[ale] Are Open Source tools in danger? <was Re: Are our Ethernet drivers in danger?>

[Joseph A. Knapka]

aaron wrote:
> 
> It's independence day, so I'm sharing my thoughts on this thread as a
> small declaration of independence from Microsoft (and all similar
> glaring failures of capitalist theories).
> 
> Previously, Joseph A. Knapka typed into the ether:
> > Darin Lang wrote:
> > >
> > > No law is violated.  GPL'd software IS available for the private sector.  In
> > > fact it is the only software that truly is available to the private sector.
> > > Someone perhaps does not understand the term private sector which means
> > > non-governmental sector. Nasa's research and development and in fact all
> > > governmental research is paid for by public money, therefore the technology,
> > > etc belongs to the people. That's the theory anyways, anybody can see that
> > > it doesn't work that way, or perhaps it does it just takes 30 years for it
> > > to be declassified (ecryption, GPS, etc).
> > >
> > > What is actually being pushed below is M$'s latest propoganda campaign to
> > > discredit Open Source, Free Software Foundation, GPL, Linux, etc. The
> > > semantics are being attacked and it is being contended that the law means
> > > that the gov't should sell the tech to a "private company" (like, oh I don't
> > > know...hmmm....maybe M$) and give them a Monopoly on the
> > > technology/development. "private company" and "private sector" are two
> > > entirely different things.
> >
> > I agree that MicroSoft's line on the entire Open Source issue
> > boils down to a huge steaming ball of FUD. However, there
> > are a couple of actual points buried in there.
> >
> > An argument made elsewhere in the same forum, and which makes a lot
> > of sense to me, is that any product (software, human genome, etc)
> > whose development is funded by taxpayer dollars should be placed
> > in the public domain, unencumbered by any sort of IP restrictions
> > whatsoever, be they GPL, patents, or what have you.
> 
> I disagree. In fact, I would strongly argue that the GPL (or something
> very similar) should be the ASSUMED license for for ALL publicly
> funded technology. This type of license protection is, at present,
> the only one which can insure that the people who paid for the seedlings
> will have access to the perpetual fruits of their publicly planted
> trees without any unjustified, proprietary costs or encumbrances. The
> alternative would be a world where the Webster's company could
> levy a private tax on every citizen for the usage of words in our own
> public language simply because they included those words in their
> dictionary.

Well, if publicly-funded technology is released into the public
domain, then the public *would* have eternal access to the work
that public dollars fund. Why should the public necessarily
*also* have eternal access to additional (derivative) work done
with private money? I think the "tree" metaphor is a bit
misleading. You plant a tree, it grows, generally without a
lot of additional investment, unless you live in some silly
place like El Paso. But the fruit of a publically-funded
research project can take an additional R&D investment equal
or greater than the original research investment in order
to produce a usable product; why should a private concern
that makes such an investment be compelled to give the
results away? They're doing original work, after all - work
that, should anyone else like to duplicate it and give it
away, they are free to do so, since the root work is still
in the public domain.

You seem to be arguing from a basically socialist position.
I have no ideological problem with that; but I don't think
it can work in practice, given an economy of scarcity.
It's true that the software universe can be seen as one
in which scarcity is artificially imposed; however, this
discussion centers on the ways in which the software universe
interacts with the real world, where scarcity is a simple
fact, at least until Eric Drexler and his minions take
over the world :-) 

> PS:
> I didn't catch exactly which "other forum" this discussion related to,
> but if my comments are appropiate there, feel free to post them.

It was a siliconvalley.com forum on open-source vs. closed-source
"stuff". Here's a link to the message that I originally referred to:

<URL:
http://forums.siliconvalley.com/msgshow.cfm/msgboard=5968009897410465&msg=4951219996565791&page=1&idDispSub=5145094516046185
>

-- Joe Knapka
"You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You
 can't MOVE for remote castles!" -- Lu Tze re. Uberwald
// Linux MM Documentation in progress:
// http://home.earthlink.net/~jknapka/linux-mm/vmoutline.html
* Evolution is an "unproven theory" in the same sense that gravity is. *
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