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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.
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.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling