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Where are the Boundaries to Open Source?
Andy Updegrove writes "In the last several days there have been several stories in the news that highlight the increasing tension between ownership of intellectual property rights (IPR) and the opportunities that become available when broader, free access to those rights is made available. The three articles that struck me as best proving this point were the announcement by Sun Microsystems that it had released the design for its new UltraSPARC processor under the GNU GPL, a speech by Tim Berners-Lee to an Oxford University audience in which he challenged the British government to make Ordnance Survey mapping data available at no cost for Web use, and reports that a Dutch court had upheld the validity of the Creative Commons license. Each of these stories demonstrates a breach in traditional thinking about the balance of value to an IPR owner between licensing those rights for profit, or making those same rights freely and publicly available. They also raise the question: where - if anywhere - are the natural boundaries for 'open IPR?'."
Of course, any new social paradigm, such as open-source, which challenges "current" intellectual "property" paradigms will stir controversy...
Isn't that why it's called "open"?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
'UltraSPARK', 'Ordnance'
What ever happened to proofreading articles again?
Take off every sig. For great justice.
What's an UltraSPARK? It sounds dangerous.
Maybe you meant UltraSPARC?
Open source is a tool that companies can use to increase their profits. Patents, copyright, and Creative Commons licenses are also tools. The point is, like always, to choose the best tool for the job. It wouldn't make much sense for Adobe to release Photoshop under an open source license, but it might make sense for Sun to release Solaris under an open source license.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
An UltraSPARK? Don't be daft, man! It's the flash you get from plugging a 220V power cable into a 120V peripheral that's mounted within a Sun rack/cabinet.
... not that I've ... ever ... done such a thing ... mind you ... *ahem*
Er
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
What are the natural boundaries of an idea?
Mike Hoye
It's a trick question. "IPR" isn't natural, it's an invention (and a relatively recent one at that). So asking where its "natural boundaries" are is silly. Where is are the "natural boundaries" of Rap? Or of lavender? Where is the natural boundary between Spanish and Italian?
It's a silly question.
For the vast bulk of history (and for all time before that), there was no such thing as "Intellectual Property." There isn't even any analogy in the animal kingdom (just imagine Monarch butterflies issuing a take down notice to other butterflies that have infringed on their trademark look and feel). The "natural" state is for people to thinks, say, and do whatever they want, and to copy good ideas wherever they see them. That, in a nutshell, is how culture works. But very recently there has arisen the observation that some good ideas are hard to copy unless the inventor is willing to explain the trick to you. And one way to induce them to do so is to ameliorate their fear that by so doing they will create a host of competitors, by promising to prevent other people from using the trick for awhile provided that they share it.
Sounds like a fair deal, but, like many things, a little greed is all it takes to spoil it for everyone.
-- MarkusQ
If I ever read the phrases, "kindred spirit," "more blessed to give than to receive," and "the meek shall inherit the earth" in a tech blog again, I'm going to scratch my eyes out.
Don't get me wrong, kindred spirits are nice and everything, but if you're discussing IPR from a business standpoint (which is what the essay is really about) why would you reference the Bible?
The bottom line is that there are no natural boundaries for open source or for IPR. All boundaries are created by government law and structure of markets. Take away the law, and you've eliminated all boundaries, since business will have to compete on different things.
I think what the author should have asked, is "With the current US IP law structure, what markets will be best served by open source?"
Or perhaps," Can everyone tell me what markets are underserved by businesses with open-source as a model, so I know where to direct my investments?" That's the question I'd ask. Especially with the glut of VC in the market coming up, there is a fortune to be made by the wily early investor.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I happened to be a victim myself and it made me very aware that some people who do not understand FOSS that they only use because of the lower costs, but don't manage their business policies to account for FOSS licenses.
