed is harmful to society overall, then an ethical software developer will reject the option of doing so. To determine the effect of restricting sharing, we need to compare the value to society of a restricted (i. e. , proprietary ) program with that of the same program, available to everyone. This means comparing two possible worlds.This analysis also addresses the simple counterargument sometimes made that â€Å"the benefit to the neighbor of giving him or her a copy of a program is cancelled by the harm done to the owner. † This counterargument assumes that the harm and the benefit are equal in magnitude. The analysis involves comparing these magnitudes, and shows that the benefit is much greater. To elucidate this argument, let's apply it in another area: road construction. It would be possible to fund the construction of all roads with tolls.This would entail having toll booths at all street corners. Such a system would provide a great incentive to improve roads. It would also have the virtue of causing the users of any given road to pay for that road. However, a toll booth is an artificial obstruction to smooth driving-artificial, because it is not a consequence of how roads or cars work. Compari ng free roads and toll roads by their usefulness, we find that (all else being equal) roads without toll booths are cheaper to construct, cheaper to run, safer, and more efficient to use. 2) In a poor country, tolls may make the roads unavailable to many citizens. The roads without toll booths thus offer more benefit to society at less cost; they are preferable for society. Therefore, society should choose to fund roads in another way, not by means of toll booths. Use of roads, once built, should be free. When the advocates of toll booths propose them as merely a way of raising funds, they distort the choice that is available. Toll booths do raise funds, but they do something else as well: in effect, they degrade the road.The toll road is not as good as the free road; giving us more or technically superior roads may not be an improvement if this means substituting toll roads for free roads. Of course, the construction of a free road does cost money, which the public must somehow pay . However, this does not imply the inevitability of toll booths. We who must in either case pay will get more value for our money by buying a free road. I am not saying that a toll road is worse than no road at all. That would be true if the toll were so great that hardly anyone used the road–but this is an unlikely policy for a toll collector.However, as long as the toll booths cause significant waste and inconvenience, it is better to raise the funds in a less obstructive fashion. To apply the same argument to software development, I will now show that having â€Å"toll booths† for useful software programs costs society dearly: it makes the programs more expensive to construct, more expensive to distribute, and less satisfying and efficient to use. It will follow that program construction should be encouraged in some other way. Then I will go on to explain other methods of encouraging and (to the extent actually necessary) funding software development.The Harm Done b y Obstructing Software Consider for a moment that a program has been developed, and any necessary payments for its development have been made; now society must choose either to make it proprietary or allow free sharing and use. Assume that the existence of the program and its availability is a desirable thing. (3) Restrictions on the distribution and modification of the program cannot facilitate its use. They can only interfere. So the effect can only be negative. But how much? And what kind? Three different levels of material harm come from such obstruction: †¢ †¢ †¢ Fewer people use the program.None of the users can adapt or fix the program. Other developers cannot learn from the program, or base new work on it. Each level of material harm has a concomitant form of psychosocial harm. This refers to the effect that people's decisions have on their subsequent feelings, attitudes, and predispositions. These changes in people's ways of thinking will then have a further effect on their relationships with their fellow citizens, and can have material consequences. The three levels of material harm waste part of the value that the program could contribute, but they cannot reduce it to zero.If they waste nearly all the value of the program, then writing the program harms society by at most the effort that went into writing the program. Arguably a program that is profitable to sell must provide some net direct material benefit. However, taking account of the concomitant psychosocial harm, there is no limit to the harm that proprietary software development can do. Obstructing Use of Programs The first level of harm impedes the simple use of a program. A copy of a program has nearly zero marginal cost (and you can pay this cost by doing the work yourself), so in a free market, it would have nearly zero price.A license fee is a significant disincentive to use the program. If a widely-useful program is proprietary, far fewer people will use it. It is easy t o show that the total contribution of a program to society is reduced by assigning an owner to it. Each potential user of the program, faced with the need to pay to use it, may choose to pay, or may forego use of the program. When a user chooses to pay, this is a zero-sum transfer of wealth between two parties. But each time someone chooses to forego use of the program, this harms that person without benefitting anyone. The sum of negative numbers and zeros must be negative.But this does not reduce the amount of work it takes to develop the program. As a result, the efficiency