John Terpstra on Challenges to Free Software

Telex4 writes "Anyone who has read John Terpstra's article on Groklaw about Intellectual Property (IP) rights will be interested to read an interview I did recently with John at KDE's World Summit. We talked about what IP means to the free software community, how we can drive GNU/Linux adoption, and how he thinks the IT market will change in coming years. He gives us a lot to think about in terms of what more we should be doing."

Comments

trending toward open

[dirvish]

If IP law continues the way it is Free Software will be the only alternative for consumers. Businesses are treating their customers like criminals and these customers will only take it for so long. People are becoming aware of the draconian approach to IP and they are beginning to reject it in favor of more open solutions.

Re:trending toward open

[over_exposed]

I'm not nearly as optimistic as you. Granted, SOME people are becoming aware of the problem... Most of them just bend over and take it in the pooper because A) they don't know any better and B) even if they did, they don't think could do anything about it. Society is not as intelligent as we would all like to believe. Remember, 50% of people out there are dumber than average.

Re:Change

[commodoresloat]

There's a difference between imposition and advocacy. People can make (and have made) the case for free software in places where they have influence. They don't have to cram these ideas down anyone's throats; gradual acceptance will come when the software lives up to the advocacy.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Warez

[Kenja]

" Seriously, what percentage of the apps on your Windows machine did you pay for, inclusing the OS itself?"

100%. But then I learned that taking things without permission is wrong when I was in preschool.

John needs to rethink what will reshape the market

[thpr]

"There will be a fundamental reshaping of the market, which can only come from the bottom up, i.e. from the free software community and from small companies".

"The two most important strategies we must adopt are to encourage and adhere to open standards, which undermine big IP oriented business' ability to monopolise and dominate the marketplace.

I think John misses the point over what makes some companies dominate and why open source won't help small business.

John doesn't have the same defintion of domination and the definition of "fundamental reshaping" as everyone else. Open source software has been VERY successful in the building blocks of software. GNU/Linux as an operating system; Eclipse as an IDE, MySQL as a database.

However, there are niche applications where the open source investment will be slow, painful, and probably not pan out. If you think open source will unseat AutoCAD, don't hold your breath. It may happen, but it won't be this decade. And Adobe Photoshop STILL dominates in image processing, even though GIMP is rather useful.

Domination (especially due to IP) is also a relative term. Microsoft can be seen to dominate the OS and "office" market today; those are prime targets of OS software. But IBM has a huge IP portfolio - is one of the large companies 'appear[ing] to support open source' and yet has a lot less to lose (on a relative scale to Microsoft). Even if IBM's software group (DB2, Lotus Notes, et al.) took it in the teeth from open source, is that going to have a (negative) impact on IBM Global Services? Will it not be the same dominating behemoth it is today?

The "fundamental reshaping" of the market will come when technology becomes pervasive, reliable, and easy enough to use that the Fortune 500 doesn't NEED to call IBM Global Services any more. Until then, someone has to put everything together, and open source reducing the procurement cost isn't going to change that. Solve the reliability and ease of use problems for small business and you WILL win in the marketplace - whether or not you're open source.

Yeah I wanna fight.

[ahfoo]

IP is not a problem for him - in fact he challenges the software community who reject the term IP to provide a better way of describing in cogent terms the very substance of creative thinking that is embodied in free software

I'll be happy to take a swing at this one. Actually, it might not be a swing though. I guess you could call it a duck, but it's still a fight tactic. My position would be that a replacement term is unnecessary.
This sounds a lot like the argument that without copyright law there would be no GPL. Just because that is true does not make it meaningful. It's quite a silly thing to say. Yes, it's true that without copyright law there would be no GPL, but without a copyright there would be no need for a GPL.
So, this mission to find a replacement term for intellectual property is totally unnecessary. You can call an idea, an idea. Likewise you can call software, software. There's no need to come up with a replacement for the phrase "intellectual property."

Re:Warez

[Kenja]

"I learned that being a bully was bad in preschool too, but a lot of the publishing houses don't seem to understand this. Forcing us to pay outrageous prices for software that's not worth it. I'm not saying that we should go an eye for an eye; stealing for a "reason" is still stealing... but why should we sit and take it from the big guys when they're not playing fair?"

Then you dont buy the software. However you ALSO dont pirate it. If someone is charging more then you want to pay for a service you are not entitled to the service without payment. Seems rahter simple to me.