I was a student on a school where they had a contract that said that anything I did create for my study they got the ownership rights of (of which the right of use is derivated from, typically arranged using licences). That contract you had to sign along with other papers needed to register to their administration (saying no means you can't follow the study) . As a bachelor student I helped out 2 students who where about to be kicked off from their master programme (this I heard from their mentors..). I used a plenty of GPL software (also LGPL audio libraries) and I made myself some GPL software too. The project became a succes, the two students I helped out suddenly got all the credits (that's another story, not relevant now) and the school wanted to sell their succes story en help the two students to form a company after their succesful graduation.
This is where the situation of fundamental ignorant behaviour towards the GPL became apparrent to me. The schools opinion was that all of my source code belonged to the students. The conflict couldn't be worse, since I transferred all my rights to the FSF (including my copyright). The schools point was that this tranfer was not legimate, since my school was convinced I made this code for a school project. So the GPL licence was not valid in this situation. They also said that if I would use anycode, I would be sewed to court and that if I would need any information that I had to write to their lawyer
So I did. I explained him the importance of GPL software for universities and other educational organisations. I explained also that this contract made it impossible to use any LGPL or GPL software. I explained this was especially a problem for the audio technology faculty of this organisation, because they did a lot of programming using Free Software and even got courses in some software that was Free (as in freedom). If there was a conflict for me, it was for the large part of this faculty. The other problem was that almost nobody of the students was aware of the contract nor its consequences. He took my point and said I was right and this should be taken account for. He would speak to the board about it. I said I wanted to write an article called "How educational organisations embrace Free Software".
After kept waiting for a long time I decided to go to the board myself (I was luckily graduated very succesfully). This guy didn't understand one bit of it, nor would he be so smart to get informed by the experts from his organisation and thought that I was threathening somehow, to use my publication to get my GPL'ed software back. I explained him this was not the case, but I still got a very stupid ignorant reply. This proved lack of policies which account for the GPL and the right to learn and write Free Software.
But this isn't one case on its own. There are more schols with this kind of problem. Maybe this is why MIT has it's own "free" licence? How to fight for your rights to party with freesoftware on your school? How do we begin to fight?
Free, open, unencumbered use of technology has been the baseline norm throughout most of human history.
It is special monopoly protections of "Intellectual Property" that is the more recent development.
The subject limitations, use limitations and duration of such special monopoly privileges should be reviewed carefully to see how far they should extend to bring the most benefit to society as a whole.
The default baseline should be that any idea is open to anyone to use, to improve upon and to teach to others.
$0.02
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Where is are the "natural boundaries" of Rap?
It's a fact: The natural boundry of rap lies halfway between Kid Rock and the Beastie Boys.
When you create something, there is a 'commercial copyright' and an 'artistic copyright'; for example "(c) 2006 Slashdot, written by Anonymous Coward". If someone wants permission to copy the thing, they ask Slashdot; if they want something else written, they need the Anonymous Coward.
Slashdot can sell its commercial copyright, or license it under terms more or less generous, but Anonymous Coward is saddled with the 'artistic copyright' until the end of his or her days. No pretending that CmdrTaco wrote it, not ever.
Now, no-one is promising that the creation will be accurate, or useful, or anything. Just 'sellable'.
All kinds of reasons for being generous; maybe someone has already paid you the 'price of freedom' of the creation; maybe you hope for contracts to write something new in the future;maybe you make your living in a completely different way.
"ownership" of intellectual "property" "rights" is just an absurd term to use for "exercising certain monopoly powers granted by governments to restrict other people's freedoms so you can make money." And given the absurdity of many recent patent claims, I think there's a good chance that the word "intellectual" doesn't really apply either.
"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it." -- Olin Miller
Knew open source had arrived when it got applied to the design of footwear http://www.fluevog.com/files_2/os-1.html
I think the reason so many people consider the "Information as property" metaphor to be so off base is because they do not follow the same laws of physics.
If you take my car, then I don't have it anymore.
If you take my idea, I still have it.
If you are using my car, then I can't also be using it at the same time.
If you are using my idea, I can also use it at the same time.
What you do to my car directly impacts what I can do to it, and hence directly impacts me.
What you do to an idea does not impact what I can do to it, and hence does not impact me.
The list goes on. Property laws make sence for tangible objects that cannot be simultaneously shared. These same laws do not make sense for information, which operates according to fundamentally different physical laws.
