[OT] What is Open Source? (fwd)

[David Mertz, Ph.D.]

|mertz at gnosis.cx (David Mertz, Ph.D.) writes:
|> The only problem with this belief is that it is completely, totally,
|> 100% wrong.  A copyright is, quite simply, a legally enforced artificial
|> monopoly--not a contract.  These are quite different things.

Paul Rubin <phr-n2002b at NOSPAMnightsong.com> wrote previously:
|I think Clark was using contract in a metaphorical sense, describing a
|deal made with authors on one side, and society as a whole on the
|other.  In what's called the "copyright bargain", society agrees to
|grant limited temporary monopolies, in exchange for increased
|"progress in science and the useful arts".

Well...  I suppose Clark's use is a metaphor.  But it is an extremely
*bad* metaphor, one that does far more to conceal what's going on than
reveal.

Here's a better one:  Copyright is like blue cheese.  (OK, I guess you
can say it's a simile, since it uses 'like').  I admit this isn't a very
-good- metaphor (but both are, indeed, smelly and created by molds
:-)... but I *like* blue cheese, so there's a flaw... well, maybe not,
since both are bad for me).

The problem with Clark's metaphor is that it very strongly insinuates
something exactly opposite to the true legal/ethical structure.  By
pretending that you "contract" for "intellectual property", you create
the illusion that IP is something inherently in your possession.  I can
actually hold my bushel of corn, and as long as I hold it someone else
can't.  By pretending IP has the same nature, one falsely
naturalizes--us Lukacsian's say "reify"--the "thing" that one "has."

If you want a metaphor that is actually good, use the one I did in my
last post.  The government's prohibition on copying words (absent an
elaborate system of authorization) is VERY similar to the government's
prohibition on individual's possessing drugs (absent an elaborate system
of authorization; i.e. medical control schedules, prescriptions, etc).

Yours, David...

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