of the whole process, in delivered user satisfaction per hour of work, is reduced. This reflects a crucial difference between copies of programs and cars, chairs, or sandwiches. There is no copying machine for material objects outside of science fiction. But programs are easy to copy; anyone can produce as many copies as are wanted, with very little effort. This isn't true for material objects because matter i s conserved: each new copy has to be built from raw materials in the same way that the first copy was built.With material objects, a disincentive to use them makes sense, because fewer objects bought means less raw material and work needed to make them. It's true that there is usually also a startup cost, a development cost, which is spread over the production run. But as long as the marginal cost of production is significant, adding a share of the development cost does not make a qualitative difference. And it does not require restrictions on the freedom of ordinary users. However, imposing a price on something that would otherwise be free is a qualitative change.A centrally-imposed fee for software distribution becomes a powerful disincentive. What's more, central production as now practiced is inefficient even as a means of delivering copies of software. This system involves enclosing physical disks or tapes in superfluous packaging, shipping large numbers of them around the worl d, and storing them for sale. This cost is presented as an expense of doing business; in truth, it is part of the waste caused by having owners. Damaging Social Cohesion Suppose that both you and your neighbor would find it useful to run a certain program.In ethical concern for your neighbor, you should feel that proper handling of the situation will enable both of you to use it. A proposal to permit only one of you to use the program, while restraining the other, is divisive; neither you nor your neighbor should find it acceptable. Signing a typical software license agreement means betraying your neighbor: â€Å"I promise to deprive my neighbor of this program so that I can have a copy for myself. † People who make such choices feel internal psychological pressure to justify them, by downgrading the importance of helping one's neighbors–thus public spirit suffers.This is psychosocial harm associated with the material harm of discouraging use of the program. Many users unconsciously recognize the wrong of refusing to share, so they decide to ignore the licenses and laws, and share programs anyway. But they often feel guilty about doing so. They know that they must break the laws in order to be good neighbors, but they still consider the laws authoritative, and they conclude that being a good neighbor (which they are) is naughty or shameful. That is also a kind of psychosocial harm, but one can escape it by deciding that these licenses and laws have no moral force.Programmers also suffer psychosocial harm knowing that many users will not be allowed to use their work. This leads to an attitude of cynicism or denial. A programmer may describe enthusiastically the work that he finds technically exciting; then when asked, â€Å"Will I be permitted to use it? †, his face falls, and he admits the answer is no. To avoid feeling discouraged, he either ignores this fact most of the time or adopts a cynical stance designed to minimize the importance of it. Since the age of Reagan, the greatest scarcity in the United States is not technical innovation, but rather the willingness to work together for the public good.It makes no sense to encourage the former at the expense of the latter. Obstructing Custom Adaptation of Programs The second level of material harm is the inability to adapt programs. The ease of modification of software is one of its great advantages over older technology. But most commercially available software isn't available for modification, even after you buy it. It's available for you to take it or leave it, as a black box–that is all. A program that you can run consists of a series of numbers whose meaning is obscure. No one, not even a good programmer, can easily change the numbers o make the program do something different. Programmers normally work with the â€Å"source code† for a program, which is written in a programming language such as Fortran or C. It uses names to designate the data bei ng used and the parts of the program, and it represents operations with symbols such as `+' for addition and `-‘ for subtraction. It is designed to help programmers read and change programs. Here is an example; a program to calculate the distance between two points in a plane: float distance (p0, p1) struct point p0, p1; { float xdist = p1. x – p0. x; float ydist = p1. y – p0. ; return sqrt (xdist * xdist + ydist * ydist); } Here is the same program in executable form, on the computer I normally use: 1314258944 1411907592 -234880989 1644167167 572518958 -232267772 -231844736 -234879837 -3214848 -803143692 -231844864 2159150 -234879966 1090581031 1314803317 1634862 1420296208 -232295424 1962942495 Source code is useful (at least potentially) to every user of a program. But most users are not allowed to have copies of the source code. Usually the source code for a proprietary program is kept secret by the owner, lest anybody else learn something from it.Users recei ve only the files of incomprehensible numbers that the computer will execute. This means that only the program's owner can change the program. A friend once told me of working as a programmer in a bank for about six months, writing a program similar to something that was commercially available. She believed that if she could have gotten source code for that commercially available program, it could easily have been adapted