Property laws applied to information result in really weird expectations, such as I should be able to put a lot of information on your computer, and also I should be able to take control of your computer in order to ensure that you only use it in ways that I see fit...since that information is "mine."
No, the computer is "mine," and as such, I am the one who should decide what I do with it. If you don't want me using your information as I see fit, then don't make it available. If you make it available, don't be surprised when I treat it in ways that are natural to its laws of physics (that is to say, manipulate it and duplicate it freely). I know that you would LIKE control over everything, but I don't want to surrender control over myself or my computer, so you will just have to pick a more fitting business/legal model.
Intellectual Property is the antithesis of trade secrets. The whole justification of Intellectual Property is that it will replace the natural* concept of secrets. That's why all system of IP registration include the requirement (or at least originally did) of disclosure; trademarks had to be used in commerce, copyrighted materials had to be published, inventions had to be demonstrated and documented to the extent that they could be duplicated by practitioners skilled in the appropriate arts.
Trade secrets were seen as detrimental to society, and IP was invented to supplant them. Unfortunately, the cure is turning out to be worse than the disease.
--MarkusQ
P.S. As for wolves marking territory, that's physical property. And the very fact that wolves do it means that it's natural by any sane definition of natural.
* I say that secrets are natural because we do see example of them in the animal kingdom; animals will go to great lengths to prevent other animals from learning things which might give them a competitive advantage. But they do this precisely because because they instinctively recognize that information is not "property" in any meaningful sense; my having it does not prevent you from having it too, and once you have it there is very little I can do (short of all out combat to the death) to take it back. In short, none of the conservation laws we normally associate with property apply.
This is a direct copy of this related story:
Vector One discuss national mapping and the UK Ordnance Survey and link to a The Guardian article. The OpenGeoData blog has a podcast with Ed Parsons, CTO of the Ordnance Survey. While GIS User host an announcement by the OS about advanced spatial address data access. From the Guardian article: "Sir Tim Berners-Lee told an Oxford University audience last week getting "basic, raw data from Ordnance Survey" online would help build the "semantic web", which he defines as a web of data using standard formats so that relevant data can be found and processed by computers."
Animoog.org
I've owned a couple of startup software companies. I've sold a few and closed a few. In almost every case, I am personally liable and must put many of my assets on the table to operate the enterprise. I do need to be rewarded for this type of risk or I'm just not going to put my butt on the line like this and thus goes a couple hundred jobs.
Greed is the reason we don't live in caves...that and beer
On the other side of the coin, the right to create and invent is a natural right, and has been with us since the beginning. It is only in the past several centuries that this natural right has been eroded by idea monopolists and those who want to tie up exclusive rights to natural discoveries through physical force, in the form of patent and copyright law.
That's a hard question to answer since IP doesn't exist in nature. It's an artificial creation of powerful vested interests. This will remain unresoved...there can be no balance as long as these interests are writing the law.
What?
This really sounds like asking "Where are the boundaries (if any) to mammals" during the late Mesosoic era. The answer, as I see it, is they are best off out of reach of the dinosaurs busy racing to extinction.
I've finally put my finger on the problem with the idea that open-source software is bad for the economy: It employs the Broken Window Fallacy of economics.
The fallacy goes something like this: A boy breaks a shopkeeper's window. The shopkeeper must then buy a new window from the glassmaker, who then buys bread from the baker, who then buys shoes from the shoemaker, making the child seem like a boon to the economy for having broken the window.
The problem with this thinking is that the money the shopkeeper spends on the window is money he does not spend on something that he actually wants. So the boy who breaks the window isn't a boon to the economy after all.
People argue that the creation of stuff like OpenOffice deprives the fine folks working on MS Office of their jobs. What's ignored is the fact that every company who once spent $300 a pop on Office licenses can now put that money toward projects that didn't exist before, or better yet (but more unlikely) pay it to their employees. And the guys at MS Office are now free to work on something that doesn't already exist.
