Slashdot Mirror
The Economics of Open Source
Jason Kau writes " is a working paper on the economics of open source software from the Nation Bureau of Economic Research entitled "The Simple Economics of Open Source". Focuses primarily on Apache, Perl, and Sendmail but mentions Linux, Debian, VA Linux, etc. It's a 40 page PDF document. Some background in Economics would probably be helpful."
Blah?! I found this wacky arse website with "anti-linux" pics..http://www.polyester.net..Check this out..
Click to en-large the anti-linux movement.. erm. ok..
They got something called "geek satire" also..
Hackers suspected as Microsoft 747 explodes in mid-air due to blue screen of death.
Cisco integrates routing, switching and underwear drawer technology.
IBM plans to change the shampoo world.
Microsoft Unveils Plans for X-Brush tooth brushes.
!!New Computer Viruses!!!
That was one of the most artful, informative, smack-down's I've seen on /. in a long long time.
Good job.
you, my gay friend, are obviously one cock short of being a man. and you're stupid, too. everyone knows that servlets are true answers whereas perl is for fuckups
THERES ENOUGH OIL THERE TO BRING THE GAS PRICES DOWN IN MY CITY
The authors fail to mention serious economic disadvantages of proprietary closed software:
- locking-in customers to proprietary formats, interfaces and protocols.
- dependance on supplier for support and documentation.
- gratuitous upgrades to generate revenue.
- possibility of being stuck with "orphaned" software.
- restriction to platforms supported by supplier.
- inability to do things that might conflict with supplier's interests.
- business decisions must be made based on the supplier's marketing claims about the quality, reliability and features of new software without any opportunity to see how the development is going.
MRBILL ATE THIS PAGE!
Brett, you're a moron. Just shut up, okay? You're only convincing yourself that the GPL isn't open source. Everybody else knows it is.
http://linuxuserforum.cjb.net
WASN'T ME !!!!!!!!
Regards From Gay Francisco,
Jamie Zawinski
Windows 2000 is probably a bit more complex than slapping up a piece of shit website that uses perl/html and sql. what's so difficult about coding an anchor tag correctly. only in this world can you have apologists for everything. you, gilroy, are a prime example of why people should be shot in the head.
(see above)
i have a vested interest in seeing this website make it. i have a 0.7% stake in VA Linux. i have to admit that i somewhat unsure about malda's future with VA Linux. i think i will recommend that he is fired. i will also recommend that cowboy neal be killed. he is literally eating our profits. last week, he charge $7,532.47 on take out food. that was only Monday. it seems he has a taste for human flesh.
He did mention "fun" but said that it didn't explain anything. Working on commercial code is just as much fun, but you get paid more.
Tell us more about the nature of your company, its products and services. I'm sure your company is not using the open source code you get right out of the box, you must be making modifications and enhancements.
I have a M.Sc. in ecnomics. I graduated last year. I would be very interested in knowing why economics doesn't work. Does it just describe a theoretical world? As far as I understand, the economy is created by people and it seems that science has a poor understanding of how creative human beings act especially when they act as a herd. Is the economics just a tool for intuition just like astrology?
Mail me at a_skywalker@angelfire.com
"Until the Congress changes the law, or the Supreme Court opines otherwise, unlicensed use of software constitutes Copyright infringement."
You yanks sure have a bunch of brain damaged laws (direct consequence of oversupply of lawyers?)
If your position is correct (that is not clear without talking to someone qualified) then you could be right about trouble with GPL in the us. I sure hope the free world doesn't take it's lead from the collective incompetence that is IP law in the states....
...but even worse. The stupid people DO IT WILLINGLY.
Dont work for the corporations for free!
I THINK MR_BILL ATE MY SLASHDOT POST, BECAUSE IT IS GONE NOW!! WHEN WILL IT END?
From the software developers perspective, those are economic ADVANTAGES.
Thats the way the world works.
"Total aside: I seriously doubt that Windows 2000 is the most complex software project ever undertaken..."
Why, because you are an Anti-MS Zealot?