to their needs. The bank was willing to pay for this, but was not permitted to–the source code was a secret.So she had to do six months of make-work, work that counts in the GNP but was actually waste. The MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) received a graphics printer as a gift from Xerox around 1977. It was run by free software to which we added many convenient features. For example, the software would notify a user immediately on completion of a print job. Whenever the printer had trouble, such as a paper jam or running out of paper, the software wou ld immediately notify all users who had print jobs queued. These features facilitated smooth operation.Later Xerox gave the AI Lab a newer, faster printer, one of the first laser printers. It was driven by proprietary software that ran in a separate dedicated computer, so we couldn't add any of our favorite features. We could arrange to send a notification when a print job was sent to the dedicated computer, but not when the job was actually printed (and the delay was usually considerable). There was no way to find out when the job was actually printed; you could only guess. And no one was informed when there was a paper jam, so the printer often went for an hour without being fixed.The system programmers at the AI Lab were capable of fixing such problems, probably as capable as the original authors of the program. Xerox was uninterested in fixing them, and chose to prevent us, so we were forced to accept the problems. They were never fixed. Most good programmers have experienced th is frustration. The bank could afford to solve the problem by writing a new program from scratch, but a typical user, no matter how skilled, can only give up. Giving up causes psychosocial harm–to the spirit of self-reliance. It is demoralizing to live in a house that you cannot rearrange to suit your needs.It leads to resignation and discouragement, which can spread to affect other aspects of one's life. People who feel this way are unhappy and do not do good work. Imagine what it would be like if recipes were hoarded in the same fashion as software. You might say, â€Å"How do I change this recipe to take out the salt? † and the great chef would respond, â€Å"How dare you insult my recipe, the child of my brain and my palate, by trying to tamper with it? You don't have the judgment to change my recipe and make it work right! † â€Å"But my doctor says I'm not supposed to eat salt! What can I do? Will you take out the salt for me? ‘ â€Å"I would be gl ad to do that; my fee is only $50,000. † Since the owner has a monopoly on changes, the fee tends to be large. â€Å"However, right now I don't have time. I am busy with a commission to design a new recipe for ship's biscuit for the Navy Department. I might get around to you in about two years. † Obstructing Software Development The third level of material harm affects software development. Software development used to be an evolutionary process, where a person would take an existing program and rewrite parts of it for one new feature, and then another person would rewrite parts to add nother feature; in some cases, this continued over a period of twenty years. Meanwhile, parts of the program would be â€Å"cannibalized† to form the beginnings of other programs. The existence of owners prevents this kind of evolution, making it necessary to start from scratch when developing a program. It also prevents new practitioners from studying existing programs to learn us eful techniques or even how large programs can be structured. Owners also obstruct education. I have met bright students in computer science who have never seen the source code of a large program.They may be good at writing small programs, but they can't begin to learn the different skills of writing large ones if they can't see how others have done it. In any intellectual field, one can reach greater heights by standing on the shoulders of others. But that is no longer generally allowed in the software field–you can only stand on the shoulders of the other people in your own company. The associated psychosocial harm affects the spirit of scientific cooperation, which used to be so strong that scientists would cooperate even when their countries were at war.In this spirit, Japanese oceanographers abandoning their lab on an island in the Pacific carefully preserved their work for the invading U. S. Marines, and left a note asking them to take good care of it. Conflict for prof it has destroyed what international conflict spared. Nowadays scientists in many fields don't publish enough in their papers to enable others to replicate the experiment. They publish only enough to let readers marvel at how much they were able to do. This is certainly true in computer science, where the source code for the programs reported on is usually secret.It Does Not Matter How Sharing Is Restricted I have been discussing the effects of preventing people from copying, changing, and building on a program. I have not specified how this obstruction is carried out, because that doesn't affect the conclusion. Whether it is done by copy protection, or copyright, or licenses, or encryption, or ROM cards, or hardware serial numbers, if it succeeds in preventing use, it does harm. Users do consider some of these methods more obnoxious than others. I suggest that the methods most hated are those that accomplish their objective.Software Should be Free I have shown how ownership of a pro gram–the power to restrict changing or copying it–is obstructive. Its negative effects are widespread and important. It follows that society shouldn't have owners for programs. Another way to understand this is that what society needs is free software, and