Money is just a placeholder. The economy is actually about value, and OpenOffice adds what was previously considered hundreds of dollars of value to the computer of everyone who downloads it - at no actual charge.
When software can be distributed to the whole world for free, it's actually better for the economy than paid software.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
The point was that there should be no limit to open-source software.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Some examples of boundaries:
On the other hand, there are some cases where the boundaries are evaporating, and it's very cool. For instance, I've written some copylefted physics textbooks. At the time when I first wrote them (8 years ago), it was very hard to get photos. I ended up doing a lot of photography myself, which was fun, but there were limits on what I could do, both in terms of quantity and in terms of quality. Nowadays, if I say, "I need a photo of someone swimming as an illustration of Newton's third law," I just hop on over to Wikipedia, grab a nice photo, and drop a thank-you note to the photographer. We both get a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Find free books.
"Intellectual property concepts are deeply flawed, terribly inefficient and incredibly wasteful, and about as well suited to the modern world as horseshoes on my car."
Says the poster who has nothing to give.
IP is in no way unnnatural
I believe you are talking at cross purposes with several of the other posters in this thread. Specifically, your assumption that "IP is in no way unnatural" -- in other words, that it is natural and reasonable it treat information as if it were property, with the consequent adoption of production/consumption metaphors, and all the associated control systems, is apparently preventing you from understanding what we are saying.
What you are assuming is simply not true. Note that we aren't talking about what's good or bad, practical or impractical, moral or immoral, but simply about the observable properties of information.
Take, for example, consumption. People who believe in IP perforce adopt the "consumer" model of the market. If information is property, then its market consists of producers and consumers. But no one "consumes" information. If I read a book, or watch a movie, or build a device, I haven't "used up" the information required to do these things. In short, I haven't consumed anything.
Faced with this fact (and note that I am still not talking about right vs. wrong, or practical vs. impractical, or any of that) there are two possible responses. One would be to realize that you are trying to catch moonbeams in a jar, and rethink your position on ideas being property. The other is to try and somehow change the natures of information so that it behaves itself and starts acting like property ought to. You could come up with all sorts of ways to try to make the information go away like things are supposed to when they have been consumed, and spend a great deal of time and money doing so. You would, of course, fail.
The question is, which of these responses is sane, and which is crazy?
--MarkusQ
P.S. My great grandmother used to think that electricity was a fluid, and she would stick rags in empty light sockets to keep it from leaking out and running up her electric bill. And before her, there were people who believed that vision was rays that emanated from the eyes.
They were wrong.
Secrecy is one way to maintain control, or ownership -- IP laws are another way to maintain control, or ownership.
This is, of course, untrue. I can keep a secret as ferociously as I like, and it won't do a thing to prevent anyone else who discovers the same thing from using it anyway they see fit.
I might, for example, find an enormous prime number, and decide never to tell anyone about it. And, unbeknownst to me, a hundred other people might know the same prime number, and be doing things I would never approve of with it. You know what? I couldn't do a thing to stop them, because secrecy isn't the same as control.
The problem with applying conservation laws to determine whether something is property is that property, in that argument, is arbitrarily defined as physical property. I believe that many anti-IP people misdefine property, and the basic misunderstanding of terms leads to logical arguments, that while the arguments are fine, the presuppositions are not -- and therefore the argument doesn't work.
Not really true (the right to use a certain portion of the brodcast spectrum at a certain time and place, for example, is not physical property but it is conservered). But that aside I'll accept this as a possibility if you can provide:
It's my contention that the reason most people define property as they do is that there isn't a viable alternative. Any other definition that you might choose is either going to be too broad (so that everything is property, and the term is meaningless), an itemization (land, jewels, trademarks, and patents are property, and nothing else), or circular (property anything things that someone can own).
--MarkusQ
The onus should be on the IP owner to get those rights, not the burden of the layperson to avoid the automatic rights given to the IP owner. What I write here shouldn't be copyrighted in anyway whatsoever. I'm giving an opinion to somebodies opinion and it's copyrighted by OSTG or ConstortiumInfo or Andy Updegrove. Since this is derivative (or is it), I don't know who owns it. Maybe I own it.