Of course it is! What do you think moderation is for, if not to rate the usefulness of a comment relative to the discussion at hand? If you want misc.misc, you know where to find it.
big time
We like this - it means that our pre-IPO stocks soar. We include a couple of deserving OSS developers (really family members) in the 'Family and Friends' and the entire OSS world thinks they have something special.
We DO have something special - a whole heap of cash that they helped us make.
me be tinkin yoo shooda not smoked dat crak pipe dis mornin yah... but since ya did coodja spare me some a da funky weed?
The REAL economics of Open Source? COMMUNISM
Alright, let's see: Saturday, around 1:30 EST, slashdot is all messed up. Most of the previously posted stories just aint showing up on the main page. Someone probably forgot to close an HTML tag or something (random guess of mine) when posting this article. Can't for the life of me think of another reason, but then again I need some coffee. Incidentally, a story that was previously posted *before* the Ask Slashdot piece (which in turn was posted before this story) became visible to me, when before, I couldn't see it. The only way to get to some of these stories is to surf through the links on the story page (start at the bottom story, follow the link to the next story, lather, rinse and repeat.) Just wanted to give you all a little error report. --avtr
What's up with Slashdot's HTML? Ha! Run it through some validation software. There are hundreds of errors on every page. Doesn't Rob give a damn about standards compliance?
Now Andover looks like even stupider dumb-fucks. I'm so glad Rob learned HTML on the back of a cereal box.
About what we can expect.
It's a pity, since VA Linux bought out Slashdot and Andover.net, they should at least be able to hire decent HTML coders to do the work for CmdrTaco. Or, if they prefer, I'm sure there are at least a few HTML coders among the readers of Slashdot who'd do the work for free.
Hmm, IE5 choked bad on this html, but Opera didn't seem to mind too much, and Slashdot goes on...
moderate this up so that people stop bitching about 5 bucks and greedy economists.
1. Moderate UP everything pro Open Source.
2. Moderate up all posts from those grovelling to Malda.
3. Moderate down everything else.
Having eliminated free speech, VA and /. stock rises. So much for honesty.
1. Moderate UP everything pro Open Source.
2. Moderate up all posts from those grovelling to Malda.
3. Moderate down everything else.
Having eliminated free speech, VA and /. stock rises. So much for honesty.
the intangibles are great, but do not a market make.
..
There's another Christensen inflection coming. Will an open-source example (linux) enrich a large enough set of folks (pocket book, not spiritual) to create a new winner? Might happen. But won't happen without $ in some part of the equation.
e.g. beta vs vhs, dvorak vs qwerty, mac vs pc, microchannel vs eISA,
It's not only what an architecture or technology or implementation does, it is the aggregate wealth in the market that it creates that determines winners. Christensen's correllary: wealth created - volume times pricepoint at a given interface - drives investment and the most aggressive moore's law curve - that swamps the lessor competitors.
Ari
see "the innovators dilemma" by Christensen, 1997.
SOMEONE MOD THIS UP!
publishing system do the folks at slashdot use? Do they even use one? it's kinda sad that they don't even validate the html that they slap together. If this is the best that Open Source can do, we're all doomed to hell.
don't waste my time! check b4 u accept submissions that charge! or is /. a developing country?
begs for xhtml. it's takes the retard factor out of coding html. CmdrTaco is obviously a retard. And that fat bastard Cowboy Neal is too busy cleaing out the Compound Fridge to notice that the home page was fucked up. Must be nice to have millions in your bank account because you don't have to work hard anymore.
what a bunch of faggots that run this place
Cowboy Neal, I will filet his fucking fat ass. I can't stand people with fat toes. that is so disgusting. probably got all kinds of cheese in between those fat sausages.
Malda, CowBoy Kneel and the rest of the tossers in the Geek Compound have been exposed for the money grabbing, inept and shameless little turds they are.
The worst of it? WE LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT!
does anyone know the address? I will personally draw and quarter Cowboy Neal
than you
Or you get wierd, badly formatted stories like this. Methinks the Commander is still celebrating with the green beer :)
For those of you who don't understand this, it must have been fixed. When this story was posted, it effectivly scrambled the main page and this one.