proprietary software is a poor substitute. Encouraging the substitute is not a rational way to get what we need. Vaclav Havel has advised us to â€Å"Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. ‘ A business making proprietary software stands a chance of success in its own narrow terms, but it is not what is good for society. Why People Will Develop Software If we eliminate copyright as a means of encouraging people to develop software, at first less software will be developed, but that software will be more useful. It is not clear whether the overall delivered user satisfaction will be less; but if it is, or if we wish to increase it anyway, there are other ways to en courage development, just as there are ways besides toll booths to raise money for streets.Before I talk about how that can be done, first I want to question how much artificial encouragement is truly necessary. Programming is Fun There are some lines of work that few will enter except for money; road construction, for example. There are other fields of study and art in which there is little chance to become rich, which people enter for their fascination or their perceived value to society. Examples include mathematical logic, classical music, and archaeology; and political organizing among working people.People compete, more sadly than bitterly, for the few funded positions available, none of which is funded very well. They may even pay for the chance to work in the field, if they can afford to. Such a field can transform itself overnight if it begins to offer the possibility of getting rich. When one worker gets rich, others demand the same opportunity. Soon all may demand large s ums of money for doing what they used to do for pleasure. When another couple of years go by, everyone connected with the field will deride the idea that work would be done in the field without large financial returns.They will advise social planners to ensure that these returns are possible, prescribing special privileges, powers, and monopolies as necessary to do so. This change happened in the field of computer programming in the past decade. Fifteen years ago, there were articles on â€Å"computer addiction†: users were â€Å"onlining† and had hundred-dollar-a-week habits. It was generally understood that people frequently loved programming enough to break up their marriages. Today, it is generally understood that no one would program except for a high rate of pay.People have forgotten what they knew fifteen years ago. When it is true at a given time that most people will work in a certain field only for high pay, it need not remain true. The dynamic of change can run in reverse, if society provides an impetus. If we take away the possibility of great wealth, then after a while, when the people have readjusted their attitudes, they will once again be eager to work in the field for the joy of accomplishment. The question, â€Å"How can we pay programmers? † becomes an easier question when we realize that it's not a matter of paying them a fortune.A mere living is easier to raise. Funding Free Software Institutions that pay programmers do not have to be software houses. Many other institutions already exist that can do this. Hardware manufacturers find it essential to support software development even if they cannot control the use of the software. In 1970, much of their software was free because they did not consider restricting it. Today, their increasing willingness to join consortiums shows their realization that owning the software is not what is really important for them.Universities conduct many programming projects. Today they of ten sell the results, but in the 1970s they did not. Is there any doubt that universities would develop free software if they were not allowed to sell software? These projects could be supported by the same government contracts and grants that now support proprietary software development. It is common today for university researchers to get grants to develop a system, develop it nearly to the point of completion and call that â€Å"finished†, and then start companies where they really finish the project and make it usable.Sometimes they declare the unfinished version â€Å"free†; if they are thoroughly corrupt, they instead get an exclusive license from the university. This is not a secret; it is openly admitted by everyone concerned. Yet if the researchers were not exposed to the temptation to do these things, they would still do their research. Programmers writing free software can make their living by selling services related to the software. I have been hired to po rt the GNU C compiler to new hardware, and to make user-interface extensions to GNU Emacs. (I offer these improvements to the public once they are done. I also teach classes for which I am paid. I am not alone in working this way; there is now a successful, growing corporation which does no other kind of work. Several other companies also provide commercial support for the free software of the GNU system. This is the beginning of the independent software support industry–an industry that could become quite large if free software becomes prevalent. It provides users with an option generally unavailable for proprietary software, except to the very wealthy. New institutions such as the Free Software Foundation can also fund programmers.Most of the Foundation's funds come from users buying tapes through the mail. The software on the tapes is free, which means that every user has the freedom to copy it and change it, but many nonetheless pay to get copies. (Recall that â€Å"free software† refers to freedom, not to price. ) Some users who already have a copy order tapes as a way of making a contribution they feel we deserve. The