Nonsense. No one is claiming that hospitals, etc. are natural phenomenon, and if they were I'd call them on that as well.
Skipping your poetic lead up, I disagree in any case with your second point that systems defined by convention have "natural limits." The whole point of arbitrary systems is that they are defined, arbitrarily, to have whatever limits we care to ascribe to them. The very fact that (as you point out) these limits differ from place to place and from time to time is evidence that they are arbitrary, not natural.
--MarkusQ
"It is all about the Benjamins".
quote from the move All about the Benjamins.
Now you know why when I have discussions with anti-IP people. I don't use the "property" metaphor. It's like discussing God with an atheist. You end up running in circles. The concept of social contracts is on a firmer foundation mentally and physically. What the terms are, and what happens when violated are clear. And while one can't technically "own" ideas, one can "own" the algamation that is your creation, as well as the physical embodiment (something a lot of slashdotters forget is that physical embodiment* is a requirement to getting a copyright, or patent). One can even withhold that algamation, and while someone else may eventually create the same (the Thomas jefferson quote). By no means is this a certainty, nor guarenteed to retain it's usefulness when it is rediscovered(1). The founding fathers and others recognize this and created the system under discussion because it's the most expedient way for a society to progress. I have yet to see any suggestions from the "peanut gallery" that is the best balance for ALL parties concerned, and has the track record that the present one does (reminds me of that quote about democracy not being the ideal situation, but better than the alternatives).
*The exact form that physical embodiemnt takes is open to debate but ideas are nothing without form.
(1) And lest we forget. the inefficiencies inherent in rediscovery. Something TJ didn't cover.
I wrote the post to which you are responding before reading your further explanation of your position in the sibling thread. I was mistaken in my assumption about where we were disagreeing (but we do still, so far as I can tell, disagree).
Please see my post "Secrecy != Control" on that thread, especially the second point, for my response to your position as articulated here and there.
-- MarkusQ
I would agree that Trademark, Copyright, and Patents started out as a social contract. I can not credit your claim that you support "the best balance for ALL parties concerned" in the context of the rest of your post. I will attempt briefly to explain why.
The original social contract embodied, as all contracts in principal do, a meeting of the minds. There was a clear statement of what was expected of both parties, and a clear understanding of the recourse that both parties had in the event that they found the terms disadvantageous, to wit, non-participation. But unlike a normal contract, one side has decided to systematically (and, in my opinion, unconstitutionally) modify the "agreement" to their advantage.
At the same time, an actual rational analysis of the changes that have taken place in the last two hundred years would argue that a society would benefit more from weakened intellectual property laws (since the originals were predicated on the assumption that innovators were rare, and we no find ourselves with more would-be innovators than we know what to do with). Thus we have a "contract" that has been unilaterally modified by one side to the determent of society. Is this really what is "the best balance for ALL parties concerned?"
I am perfectly happy with the idea of Hollywood stopping making movies. I would be content (actually happy) if all the record companies and their "artists" went on strike and refused to produce more "hits." That was, after all, their right under the original deal. But I do not accept their "right" to hobble the computer equipment I require to practice my trade so that they can enforce their newfound "rights" which were never part of the original social contract, nor to pass new laws restricting my constitutional rights, to the same dubious ends.
--MarkusQ
How do you apply the GPL to hardware ?
The GPL wasn't really designed for such things.
What impact will this have ?
except by "Cousin" Vinny and his black-jack.
the EULA of commercial software (as a rule anyways.) also says that "I can not take the source code and use it without giving my source, nor can I use the source code for a tiny section of a big project and only give out a section of the code used. I would have to opensource teh whole thing."
Where? Well that would be in the clauses that say you cannot use the source code at all.
Essay: Straight Talk about Copyrights
The reason that a term ought not describe everything is simple; a term that describes everything is of very little use in discourse, since we already have words ("anything"/"everything" etc.) that fill that role and the introduction of synonyms that appear to have additional meaning is misleading at best.
The reason a definition should not be circular (which by the way, I'm tempted to claim yours is) is that it is likewise useless. If you can't define a term except by reference to itself (or another term, such as ownership, which is defined in terms of it) then you can't really use it to communicate, only to obfuscate.
The reason I am only tempted to say your definition is circular is that I notice you have simply moved the denotional requirements from the word property to the word ownership. You reject the notion that property be something physical, or at least something that obeys certain conservation laws, and instead claim that it is something that is owned. But you then turn around and imply that things that can be owned are, in effect, things that can be "controlled".
Now, this would follow quite nicely if your property obeyed the conservation laws. But as it does not, I'm left wondering how you intend to control (and thus own) your putative property. How do you control 7, or green, or "Hip hop my heart stop"? I contend that you can't.
Instead, you must attempt to control people which are after all physical objects, to make them only think or say or do what you would permit them to. While this is not quite a circular definition, I find it more than a tad distasteful.
Am I reading your position correctly? Property is anything that can be owned, and things can be owned if (and only if) you can control the use of them, either (in the case of traditional property) by controlling the things or (in the case of intellectual property) by controlling the users?
--MarkusQ
I've argued in an article to be published (sorry, I don't have it on the web yet) that basically there is no reason to limit ourselves. The end of the current intent to impose a regime of control over intellectual property will allow us both the ability to produce better AND the ability to live more harmoniously because humanity's knowledge, the most valuable thing that exists in today's economy, will be better distributed and thus poverty.
Here is an example: things like open source are often considered limited to software, but why? Here in Ecuador, people are worried about the patenting of plant genes that could be used for medicines. Why not just make a "copyleft" so that any medicine produced with genetic code needs to have its code shared? That would make it easier for better medicines to be produced, would make the distribution better because poor people will be able to afford them, and will make it easier for other people to further the work and learn about how to design medicines, thus as a whole health in the world would be improved.
What's the big negative? Profits would go way down for a very small number of people who usually hold patents. HOWEVER, profits would go up somewhat for a whole lot of people, people who could become involved in the production of medicines and in medicinal research who are prohibited from that now. So, overall wealth would be increased, even as a few people would lose out...equality would prevail.
The big negative always mentioned is that the profit motive would be lost, but as already pointed out, it would actually be benefitted for a lot of people. Furthermore, profit is not the only motive for people to work (note how many people participate enormous amounts in Slashdot conversations sharing knowledge and bad humour at no cost).
I think that we could find this sort of analysis in case after case. Certainly there is an argument for artists -- whose artistic vision is often based on the product being a unique idea from a single creator (or a group for that matter), but it seems to me that creative commons at least has some interesting proposals in that regard to allow that vision while at the same time letting other people build on it (after all, what artist has never been influenced by another).
Peace
participate enormous amounts in Slashdot conversations sharing knowledge and bad humour at no cost
What do you mean "no cost"!?! I do this everyday at work... somebody is definately paying for me to share my "bad humour" on Slashdot...
Oh yeah... anonymous so I keep getting paid. mu ha ha ha ha
inalienable rights - read that to mean "natural rights,"
Why would I do that? Inalienable has a very definite meaning (something that can not be transfered) and it has nothing to do with the meaning of natural (occurring without the intervention of an outside agency).
Appropriating another's intellectual property without compensation or permission is a "might makes right" argument.
Balderdash. How can you "appropriate" someone else's idea? You would be right to use the term if the process involved going into their head and somehow removing the idea. But what you are talking about here doesn't involve taking anything from anyone, save the ability to control and limit the thoughts of others. If you think a thought that someone else claims as "intellectual property" all you have deprived them of is the ability to dictate the conditions under which you are allowed to think that thought. You have not stopped them from thinking it, you have not affected them in any way.
In such a circumstance, the only element of "might makes right" is their ability to use physical force to stop you from thinking "their" thoughts without permission.
--MarkusQ
Thank you for the cogent reply. I would agree with your analysis, the key point of which is, I maintain, the point that, in addition to undisputed forms of property, the term "property" also includes Anything not conservable, onto which we artificially confer properties of conservation.