Finkployd
Funny how Netscape understands what bad HTML is, but still can't render good HTML worth a damn.
--
--
E2 IN2 IE?
Ironic really considering the topic. And hasn't this subject already been extensively covered already (e.g. The Cathedral and the Bazaar et al.) ? I fail to see the point of posting a news article to a topic which a) costs money to view, and b) is probably just a rehash of works already in the public domain.
Looks like Taco can't even balance quotation marks.
Wow, it's taken him only 25 minutes to fix it. Congratulations!
You'll find that ftp://ftp.sendmail.org/pub/sendmail/LICENSE contains the Sendmail license. It ain't the GPL. It's a BSD-ish license.
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
Oops, you're right. I should have picked a GPL example.
He starts out interestingly on this paper, but around page 7 he begins to get a few things wrong.
The GPL doesn't preclude your USE of software. I can use Sendmail without having to give source to anyone. But if I modify and plan to distribute that modification, then the GPL comes into play.
While I'm pleased to see him mention Debian's Social Contract, I'm don't see where the GPL ever disallowed the bundling of proprietary code with GPL code at an application level. Isn't TiVo running off a Linux based system? No one has demanded their source code, just their mods to various bits of Linux and GPL'ed software.
I must admit though, the author has certainly nailed down a number of the motivations for participating in open-source programming. My favorite quote would have to be "the programmer's performance depends on her supervisor's interference"
Can be zero. Check to see if you have an email address from your local library. Most libraries, including mine, already have subscriptions to these databases and upon providing NBER with your library address, will give you the paper for free.
>"Total aside: I seriously doubt that Windows 2000 is the most complex
>software project ever undertaken..."
>Why, because you are an Anti-MS Zealot?
No because NASA has done software projects that are *FAR* more complex than the crap Microsoft has attempted with Windows 2000. Let's see Microsoft come up with code that's able to run something like the Voyager and Pioneer probes for the lenght of time they've been running in that kind of hostile enviroment.
Well, in some ways, there really isn't a free lunch. In open source you're limited by the base of people who will contribute their time for free, and you're also limited by the personal itches that they wish to scratch. I find that open source focuses on those who write the software, not those who use it.
Supply & demand seems to break down in this system because there is no price system to allocate resources to get a feature done... i.e. I want feature X, but, I'm not a developer. It's a crummy job, so no one wants to develop it. So either I pay a developer, or find a way to create "increased hype" surrounding the feature.
The problem with this scenario is return on investment.. is a feature really worth paying $50,000 for? [Assuming 1 expert developer working for 4 months.] You're effectively re-releasing it to the community if the original software is under GPL so you can't recoup the cost.
Hmm. Many things to ponder.
-Stu
Grow up, troll.
The best economic argument for open source: it's frictionless. Just download and go. No having to come up with the cash, or beg the purchasing department, justify it to the Powers That Be, etc. While Open Source writers generally don't get paid cash for their direct efforts, they aren't generating taxes either, nor are taxes (massive friction) generated by the exchange with other OSS folks. Aftertax dollars are precious.
.pdf doc, so I don't know if econ boy covered this, but I suspect not..)
Of course, you'll make good money implimenting the OSS software (web admin, in-house developer, etc), at which point Big Brother will put a gun to your head and confiscate half your labor for having the audacity to flaunt having a brain, but what can y'do. (And most of that money will go towards buying the votes of the morons who clobbered you in school...)
(I was too lazy to read the
The Document gos it the history of basicly three open source projects perl, apache, and sendmail.
It just retelling the story of these applications and people made money off them.
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
Economics cannot judge whether something is moral or not, that is left to other professions. But it can say whether some policy creates losses in value to individuals or society.
And how can it assign value without reference to a mechanism for assigning value?
A mandatory open sourcing of software (whether by government decree or societal pressure) will create net economic losses.
How are these losses measured? What value system are you using to measure them? If the society as a whole feels that the existence of open source is a value in and of itself, then this statement clearly wrong in the context of those values.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
If you're going to troll Slashdot and repeat a statement 4.38e23 times, at LEAST check your spelling on fundimental words!