Foundation also receives sizable donations from computer manufacturers. The Free Software Foundation is a charity, and its income is spent on hiring as many programmers as possible.If it had been set up as a business, distributing the same free software to the public for the same fee, it would now provide a very good living for its founder. Because the Foundation is a charity, programmers often work for the Foundation for half of what they could make elsewhere. They do this because we are free of bureaucracy, and because they feel satisfaction in knowing that their work will not be obstructed from use. Most of all, they do it because programming is fun. In addition, volunteers have written many useful programs for us. (Even technical writers have begun to volunteer. This confirms that programming is among the most fascinating of all fields, along with music and art. We don't have to fear that no one will want to program. What Do Users Owe to Developers? There is a good reason for users of software to feel a moral obligation to contribute to its support. Developers of free software are contributing to the users' activities, and it is both fair and in the long-term interest of the users to give them funds to continue. However, this does not apply to proprietary software developers, since obstructionism deserves a punishment rather than reward. We thus have a paradox: the developer of useful software is entitled to the support of the users, but any attempt to turn this moral obligation into a requirement destroys the basis for the obligation. A developer can either deserve a reward or demand it, but not both. I believe that an ethical developer faced with this paradox must act so as to deserve the reward, but should also entreat the users for voluntary donations. Eventually the users will learn to support d evelopers without coercion, just as they have learned to support public radio and television stations.What Is Software Productivity? If software were free, there would still be programmers, but perhaps fewer of them. Would this be bad for society? Not necessarily. Today the advanced nations have fewer farmers than in 1900, but we do not think this is bad for society, because the few deliver more food to the consumers than the many used to do. We call this improved productivity. Free software would require far fewer programmers to satisfy the demand, because of increased software productivity at all levels: †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Wider use of each program that is developed.The ability to adapt existing programs for customization instead of starting from scratch. Better education of programmers. The elimination of duplicate development effort. Those who object to cooperation claiming it would result in the employment of fewer programmers are actually objecting to increased pr oductivity. Yet these people usually accept the widely-held belief that the software industry needs increased productivity. How is this? â€Å"Software productivity† can mean two different things: the overall productivity of all software development, or the productivity of individual projects.Overall productivity is what society would like to improve, and the most straightforward way to do this is to eliminate the artificial obstacles to cooperation which reduce it. But researchers who study the field of â€Å"software productivity† focus only on the second, limited, sense of the term, where improvement requires difficult technological advances. Is Competition Inevitable? Is it inevitable that people will try to compete, to surpass their rivals in society? Perhaps it is. But competition itself is not harmful; the harmful thing is combat. There are many ways to compete.Competition can consist of trying to achieve ever more, to outdo what others have done. For example, i n the old days, there was competition among programming wizards–competition for who could make the computer do the most amazing thing, or for who could make the shortest or fastest program for a given task. This kind of competition can benefit everyone, as long as the spirit of good sportsmanship is maintained. Constructive competition is enough competition to motivate people to great efforts. A number of people are competing to be the first to have visited all the countries on Earth; some even spend fortunes trying to do this.But they do not bribe ship captains to strand their rivals on desert islands. They are content to let the best person win. Competition becomes combat when the competitors begin trying to impede each other instead of advancing themselves–when â€Å"Let the best person win† gives way to â€Å"Let me win, best or not. † Proprietary software is harmful, not because it is a form of competition, but because it is a form of combat among th e citizens of our society. Competition in business is not necessarily combat. For example, when two grocery stores compete, their entire effort is to improve their own operations, not to sabotage the rival.But this does not demonstrate a special commitment to business ethics; rather, there is little scope for combat in this line of business short of physical violence. Not all areas of business share this characteristic. Withholding information that could help everyone advance is a form of combat. Business ideology does not prepare people to resist the temptation to combat the competition. Some forms of combat have been banned with anti-trust laws, truth in advertising laws, and so on, but rather than generalizing this to a principled rejection of combat in general, executives invent other forms of combat which are not specifically prohibited.Society's resources are squandered on the economic equivalent of factional civil war. â€Å"Why Don't You