If I accept this, I'm entitled to draw a few conclusion from it, specifically:
--MarkusQ
Just a few clarifications:
I could not claim them as property since I have no means of controlling who uses them. But if I had the physical force or legal means to prevent anyone from using those terms, then I could claim the terms as property.
Exactly. Your definition isn't about "property" per se, but about the control of others through the use of force.
Your definition is not circular; as I noted, you simply moved the requisite specificity from "property" to "ownership."
Not so fast. You clearly stated that it was about control. As for "the right of use"...
No, your definition at the most basic level is the "right" to control/prevent use by others. You have made that quite clear, and ought not try to dodge the point here, as it's the cornerstone of your whole argument. If you back away from it, you will be left with nothing since it is only the control of the actions of others that supports your definition of "ownership" on which you base your definition of "property."
-- MarkusQ
Wouldn't it be a great idea if there was some organisation where you could get a quick free (as in beer and freedom!) independent advice about the law (for each country different advices)of writing code related to GPL licence. This would help a lot of student, hobbyist to understand hwat their legitimate position is as a writer of software.
This would help people who love the ideal of freedom as a practice for coding and it would make the GPL become better accepted. It would also help organisations to match their policies with the GPL license. This would be especially intersting for schools, but maybe you know a lot of other interesting examples for yourself to share with others on this thread.
----- Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong. -- Lao-Tzu (600 B.C.)
Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us --Stephen Covey
the context of "inalienable rights" as used in our founding documents was Hobbes and Locke's discussion of the "natural" rights of man. They are inalienable not only because they cannot be transferred, taken, bought or sold, but because they are natural -- we are born with them. You are right that you cannot appropriate the "intellectual" part of the intellectual property. You can take my ideas and think them, just as I am taking Hobbes' and Locke's ideas and saying them here. But the "property" part of IP involves ownership. You can, therefore, deprive someone of part of the essence of their idea by using it in a way not consistent with their ownership of it. Clearly, this is too philosophical a discussion for such a technical board. Thanks for the discourse.
Precisely. That's why authors and publishers and producers will give you a strained smile and attempt to slide away when you run up to them announcing your latest idea for a book or movie. They know that ideas are plentiful, worth a dime a dozen, and that they're probably overpriced even then.
Hey! I have an idea. Let's create the world's best web browser. Cool. And now where are we? Well... no where. Now, let's talk about people who did just that, and the dozens upon dozens of man-years it took to write FireFox and get it to the point where it is now.
Hey! I have an idea. Let's write a book about wizards and elves and hobbits. And now that we're done with the idea, why don't we talk about JRRT, who spent the better part of his life actually creating that story and that world and those characters.
Hey! I have an idea. Let's make it into a movie! But how many people had that idea, and did nothing about it? Now let's talk about Peter Jackson, and the, what... nine years it took to actually make that film trilogy.
The fact is that IP law is NOT and never has been about protecting ideas. It is, however, about protecting a specific implementation of those ideas, and about protecting the people who did so. It's about protecting and encouraging that time and effort and skill and talent and investment.
In the case of the FireFox team, they knew that their investment in time and effort was being made in a product that was going to be given away to the world, and they made that choice. New Line made the investment in PJ and LOTR in the hope that people would like the film, and that they had the potential to be rewarded if that were the case.
They also knew it was a possibility that the public could hate it, and that they could lose their shirts. They rolled the dice. And won. But would New Line have invested in a relatively unknown director and production knowing there was no way whatsoever they would get that investment back? Would you?
You talk about value increasing upon propagation, but would the world have been richer or poorer without that film at all?
That's why all this talk about "ideas" is nothing more than a straw man, and little more than an attempt to trivialize the situation. Actually write that book or software, or produce that movie, do the work to implement some idea, and then--and only then--will we have something to talk about.