That is really cool. I had no idea netscape had a feature like that. Learn something new every day I suppose...
Finkployd
threads go off on tangents, this was on topic regarding the thread.
It's bee that way since this place was called chips n dips.
Finkployd
An economist will make no distinction between the value of money and the value of community. They are both equally valuable. Economically speaking, someone who forgoes a $90,000 job for the pleasure of working with the community as a volunteer receives just as much value and contributes just as much to society. But before you start condemning the capitalists, the converse is equally true. It is one's individual choices that matter.
I think we're arguing pretty much the same thing: that the intangible benefits provided to open source software developers are both real and significant.
I'm more interested in criticizing the sanctimonious segment of the open source community that would have you believe that there is some magic good will that causes people to develop open source software, that it's not about money. I don't know where this left wing fantasy comes from, but the self-appointed spokesmen of open source, the religion, will never tell us about the intangible benefits.
That's already happening, in a way. "The community" (if Slashdot readers are a microcosm of that) is already pretty harsh on anyone posting anything either critical of open source software, its methods, or being supportive of closed-source software (especially Microsoft).
I would imagine that it would be difficult to have a high standing in "the community" if you advocated or even admitted to using closed-source software.
To borrow a quote from 60's radicals, you're either part of the problem or your're part of the solution.
Most of them get it wrong, assuming that there has to be some form of tangible gain from contributing code. The very science of economics tells us that basically there is no free lunch, and that people will not give up resources (in this case free time) when they do not recieve something of value in return. The recent rash of IPO wealth has sort of supported this belief, despite the fact that it was unexpected (unless this whole thing has been a clever ploy of Linus and ESR's to get rich slow)
I'd wager that much of the "benefit" from contributing to the "open source" community is in the form of enhanced standing within said community. It's not a tangible gain, but the value systems of those involved may not desire immediate tangible gains. An increased community standing may allow access to the means to get tangible gains -- better paying jobs, free computer goodies, or the holy grail, a paying job working on open source software.
If working on open source software was simply doing N units of programming and getting nothing out of it at all except the finished program, it's unlikely that there would be much in the way of open source software. Without the social support networks to encourage this behavior and the rewards they bring, it literally becomes the "work for nothing" that open source advocates claim it is.
I think the situation is similar to members of a religious order -- doing works to further the religious goals doesn't result in tangible, material gains. But it does increase ones standing among the members of the order, and in the eyes of the deit(y|ies). This reward is often sufficient.
The challenge for open source is to maintain the community structure that rewards open source contributions. As the open source software world slides further into the capitalist world, where immediate material gain is the pinnacle of sucess, it will find money vs. community gain to be a compelling battle.
How about a counterpaper discussing the economic burden of millions of slashdotters attempting to download a 40 page PDF file?
I love their anti-Slashdot mechanism...
NBER Connection Full
NBER's connection to the outside world has become saturated. This is a temporary situation and we hope to have it fixed soon.
Please wait 15 Minutes and then hit Reload or Refresh on your browser.
(This is a load and time based function...hitting the reload button immediately will not help.)
Thank you for your patience. If the problem persists for longer than hour please contact the system administrators through the link below.
Gerv
He was just making an anolog statment.
Just to extend the setement I have seen errors made in corprate websites that NEVER get fixed.
Websites are by nature "source available".. not allways open source but the benifit discribed is a benifit to any code with source available. Open source simply protects this with a liccens like GPL where as "liccensed source" restricts access to source code. Both however have this benifit.
Yes his rant containned a bit of closed source bashing* but this sort of thing is hard to avoid when your talking about the benifits of open source. Just as the top of the thread is open source bashing.
*If it is Microsoft bashing to refer to software defects then surely it is a well earned bash.
I don't actually exist.
I am admittedly naive about economic matters, so feel free to mod down. Um, how do economists cope with things that are innately enjoyable? ESR aside, I suspect that the main reason people code, just judging from what appear to me to be my motivations to write the little things I do, is because after a long coding session I feel like I've just played a particularly satisfying game of chess, or maybe solved a knotty logic problem. It's disturbingly addictive.
