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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...
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.
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?
"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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
That's funny, being that I share code freely, make it a condition of my employment contracts that I get to bring code I write from job to job, just give away large amounts of my previous work to my clients without charge and only charge for my time, have a jam band and release recordings of all our sessions for nothing, and still manage despite giving so much away to make a good living as a developer.
I create more than many, impose no restrictions on what I create and live by what I say. For example, as we speak, billions are gaining improved localized access to medical treatment, millions are ordering seafood for their table, and thousands are working 8 hours a day, all organized by code that I wrote and just gave to my various employers to accelerate development.
So, um, basically I'm saying the AC and any who agree with him can shove it. Good chance that someone you know has had their life improved in some minute but tangable way by stuff I've written and given freely, and I'm not a unique in that regard.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
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
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.
Free, open, unencumbered use of technology has been the baseline norm throughout most of human history.
That's not true. At one time only royalty could use a certain technology called "royal purple". And arcane webs of legal restrictionss (guild laws) on technical trades have been the norm for the past millenium. The famed reinheitsgebot, which governed German brewing and taverning for the past five hundred years, is a prime example. It said who could make beer, how to make beer, and how to sell beer. Until very recently for example, it was illegal to use artificial carbonation in German beer. Also, ship pilots zealously guarded their maps and logs, and were among the earliest supporters of IP laws.
Any time technology has threatened someone's livelihood it has been restricted, closed and encumbered. It is only in our modern era that technological progress has become a goal. And even today most people still don't like it.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
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