Yes, ideas are plentiful. But the skill and talent and time and resources needed to successfully implement them... are not. And that, if it has value to you, is what you're really paying for...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
St. Anselm proposed an a priori proof of G-d's existence in the 11th century in what is called the Ontological Argument. He used a variant of Plato's "forms" to say that each thing in the world has certain characteristics without which they would not necessarily be that thing. One of the Anselm said that without the trait of existence, a god wouldn't be a god and (among other very important things that for the sake of brevity I am leaving out)therefore G-d exists. Plato said essentially the same thing except that he wasn't talking about existence per se, but rather characteristics of something. In terms of Intellectual Property, Plato would say that without the ability to own or control it, it's not intellectual property. It's just somebody's idea. That's what I was saying before about knowing where the boundaries are. If there is something called Intellectual Property, then the Property part of it has characteristics of property. Land is not property unless someone owns it. If nobody owns it, then it's not property. Intellectual Property - at least the property portion of it is defined by ownership. That is one of the natural limits of it. If it cannot have ownership - even common ownership - such as the public domain, then it is not intellectual property. In our legal system we recognize this fact with patents. You can't patent a number or an idea like "let's go to lunch." You can patent an idea and then give that ownership to the commonweal, but that doesn't obviate the ownership of the idea.
And only morons believe in it.
The only "intellectual property" is a secret that I know and you don't. Once I reveal it to you, it's no longer property, no matter what contractual restraints I try to impose on you as a condition of my revealing it.
Intellectual property is merely an attempt to impose contract law over property law. It's an attempt to restrict and control other people's behavior for personal gain, nothing more. It is by definition restrictive and slows the progress of the species; contrary to the notion that it is intended to speed up innovation, it's actual intent is to slow innovation for the benefit of a few.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
I have no idea how, but someone hacked your message.
Which is a shame, because I rather liked it.
Heck, I still like it, so, to whoever hacked it, thanks!
-- MarkusQ
It's here today: http://www.payteck.cc/news.html
"Can't make your car payment? Then you can't get it started"
This type of device (no, this is not the only OEM of such devices) is frequently used in the sub-prime credit market for people who would have a tendency to not make their car payments, but still need a car in order to live their lives.
Or to put it another way, it's a way to get deadbeats to pay who live in conditions of suburban sprawl, where jobs people are qualified for, or which pay at least what they are willing to accept, are not located near places people can afford, or at least want, to live.
No social or individiual delayed gratification commentary intended, there, of course...
-- Terry
It's not just that free information doesn't negate the demand for its creation, the Broken Window Fallacy also shows us that "intellectual property" restrictions are inherently harmful to the economy. Every time someone is prevented from using an existing idea (perhaps forced to waste time and resources coming up with the same idea or some alternative themselves) due to "IP" restrictions, a window has been broken. There's no getting around the harm that has been done to the macro-economy.
I think that the use of the term property in "intellectual property" kind of tries to cling on to the old paradigm. I guess many people have stated this before.
I personally would much more like to see the term "intellectual creation", e.g. "intellectual creation rights". This term puts more emphasis on the creation of software, books, movies, songs, whatever, and not on who "owns" the "property", or what boundaries are needed around the "property".
I always am under the impression that the purpose behind intellectual "property" laws like copyright and patents is to encourage the creation and sharing of ideas, books, software, etc. However what I see is that many companies and people see those laws as rights to certain amounts of money (i.e. their property), and this seems to be strengthened by the use of terms as "theft" (of their property).
I do not oppose earning money using "intellectual creation rights" like copyright. Some useful stuff (e.g. multi million dollar movies or new drugs) would probably not be created without a strong monetary incentive. I would just like that discussions would be based on the right principle ("value of creation and sharin instead of "right to become filthy rich"), and people would be more aware and appreciative of the value of sharing ideas from great inventors, scientists and software developers, throughout the ages.
just my 2 cents
It is worth remembering that the "traditional thinking" isn't that old, just 15-25 years. Before that, it was the rule rather than the exception that government shared that kind of information with the public, and that hardware included full technical specifications.
The anti-sharing craze is not that old, but probably has helped fuel that free software counter movement. RMS mention that his own motivation for starting the GNU project was that he no longer could get the source code to solve problemshimself, as he was used to.