--
"HORSE."
"HORSE."
-Flaming Carrot
Jason Kau writes " is a working paper on the economics of open source software from the Nation Bureau of Economic Research entitled "The Simple Economics of Open Source". Focuses primarily on Apache, Perl, and Sendmail but mentions Linux, Debian, VA Linux, etc. It's a 40 page PDF document. Some background in Economics would probably be helpful. " something you should
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Following the links on the page, they do an email verify to download a pdf of their paper. WTF is this all about? Anyone have a mirror or a URL that is valid?
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
As part of the General Public License (GPL, also known as "copylefting"), the user had to also agree not to impose licensing restrictions on others. Furthermore, all enhancements to the code -- and even code that intermingled cooperatively developed software with that developed separately -- had to be licensed on the same terms. It is these contractual terms that distinguish open source software from shareware....
The author makes three key mistakes in the above. First, he states that the "copyleft" terms of the GPL are a defining characteristic of open source software -- which they are not. The BSD and MIT X licenses do not encumber programs with the onerous requirement to give away one's work when one uses the code, and both are open source.
In fact, a strong argument can be made that because the GPL discriminates against a field of endeavor -- the creation of commercial software -- by denying the use of code to authors of closed source programs, it does not qualify as an "open source" license as defined by the "Open Source Definition" posted at http://www.opensource.org. So, the BSD license, the MIT X license, and the Artistic License -- the licenses used for Sendmail, Apache, BIND, etc. -- are open source licenses, but the GPL is not. The author fails to note this.
Second, it is not true that the GPL requires authors of derivative works "not to impose licensing restrictions on others." In fact, it requires that licensing restrictions be imposed -- the very onerous restrictions which are part of the GPL itself. The author of a derivative work is even required to attach the "preamble" of the GPL -- a political manifesto -- to his own work.
Finally, the author mistakenly states that the GPL is not "viral." In fact, it is viral, in that a single line of GPLed code can "contaminate" a much larger work and force it to be licensed under the GPL. Apparently, the author has bought the rhetoric of the FSF uncritically and failed to note this.
In short, the GPL not only fails the test for an "open source" license, but also places onerous restrictions upon the code. This is intentional. It is Stallman's explicit intent, as described on the FSF Web site, that GPLed code transform open source into a weapon against the interests of commercial software developers. This intent is not noted in the text and should be.
--Brett Glass
Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. - Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner
>how do economists cope with things that are innately enjoyable?
Short answer: They don't.
Still a short answer (you don't expect a treatise on economics, right?): The underlying assumption in economic theory is that subjects (that is you and me) receive some sort of utility (i.e. pleasure, money, whatever). Subjects are assumed to maximise their utility.
Everyone is free to mix in, say monetary compensation, "joy", "anger", the perception of "freedom" into a utility function - utility is an abstract concept that is, if combined with anything than money, inherently unmeasurable.
>because after a long coding session I feel like I've just played a particularly satisfying game of chess
Economic theory is unable to capture this satisfaction satisfactorily in a model setting. After all, it is only a model.
Scanning the text for keywords, I would say that this is either a vastly simplified version of some ongoing research or plainly a bad, rather incomplete paper.
+3 (educational), IMHO and after just skimming / scanning, is too much - +1 (nice try) appears to be more appropriate.
FWIW, I have about 6 MB of texts on OSS and economics, all obtained from the 'net - some of that has fewer buzzwords, but definitely more content. Perhaps the audience (supposedly economists) simply wouldn't be able to appreciate a more formal model due to lack of familiarity with the economics (sic!) of OSS.
There are quite a few other ways to tackle this topic other than "career concerns". I personally do not think that this is the right approach.
Well, on page 8, he talks about open source as if it were a license; not a license categorization. He then points to the "License Must Not Contaminate Other Software" clause and infers that open source is not viral, unlike the GPL. He completely missed the fact that GPL is talking about linking, not shared distribution. I'm not sure if he has done all of his homework yet... I guess this is a work in progress?
