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O-STEP In The Limelight
Tony Stanco, whose new eGovOS conference is starting today, has also been pushing O-STEP (Open Source Threshold Escrow Program). It's an interesting looking program for escrowing code, pending money being raised towards it - you can get more details in PPT,OpenOffice, and HTML.
Step 1: Write software
Step 2:
Step 3: Err... Guys? Can I have the profit now? Umm... What do you mean the escrow program folded? You had WHO doing the book-keeping? Andersen? AARGH...
(Little known Step 4): Major shooting spree...
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It's interesting to think, something that is developed with the idea of keeping things free can generate and manage monetary and money related issues. How many times have we seen programs like Turbo Tax and Lotus which are used for business be passed up for something cheaper and better yet open source? I give this on my thumbs up.
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
A very interesting article, but one has to wonder about the keep to go through all of these gyrations... Why not just release under open source? It appears that it will take some time for folkes to figure out: How to ditribute open source while generating revenue.
'ta
This may help to further mainstream open source efforts. Everyone wants to get paid for their work and this looks like the next logical step in the process. Hopefully the concept is well executed though unlike some other recent ventures.
O-STEP will re-invigorate the software industry and result in more competition by re-balancing the rights between users and producers in a way more appropriate with the incentives framework of the U.S. Constitution, The current intellectual property regime creates vendor lock-ins for critical infrastructure software.
"This must be a Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
For too long, legislation and regulaton have lagged behind the technological paradigm. This is a step in the right direction.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
RMS was asked to speak at the conference but refused. Newsforge just published a statement from him explaining why. You can read it here.
This way of doing things will lose one of the benefits of going GPL from day one. Since the code will be closed source for a period you can't build on top of already open software (unless lgpl), this means having to reinvent the wheel, which means higher cost.
On the other hand if the software is open source from day one customers will be less inclined to pay, profit suffers and the software won't be made.
Would you like some egg with your chicken?
So suppose we make a more company friendly GPL? (FSF probably won't like it so a lot will have to be created from scratch, but less that for the proposed scheme), Requiering that source be disclosed after a profit threshold is reached won't work since a company could cheat by setting the threshold redicoulously high. What might work is some kind of time-delayed GPL e.g "If you modify this source and make binaries the source must be provided no later that three months later". That way the a free softwrae author can be sure that nothing based on his code will stay closed forever, and companies could benefit from already developed code. Still it would probably depend a lot on the free software community and their willingness to change their lisences, and you can bet you'll see different time limits depending on what the authour of a piece of code thinks is acceptable. But if something like this is implemented I believe both business and the community could benefit. (except for evil monopolies ;) )
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This sounds so much like the argument that once a software company has made enough money on a version of software that they should/could give it away or open source it so that people who would have never bought it can benefit from it.
The part that gets me is that there has to be a "trusted entity" that ensures that the release occurs once this mysterious threshold is reached.
I think there is a great parallel here in the pharmaceutical industry. After all, we all know that drug companies don't fight for extended patent rights to drugs that improve peoples lives. They are always real nice about making their "threshold" amount then releasing their drug(s) to generic and whole-saler manufacturers so that the majority of the people can benefit.
It is not ALWAYS about money.
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My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
This is a similar idea, but at least allows the market to help arrive at an agreeable valuation: The Digital Art Auction
I've thought of this idea before; it seems somewhat reasonable but there are some problems. For example, what if the escrow value is set too high? What if only a few people buy it? What happens to bug-fixes and updates?
I can imagine a few things going wrong in this system where the buyer of the software is harmed. The example in the article about Corel escrowing Word Perfect is a good one: What happens if they set the escrow value at $50M but only sell $40M of software? Then the early adopters lose out, since now they are stuck with a product as proprietary as MS Word, but not as popularly supported. I think that for this reason, many products will not be purchased until they have some serious momentum. This is a catch-22.
Another issue, as another poster mentioned, is that software that begins its life as proprietary can not build upon the free software foundations. The other main problem is that some software can't be open-sourced because it includes other proprietary components that are licensed, not bought. So, for the free-software community there is still an advantage (more free code, even if it's missing bits, is still good), but for the people who bought the software in escrow there is less advantage, since they can't actually use the opened source for their production work.
I've been shaking my head trying to figure-out how to accomplish something like this. O-STEP is a taking a well thought-out approach that just MIGHT work. The real problem is getting lobbying money from vendors like IBM to start pushing programs like this. We need an Open Source Lobbying Group (OSLG?). A group dedicated to raising money and pushing legitimate legislation toward balancing the playing field for companies providing Open Source products. In my eyes some of the possible legislation would include tax-exempt status for companies or portions of companies, or some of the non-profit's umbrella of protection. Grant programs are another necessary step, in my opinion. Governments needs to start paying some development costs for software its people or even companies need, and stop lining the pockets of a particular abusive monopoly power in the industry.
So, in short O-STEP is a GOOD-STEP; but more needs to be done in this arena.
On a side note: Did anyone else hear that Disney World is enjoying farmer's tax-exempt status because they have a few cows on the property?
put the what in the where?
Escrow models break this: I have no guarantee that the source will be released, and I personally won't be able to pay to get it in its entirety. From my point of view as a user and potential contributor, escrowed code is as uncertain as commercial code.
There are enough people who have an incentive to release code open source to keep us all happy. And against open source competition, even escrowed code doesn't stand much of a chance.
And if you think about it, getting paid for what people actually *need* as opposed to what you think they'll need is more efficient anyway.
What the hell kind of name is that? It's got to be one of the worst acronyms ever. Some sort of tortured compound acronym, I guess. Maybe it's a sort of pig-latin derivative that Tony and his siblings developed, and we just aren't in on the inside joke. "Leggovos my eGOvos!"
.NET works on FreeBSD, or how great Services for Unix(tm) is, or some other embrace-and-extend nonsense. "Pragmatists" who don't know any better are goind to fall for it like they always do, and jobs doing free software integration will be lost thanks to Microsoft's presence at the conference.
I can't figure out what it's supposed to accomplish. If it's a FS/OS advocacy platform and showcase, then why is Microsoft there at all? Tony Stanco and Bruce Perens both seem to be of the opinion that Microsoft will somehow embarrass themselves by showing up and speaking amid all of the real free software companies and developers. This is NOT going to happen. Microsoft is going to do their typical Hollywood pyrotechnics and when everyone's hypnotized they'll start talking about how great
O-STEP is another winning acronym for a program of source code escrow? Sounds like one of the most artificial and forced cases of free software backpedalling. Who would actually use this program? Why bother? Either you release it or you don't. When you put a "time-bomb" on open-sourcing software, you're treating open code as something to be avoided. Open code seems most useful in the early stages of product. "Release Early, Release Often", right? right? How useful was Netscape's release? Not as useful as it would have been if project was open from the beginning. Dealing with WordPerfect source code at this point will be similarly bewildering. It's just a stupid idea.
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