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Does 'Open Source' Have To Mean 'Free'?
Unhappy Windows User asks: "An article on AltaVista states that Microsoft will "fight to the death anything that threatens its intellectual property". The article states that, by keeping APIs closed, Microsoft has an advantage over other software vendors such as Corel. But how exactly would disclosing the source code be a threat to IP? After all, it's still protected by copyright, isn't it? Not publishing the source code simply gives Microsoft a chance to leverage their monopoly on the market. What's to stop companies distributing software with source code whilst maintaining the copyright to it? This would only allow other companies to write software that integrates with it, and the security-conscious would be able to check the code for bugs and potential security flaws. After all, when I buy a car, I cannot make an identical copy and sell it, as the design is protected by copyright. But I am entitled to look inside, and fix it if something's wrong. " Interesting thought. Would the revealing of source code damage IP rights simply because it is in the open for all to see? Your ideas still remain your ideas and your implementation of said ideas are still yours as well, right?
The press keeps making this mistake. Opening up the specifications for the programming hooks the operating system offers (opening the API's, in other words), is not the same thing as opening up the source code. The former clearly describes the ways in which applications are expected to interact with the operating system on which they run. The latter is how the API's are created.
This is key. The Microsoft argument that opening their API's would kill them depends on the confusion between API and source code. All they're being asked to do in reality is provide the world with the information it should have had. After all, providing API's is the reason operating systems exist! They should always be made public, or there's no reason to have an operating system, since the application programmers will end up having to write their own interfaces.
Microsoft is just being asked to play fair and do their job correctly. It's not an onerous request!
-Joe
[RANT - this is my opinion; moderate appropriately]
I'm getting pretty sick and tired of hearing about license this, license that, GPL license, BSD license, etc. I can't believe that so many people here on slashdot can sometimes be so optimistic and unreasonable. Who here really believes that simply by attaching a license to software, everyone will politely follow the terms of that license to the letter?
Welcome to the real world - people don't give a damn about licenses. If metallica put a so-called "license" on their next MP3 that said you had to buy their CD to listen to it, no one here would change their piracy practices one bit. If someone sees something they can profit off of and get away with, they'll take the opportunity in a flash.
In fact, I'd be surprised in Windows didn't have any code either from GPLed programs or heavily inspired by them. We've already seen all their other illegal and immoral business practices, and such a transgression would be nothing to them. And how would they ever be caught? If anyone here honestly puts that below them, they probably don't belong on a site like this.
I just filled out a job application yesterday that asked many questions about my opinion of people, among other topics. Questions such as, "Do you think that if an employee thought that they could steal an item and get away with it, would they do so?" and "You see a customer who repeatedly buys items with gift certificates. You think nothing of it until you see that the customer is friends with an employee who authorizes gift certificates. What do you do?" and many, many more about how trusting I am, and whether I think people would steal things if they had such and such an opportunity.
I answered every one of those questions honestly, which basically summized to my saying that I think people are evil and lie, cheat, and steal every chance they get if it benefits themselves. And while doing it, I couldn't help but think of people probably doing exactly that on the same application, on questions like "How trustworthy do you consider yourself?" and "How well do you get along well with both colleages? Strangers?"
So, to get back on topic, you can't release the source code and expect people to pay simple because the software has a license. If it's really useful, you may get a couple bucks, but the more people want it and would be willing to pay, the more likely they are to pirate it. Either provide additional services to those who pay - either more features, or tech support like the linux vendors, etc - or go ahead and give it out free.
[/RANT]
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
Like it or not, in the consumer arena, program (and OS) upgrades because they provide unique features to the consumer. If Adobe puts a new feature in Photoshop, it takes a while for the six-zillion Photoshop clones to copy it, for example. But if they opened their source, the clones could have the new feature out a LOT quicker.
Personally, I think this would be a good thing, as it would tend to check "featuritis" that is so rampant. Programs would cease competing on features and start competing on UI, stability, security, etc. Unfortuantely, the software business (I'm talking non-games) exists now on featuritis to sell upgrades and I don't see the software companies moving away from that.
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
An example of "Open but not free" would be the Thomas and Finney calculus text that happens to be on my desk.
In this case, none of the *ideas* in the book are protected. I can use any equation in the book for any purpose. However, I can't just take T and F's text, munge it electronicly and republish it.
There's nothing to stop me from writing my own calculus text (excepting of course my incomplete knowledge of the subject) but I would have to prove that the organization and presentation in the text is original and not just a rearrangement of T and F.
So, I reason you can protect source in the same manner as books are protected. Protecting ideas is another matter. The only way I can think of to simultaneously publish and protect an idea is (shudder) to patent it.
BTW, if you have a copy of T and F, look in the index for "Whales". It's good for a laugh.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?