-pf
Make affiliate bucks
Actually the 'common wisdom' seems to be correct here. You have to remember that GPL operates under *copyright* law. Thus if you are not copying ... there is no restriction at all.
If you modify a GPL and keep it to yourself no problem. If you distribute, you fall under copyright and GPL applies. This has *nothing* to do with licensing in the more common (EULA) sense.
Copyright has nothing to say about what you do with your copies....
S.
The link in the parent post leads to a listing. To get the paper directly click here (pdf document)
Footnote 13 on page 18 of the paper says this:
... they want to be 'part of a team.' While this argument may contain a grain of truth, it is puzzling as it stands; for, it is not clear why programmers who are part of a commercial team could not enjoy the same intellectual challenges and the same team interaction as those engaged in open source development."
"An argument often heard in the open source community is that people participate in open source projects because
Through my experience, I've noticed that a significant percentage of commercial developers are barely qualified for their job. This has become more so int he current developer shortage. These are people who have no real love for programming, but rather view it as a "job". In the open source community, you have people who are programming because they love to program. This is not a job, it's a hobby. As a wise man once said. "People are defined by what they do in their spare time, not by what they do in their job." There are no nine to fivers in the open source community.
Interaction in a team environment with the nine to fivers causes more frustration than satisfaction.
-bk
Shut up. Posting something 8000 times doesn't help the actual content of the post. Just calm down a little and stop smoking so much crack. Seriously, it will help.
--ikedidawg, proffesional eater of cheese
I can't stand PDF, couldn't they have put in html or something. After all, this IS the internet. I know this is off topic, but I really dislike Adobe and a lot of their tactics. David
I was trying to make the point that calling a flubbed HTML code "evidence" that Open Source has poor quality control is a bit disingenuous. The fact of the matter is, this page (a) is generated on the fly; (b) not Earth-shattering, even to the people at slashdot; and (c) not bankrolled by more money than God.
People seemed to think it was reprehensible that Cmd Taco publish something with one glitch. Personally, if that one glitch is evidence that Open Source won't work, then 63,000 glitches is surely evidence that corporate management fails. Would I make that syllogism? No. But then, I didn't say that a glitch in one page is enough to condemn the Open Source movement.
Since the fix is a measure of responsiveness to user feedback, I think the speed is relevant. I visit many sites with similiar dysfunctional HTML -- many such sites being commercial sites -- and I usually do whip off an email to the webmaster. Often, the sites stays broken for a day or more. So again, if this page is somehow to serve as the effigy and avatar of the Open Source movement, then I think it actually speaks well of the movement.
Total aside: I seriously doubt that Windows 2000 is the most complex software project ever undertaken, but I'd be fascinated if someone could point the way toward a meaningful assessment of such a question.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
What seperates this from any other hobby (from an economics standpoint) is what people do after coding. Sure it's concievable that some wierdos will actually LIKE writing programs and debugging and all that fun stuff. What economists cannot understand is why they then take all the "product" they have created, and give it out to the world. Not only that, but give it out to the work and the world free reign to do whatever they want with it, including using it for their own works. Strange group, those open source guys :)
Seriously, I'd imagine the only reason they are so shocked at the concept of open source is because programming is something they consider very difficult. They also realise that programmers make more then they do (the average economy major that is, which is why I'm a systems programmer) and cannot understand why anyone would do it for free.
Finkployd
Not that I really care about karma, but it's annoying when a moderator mods down a message that is in a thread as offtopic. You know, sometimes people go off on a tangent in a discussion, it's not your job to make sure they do not go off topic. I understand if this was the first message in a thread, but come on.
Finkployd
If Open Source remains purely voluntary, I will be unabashedly in favor of it. But I dread the day when the religion of free software succeeds in removing the choice of free software and making it mandatory.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
As the open source software world slides further into the capitalist world, where immediate material gain is the pinnacle of sucess, it will find money vs. community gain to be a compelling battle.
An economist will make no distinction between the value of money and the value of community. They are both equally valuable. Economically speaking, someone who forgoes a $90,000 job for the pleasure of working with the community as a volunteer receives just as much value and contributes just as much to society. But before you start condemning the capitalists, the converse is equally true. It is one's individual choices that matter.
