OT - Closing Off An Open-Source Product

[Steve Holden]

"Chris Gonnerman" <chris.gonnerman at usa.net> wrote in message
news:mailman.987041357.11249.python-list at python.org...
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Prescod" <paulp at ActiveState.com>
> Subject: Re: OT - Closing Off An Open-Source Product
>
[ ... ]
> > Either you believe in IP or you don't. Either you believe in the freedom
> > to copy whatever you want, whenever you want, or you don't. So I don't
> > see how further argument would resolve anything.
>
> How about if you both do and don't believe in IP?  In principle, the idea
> that a programmer (author, artist, etc.) should be given primary
> money-making
> control over his or her work is quite reasonable (to me anyway).  However,
> IP (copyright and patent) is *used* as a Big Club by bigger guys to
*smack*
> little guys, rather than as a protection for the little guys against the
> bigger ones.
>
> For that reason I am very suspicious of anyone who even *mentions* IP to
me
> (unless I know they are talking about Internet Protocol :-).  GPL is a
> direct affront to those people specifically.
>
Well, that's capitalism for you. The recent modifications to US copyright
law, and various poorly-thought-out decisions on software patents, are all
(IMHO) clearly the result of big business interests lobbying to protect
their livelihoods in whatever way they can. Organizations will, of course,
tend to do this as a matter of survival.

Traditional large commercial organizations tend not to understand the open
source rationale, although IBM and H-P are maybe a sign of interesting
trends.

> The Internet has turned IP on it's ear.  How do you "protect" software or
> other published works in a world where rapid communication makes your
> "enemies" far more powerful than you can ever hope to be?  Free software
is
> protected by various Free Software and/or Open Source licenses; I submit
> that the "hacker ethic" is the real protection here anyway, because if
> a "big guy" steals a major piece of, oh, say, Apache and incorporates it
> in a closed source program, it's darn hard to prove.
>
Say what you like about Richard Stallman, he has lived to see his ideas lead
to a culture (albeit a minority one) in which IP rights in software *are*
more open that they were. Whether you like the GPL or not, it was a direct
precursor of the general open source movement, and RMS deserves credit. I
think it's entirely fair I can't just wrap the whole GNU/Linux bundle up as
"Stevix" without making my code public.

Although it would be nice if RMS occasionally suggested we use "Linux/GNU"
rather than "GNU/Linux", it's a fair point that Linux would likely not exist
without the GPL software tools from GNU.

> In summary (yes, you can breathe now) I think (fear? hope?) that IP in the
> current sense is doomed.  Napster may go down in flames, but OpenNap will
> likely live forever... I think that says it all.
>
Of course, the music industry has found itself at the sharp end of this
issue. In order to justify its existence it has to try to convince the
courts its IP should be paramount. But if music industrialists think that
musicians haven't clearly seen much of the industry is technically
unnecessary, they are crazy. The bell is tolling, whether Napster's rather
dodgy business model survives or not.

The music companies only have IP rights because the musicians sign them away
to get access to the distribution channels. The traditional channels are
slowly becoming redundant. the consumer can deal directly with a band's web
site, download and burn their own CDs. Maybe the real music industry will be
web sites in twenty years.

The industry liked to call its product "software" because of the cool
associations with the hipsterish computing milieu. As they slowly catch on
to the idea that open source and electronic distribution can apply to their
"software" just as much as it can to the traditional kinds, they may wish
they had studied the analogy more closely, and prepared better for the
coming evolution.

just-wishing-this-would-help-feed-the-starving-poor-ly y'rs  - steve