Should Public Funds Mean Public Code?

Lisa points to this article on oreillynet with "two opposing viewpoints on whether all software created by publicly funded research should be licensed as open source, and the chance to weigh in yourself." Open-source software (under whatever license) seems to me like a good way to multiply the investment of tax dollars that public funding relies on, but the counterarguments offered here are interesting.

Comments

I paid for it, I want it!

[RareHeintz]

The arguments against are pretty much bullshit. If I've paid for it, but I can't use it, then that's theft, pure and simple. If it happened with any normal transaction (e.g., buying a candy bar or a television), nobody would question that the person who took my money but did not give me the product was guilty of fraud (or possibly some lesser form of malfeasance).

But now, just because it's software, we have to have a discussion about whether or not the people who pay for it have a right to it? It's the kind of bullshit that could only come from corrupt corporations lobbying a corrupt government - it's as plain as the smirk on Dubya's face.

OK,
- B

Lisa is a shill for O'Reilly

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mean to be down on her, but this is another in a long line of O'Reilly advertisments put forth by Lisa.

Wouldn't it be better to just hire her as the "O'Reilly editor" and have her edit submissions?

For all the talk of other sites masquerading advertisments as legitimate articles here on Slashdot, something must be said for the blatant disingenuousness of this submitter and Slashdot's willingness to post her stories.

As far as the topic is concerned, all 100% government-sponsored software should be made available under a BSD-like license. The GPL and its workalikes are too restrictive and are means to a particular political end. A truly free license would allow for public consumption of the code without any royalties.

Code that is developed using less than 100% goverment funding should be kept closed and copyright assigned to the authors of the software.

GPL - Intellectual Theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

Consulting for several large companies, I'd always done my work on Windows. Recently however, a top online investment firm asked us to do some work using Linux. The concept of having access to source code was very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.

Although we met several technical challenges along the way (specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we were unable to defrag its ext2 file system), all in all the process went smoothly. Everyone was very pleased with Linux, and we were considering using it for a great deal of future internal projects.

So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would now be available at no cost to our competitors.

Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.

Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with another solution. Although it was tought to do, there really was no option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000.

I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it. After my experience with Linux, I won't be recommending it to any of my associates. I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source". Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure it remains only a bit player.

Thank you for your time.

Re:YES!

[LordNimon]

Some of this money goes to pay the salaries of researchers. Should these people also have their personal lives open to public scrutiny?