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John Terpstra on Challenges to Free Software

Posted by michael on from the you-want-to-fight dept.

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."

6 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. The First Person by pete-classic · · Score: 5, Funny

    The first person who says OSS when he means FS in this thread gets my metaphorical foot up his avatar ass.

    -Peter

    1. Re:The First Person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Actually, it's quite insightful. The two are really at odds philosophically. Despite the fact that they're both backed by non-profit organizations (one CA, one MA), there are differences. The FSF (the guys behind the Free Software trademark) is more academically oriented, and the OSF (the guys behind the Open Source trademark) is more commercially oriented)

      While there is much overlap, at least compared to proprietary, being aware of the significant differences between Free Software, Open Source Software, and Shared Source software.

  2. IP out of hand by scaaven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These days IP has spun out of control I think (in the patent office at least). You can get patents for things that are so common sense it's ridiculous. I liked on the Tonight Show when Dave Chapelle said he ran into this rich white guy, and when he asked how he got rich, the guy responded, "My family owns the patent for fire"

    --
    I know I'm going to be modded up on this
  3. Warez by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't mod me down, I'm serious ... the warez scene is the biggest contributer making software free (in the financial sense), and it's healthy for the industry. Seriously, what percentage of the apps on your Windows machine did you pay for, inclusing the OS itself? I'm about 50%, mostly games. But more software stimulates the industry, and what we use at home is what we want to use at work - and there's where the real money is, in the corporate world. The software publishers know this too, which is why it is so easy to find keygens for MS and other popular products ... people know Windows and Photoshop because they pirated them at home, and they want to use it at work where businesses won't pirate software. That is also the reason why game software has such annoying copy protection you don't see elsewhere, a "free" copy doesn't help sell 100 corporate licenses. Unless you work someplace where they do install games at every desktop, then please tell me where to send a resume.

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  5. John needs to rethink what will reshape the market by thpr · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "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.