Move to Russia? † In the Unite d States, any advocate of other than the most extreme form of laissezfaire selfishness has often heard this accusation. For example, it is leveled against the supporters of a national health care system, such as is found in all the other industrialized nations of the free world. It is leveled against the advocates of public support for the arts, also universal in advanced nations. The idea that citizens have any obligation to the public good is identified in America with Communism.But how similar are these ideas? Communism as was practiced in the Soviet Union was a system of central control where all activity was regimented, supposedly for the common good, but actually for the sake of the members of the Communist party. And where copying equipment was closely guarded to prevent illegal copying. The American system of software copyright exercises central control over distribution of a program, and guards copying equipment with automatic copying-protection schemes to prevent illegal c opying.By contrast, I am working to build a system where people are free to decide their own actions; in particular, free to help their neighbors, and free to alter and improve the tools which they use in their daily lives. A system based on voluntary cooperation and on decentralization. Thus, if we are to judge views by their resemblance to Russian Communism, it is the software owners who are the Communists. The Question of Premises I make the assumption in this paper that a user of software is no less important than an author, or even an author's employer.In other words, their interests and needs have equal weight, when we decide which course of action is best. This premise is not universally accepted. Many maintain that an author's employer is fundamentally more important than anyone else. They say, for example, that the purpose of having owners of software is to give the author's employer the advantage he deserves–regardless of how this may affect the public. It is no use trying to prove or disprove these premises. Proof requires shared premises. So most of what I have to say is addressed only to those who share the premises I use, or at least are interested in what their consequences are.For those who believe that the owners are more important than everyone else, this paper is simply irrelevant. But why would a large number of Americans accept a premise that elevates certain people in importance above everyone else? Partly because of the belief that this premise is part of the legal traditions of American society. Some people feel that doubting the premise means challenging the basis of society. It is important for these people to know that this premise is not part of our legal tradition. It never has been. Thus, the Constitution says that the purpose of copyright is to â€Å"promote the progress of science and the useful arts. ‘ The Supreme Court has elaborated on this, stating in `Fox Film vs. Doyal' that â€Å"The sole interest of the Un ited States and the primary object in conferring the [copyright] monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors. † We are not required to agree with the Constitution or the Supreme Court. (At one time, they both condoned slavery. ) So their positions do not disprove the owner supremacy premise. But I hope that the awareness that this is a radical right-wing assumption rather than a traditionally recognized one will weaken its appeal.Conclusion We like to think that our society encourages helping your neighbor; but each time we reward someone for obstructionism, or admire them for the wealth they have gained in this way, we are sending the opposite message. Software hoarding is one form of our general willingness to disregard the welfare of society for personal gain. We can trace this disregard from Ronald Reagan to Jim Bakker, from Ivan Boesky to Exxon, from failing banks to failing schools. We can measure it with the size of the homeless population and the prison population.The antisocial spirit feeds on itself, because the more we see that other people will not help us, the more it seems futile to help them. Thus society decays into a jungle. If we don't want to live in a jungle, we must change our attitudes. We must start sending the message that a good citizen is one who cooperates when appropriate, not one who is successful at taking from others. I hope that the free software movement will contribute to this: at least in one area, we will replace the jungle with a more efficient system which encourages and runs on voluntary cooperation. Footnotes 1.The word â€Å"free† in â€Å"free software† refers to freedom, not to price; the price paid for a copy of a free program may be zero, or small, or (rarely) quite large. 2. The issues of pollution and traffic congestion do not alter this conclusion. If we wish to make driving more expensive to discourage driving in general, it is disadvantageous to do t his using toll booths, which contribute to both pollution and congestion. A tax on gasoline is much better. Likewise, a desire to enhance safety by limiting maximum speed is not relevant; a free-access road enhances the average speed by avoiding stops and delays, for any given speed limit. . One might regard a particular computer program as a harmful thing that should not be available at all, like the Lotus Marketplace database of personal information, which was withdrawn from sale due to public disapproval. Most of what I say does not apply to this case, but it makes little sense to argue for having an owner on the grounds that the owner will make the program less available. The owner will not make it completely unavailable, as one would wish in the case of a program whose use is considered destructive.