Economists seem to focus more on money for two reasons. First, money is easier to measure than good will or community spirit. Second, most people confuse financial analysts who call themselves economists with actual economists, and thus think economics is all about financing and interest rates and stuff.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
you're confusing reproduction with distribution. The GPL only comes into power when you distribute.
And that's outside the organization, so RAM doesn't count.
--
ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
+&x
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
you're confusing reproduction with distribution. The GPL only comes into power when you distribute.
And that's outside the organization, so RAM doesn't count.
Your confusing my remarks entirely. To summarize:
(i) use is reproduction (that's the legal word for copying) under the Act; (ii) if you aren't licensed to use it under GPL, then in the absence of some other license, the use is unconsented, and we are all pirates.
Thus, the authority to make copies and derivative works for ourselves under Section 1 is a right to use. If it isn't, then shut down your computer, for your use is otherwise unlicensed.
Congress *did* change the law
Paraphrasing from "The Princess Bride," these words don't mean what you think they mean.
No, all these cases followed adoption of Section 117. Interesting enough, Section 117 was recently changed to change the result in MAI, but solely in the context of running an operating system for the purpose of repairing a machine. Having made the change in this limited context, Congress ultimately ratified the 9th Circuit's holdings outside that context.
EVERY ONE OF THE CASES CITED earlier distinguished Section 117(a), primarily on grounds of the definition of "essential step" and on grounds of the definition of "owner."
I'm pleased to engage anyone on this subject in detail offline if you like. But this is a well-settled area of law, and you need to know a lot more before you start quoting excerpts out of context. In these cases, the Courts concluded that possession of a copy does not, by itself, constitute ownership of that copy. Section 117 raises issues of course, but on balance, it doesn't change the analysis substantially.
If your position is correct (that is not clear without talking to someone qualified) then you could be right about trouble with GPL in the us. I sure hope the free world doesn't take it's lead from the collective incompetence that is IP law in the states....
Actually, I wasn't arguing that we are in trouble. The GPL expressly grants a right to make verbatim copies. No problem.
We'd only be in trouble to the extent that the ideological lockstep legal analysis proffered in the root remarks of this thread were correct. Since they are not, we are not in trouble.
Another poster hinted at this, but I feel like the authors walked into a slaughterhouse and can't smell the stink. Besides stature in the community, there is another benefit to Open Source programming - it's fun. It is widely beleived that most "new" economic theories will come from the crossover of economics to psyhchology, so the authors would be wise to consult (the now-popularized) psych. concept of "flow" and how this relates to Open Source programming.
I agree that HTML should be used where and when ever posible, but PDF fills a need nothing else can.
_________________________
*sigh*
Do you even know what Open Source means?
Here's a definition to help you on your way.
Now to comment on your post first of all you just compared a mis-typed character in an HTML page to what is probably the biggest software engineering project ever embarked upon. What kind of comparison can you make with this that doesn't make you sound like an illogical, fanatical, anti-Microsoft, Open Source apologist?
Secondly Cmdr Taco viewing the bad HTML page in his browser, opening a text editor and changing it in the time it took you to reload your page has NOTHING to do with Open Source. After all I've never such bad HTML on any corporate website, does this suddenly mean that corporate software development practices are somehow better than Open Source ones?
Please think before you post next time, posts like this are why lots of people refuse to take Open Source and linux in particular seriously when people like you project yourselves as our advocates
Sounds like he had the common sense to flatly refuse wasting his time on moronic and inefficient approaches to web publishing.
Without a doubt, every advocate of servelets I have met works on a site that gets fewer than 100k hits a day. News flash folks - you can serve 100k hits with smoke signals...which is about the capacity of servelets in any case.
The issue is not bug-avoidance -- which is essentially an impossible dream -- but bug-correction. In the Open Source world that happens much more quickly than in Corporate Drone Land. Point in fact -- this messed-up page was corrected in the time it took me to hit "reload". That would never happen in the land of corporate drones.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
This is a more technical question of market dynamics (where I think that I can contribute something) rather than an explanation of the motivating factors associated with the open-source development process.
