Python Is Really Middleware

[Chris Barker]

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

> > "need" is arguable. I think a whole lot of organizations keep their code
> > restricted for no good reason. Of course, some folks have good reason:
> > Microsoft could be a successful company if it opened up it's products,
> > but it would be no where near as rich!
> 
> That's right.  And as a leader in any company with investors, public
> or private, you have an ethical obligation to maximize their return
> on investment using any (ethical) means at your disposal.
> "Ethical Means" should be read to mean "any activity which
> does not involve Fraud, Violence, or Threat Of Violence).
 
> In this same vein - "I think a whole lot of individuals keep their
> money in bank accounts that are hard to get into.  If they would
> just open up their bank accounts and let me have some of their
> property, they'd still have some money left."
> 
> Property is property, regardless of the medium it which it is
> expressed.  Property Rights are fundamental to any civil society.

This is not at all what I meant. What I meant was that many companies
and organisations keep restrictions on their code, even if it does not
help, and may hurt, their bottom line. The microsoft example was an
extreme example of a company whose bottom line would be hurt by freeing
their code.

An example I can think of at the moment is hardware companies that keep
their drivers proprietary: they are in the business of selling hardware,
not drivers, the drivers are needed to use the hardware. The more they
free the code of the drivers, and the more they make the specs of their
hardware available, the more likely it is that someone will write a
driver that they havn't written themselves (for Linux as an example),
and then they can sell more hardware. Many times this information is
kept proprietary simply because business peopl find the idea of giving
away something they have paid for distainfull, it is closed minded
business practices.

I'm not making thisexamples up: in the early Linux days (when I started
using it) Diamond would not release their specs, so their video cards
were not supported. I had just bought a new machine, and had to return
the Diamond card, and replace iot with an ATI card. Diamond eventually
realised the folly of their policy and became one of the more linux
support video card manufacturers. I'm pretty sure they made rather than
lost money by establishing a more open policy.

> At the time, the GNU 'lesser' license had not yet been hammered out.
> The license as written could have been construed to mean that software
> compiled w/GCC had to be distributed in source form.   We were a
> software vendor and this was an unacceptable risk, in my judgement.
> (Because I was fulfilling my obligation to the investors to try to maximize
> their return on investment.)

I'm not questioning that having your code GPL'd out from under you was a
risk that may have made no sense for your company, the question was
whether there was a risk of that happening. I imagine some years ago,
and before the LGPL was established, that it was less clear how all this
was applied. IN the current GPL FAQ at www.gnu.org, it clearly states
that:


Can I use GPL-covered editors to develop non-free programs? Can I use
GPL-covered tools to compile them?

	Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the
code you write. 

and:


In what cases is the output of a GPL program covered by the GPL too?

     Only when the program copies part of itself into the output. 


There is more there, but his is the gist.

This was obvious to me the first time I ever read the GPL, but I suppose
when it was all new the the business world, it took some getting used to
(and still does). No one gets all paranoid over a Non Disclosure
Agreement, because they they are familiar with them, and because they
are based on a business model that most business people understand,
unlike the GPL.

> I have no problem with Open Source authors stipulating the terms
> of distribution of their work.  This is, after all, *their* property
> and their rights ought to be protected like anyone elses.

The idea of a written work (originally) or a piece of computer code now,
as "property" that the author has long standing right over is relativly
new, and defined only by society and a body of laws. See:

http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html

for a history of copyright law in the US. From that source, a few
quotes:

US Constitution:

"""The Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of
science and useful arts . . . by securing for limited times to authors
and
inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and
discoveries."""

So, the goal of copyright law is to "to promote the progress of science
and useful arts" and copyright is to be for a limited time. The goal was
to have this body of law to support the good of society as a whole. The
focus was not to enhance the profits of individuals or organisations.

Since then copyright law has gotten stronger and stronger, and extended
more and more rights to the copyright holder an his/her estate. 

"""
1909: Revision of the U.S. Copyright Act

A major revision of the U.S. Copyright Act was completed in 1909. Key
aspects of this revision are: a broadening of the scope of categories
protected to
include all works of authorship, and an extension of the number of years
in a renewal term (14-28) for a total of 56 years of protection. With
this legislation,
the attention is focused away from regulating the marketplace to
proprietary rights. 

"""

Here's a quote from another web site (http://www.jps.net/dcm/copyright/)

"""
Consider the situation immediately before the
Copyright Act of 1710. A publisher could
purchase the rights to a work, edit the text,
typeset, and promote a work. He would, of course,
have a set a price that would allow him to make
back what he laid out, plus a profit for himself,
plus a reserve for those works that did not sell
well enough to pay for themselves. Now let us 
suppose this work was successful. Without the
copyright protection, another publisher could take
the work, retypeset it, and sell it at a lower
price because he doesn't have to pay the author,
nor the editor. He doesn't have to pay for
promotion, and he doesn't have to worry that the
book won't sell.

Since anyone foolish enough to print a 
new work would, if the work were successful,
be immediately undercut on the market, suddenly
no publisher was willing to print new works, and
there was no market for new ideas.

The Copyright Act served to create a market,
but it was not designed to protect the 
publisher or author, but rather society's
interest in new ideas.

"""

Personally, I think that copyright law has shifted too far in the
direction of protecting publishers and authors, and away from the public
good original intent. It is, of course, a debatable point whether the
law has shifter too far in that direction, but it has certainly shifted
than way.

 
> As I mentioned above, the problems I have encountered in this area
> are pre-LGPL and may well no longer be an issue.

I agree that both the licenses and understanding have changed. I didnt'
know how far in the past you were refering to.

By the way, FSF literature and the GPL are littered with words like
"moral" and "ethical". I try to stay away from these issues, there are
plenty pf practical consideration without having to try to argue
morality with people.

-Chris


-- 
Christopher Barker,
Ph.D.                                                           
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