[FM Discuss] updated IBD

[a.l.e]

hi daniel,
> Hi Mick,
>> I was surprised that lots of people who do nothing in the garden, and
>> who sometimes walk and cycle from miles away come and pick the fruit. I
>> struggled with this a bit at the beginning.
> There's a difference between free culture and freeloading. What starts
> as cheeky ends with outright theft, if those people get away with it. It
> stems from a lack of respect for the people who did the growing. Trading
> information on other sites where fruit can be stolen is no substitute
> for helping grow more trees.
>
>> But now when other
>> volunteers get angry at these people I try to gently suggest that this
>> is the nature of an open access garden and you can either enjoy the fact
>> that our work is providing eatable benefits for other people or
>> basically you can stop and try to build a fence around it or move out
>> into the enclosed suburbs.
> You can be relaxed about this situation if you have enough fruit for
> your own needs, i.e. a production surplus. Imagine those people picked
> every last item of fruit and then sold it, then demanded that you
> maintained the trees (for free) so that they can do the same thing next
> year.
>

i see the situation that way:

you have made some publicity for "free apples" and you have many pople 
coming by, getting one or two apples, bringing your a pie or other 
goods. maybe just having a talk with you. they may also have been 
starting offering goods for free at their home because of your example!
once in a while there is somebody coming by, who takes the whole carton 
and then sells the apples on the market.
you said that the apples are for free, so she isn't doing anything 
against the formal rules. even if this was not what you wanted to happen.

how do you react?
- well, it does not happen that often, the advantages for me and for the 
other people are much higher than my concerns about this: just go on as 
nothing bad is happening (well, maybe tell her that you don't like how 
she behaves)
- define more and more complicated rules (as she tries to adapt to them 
and keeping abusing of your apples) so that what she does becomes 
illegal (life will be more and more complicated for everybody...)
- set up an engine that makes sure that everybody gets only one apple.
- stop offering the apples for free and let them rot on the tree (the 
easiest solution)

in the real world, in can be a very sane reaction to just accept that 
some few people are not using your "product" as you intended it -- even 
in a way that may be somehow hurting you...

ciao
a.l.e