Although this particular question sidesteps many of the interesting issues (of why folks would want to do this), it makes a mathematical model of the dynamics plausible.
Since the model is framed in the context of autonomous agents, I presented it at an AI conference workshop (GECCO-99). However, I wouldn't mind getting some thoughtful feedback from folks who are more interested in the open-source economics side of things, rather than in the autonomous agents.
A web-page on the paper is located here, and the paper itself can be found here (PDF format).
My first impression of this paper is that it is pretty well written for the audience it was intended for. As an Economics major (who is also a full time mainframe system's programmer, wierd huh?) I have run into some strange attempts by my professors and others to try to explain open source in economic terms.
:), the general gist of the paper captures the economic implications of open source pretty well. The section on corporate reactions to open source is very interesting, presents it pretty well.
Most of them get it wrong, assuming that there has to be some form of tangible gain from contributing code. The very science of economics tells us that basically there is no free lunch, and that people will not give up resources (in this case free time) when they do not recieve something of value in return. The recent rash of IPO wealth has sort of supported this belief, despite the fact that it was unexpected (unless this whole thing has been a clever ploy of Linus and ESR's to get rich slow)
While yes, they did get some aspects wrong (what do you expect, they are economists
Finkployd
Because of the current economic disinformation campaign (also known as the US Presidential Primaries), I decided to hit some of my old econ texts. I was quickly reminded that all of economics can be distilled down into a few simple premises (with extremely complex interactions).
One of the basic premises is that a voluntary transaction will not occur unless both sides benefit. Apache itself is not sold but can be obtained for gratuis because it is worth more for the Apache developers not to charge for it. If it were worth more to them to sell it for $50 a copy, they would do so. Since they don't, it isn't.
The reason that it is more valuable for the Apache developers to release Apache at zero monetary cost is because they receive other values for it instead. Another economic principle is that costs and benefits are not limited to money. The various benefits that ESR lists for open sourcing a project, ego stroking, good will, sense of community, etc., are just as economically valuable as monetary payments.
The last point is very important, and one that some people completely over look. If money is less valuable than "good will" or any other ephemeral payment, then neither are these ephemeral payments any more valuable than money. We cannot economically judge one to be more important than another. Thus, to deny a corporation the ability to sell its software products, which is what it wants to do, is to create an economic loss for society. Note that when I say "sell software", I mean in the copyright sense of selling rights to it or selling undistributable copies.
Some folks in this community hold that it is morally wrong to sell software (see above note). Economics cannot judge whether something is moral or not, that is left to other professions. But it can say whether some policy creates losses in value to individuals or society. A mandatory open sourcing of software (whether by government decree or societal pressure) will create net economic losses. Economically, it will become more valuable to a developer to forgo opportunities to create new software in favor of waiting on tables instead.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Actually the 'common wisdom' seems to be correct here. You have to remember that GPL operates under *copyright* law. Thus if you are not copying ... there is no restriction at all
That's the thing about common wisdom, it *ALWAYS* seems correct. It this case, however, it is not even a close question:
If you use computer software, you are copying. Three Circuit Courts cases have held unequivocally (MAI, Southeastern and Apple) that the loading of a computer program from any media into RAM, and the subsequent execution of that program from constitutes reproduction under 35 U.S.C. s. 106. There exists no cases holding to the contrary.
Until the Congress changes the law, or the Supreme Court opines otherwise, unlicensed use of software constitutes Copyright infringement.
Copyright has nothing to say about what you do with your copies
You can't imagine how badly mistaken is this view. Copyright law provides specific exclusive rights in Section 106. Unless you are granted consent, or can find an exception in sections 107 through 120, you are infringing. This is true even if you are the owner of a copy. Ownership of a copy (which is distinct from possession of a copy) does grant certain rights set forth in Section 109 and in the case of software section 117 of the Act. Neither provides a general right to reproduce, and hence, to use, the software.
The common wisdom, as you have stated it, is clearly in error. See a lawyer before you rely on it.
Try
http://www.people.hbs.edu/jlerner/publications.
for the free download of the working paper.