On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 07:43:21AM -0500, Robert Haeckl wrote:
<snip>
> Again, well said. But the wide-spread popular notion is that software
> is not a shared commodity but a functional tool that can be bought and
> sold. And the protection of the source code is what drives this
> commercial notion. The question ultimately is whether the notion of
> software commercialization can be separated from source code secrecy.
>
I understand this idea, and in a sense, it is sound. If you're the guy
that came up with the automatic transmission, you want to keep people
from copying it so you can continue to make money off of it. Though most
inventors invent because they love it, this allows them to _continue_ to
do it. It used to be that "patrons" would support artists, scientists
and inventors. Back then, if you were some poor wretch who worked to
feed his family by tilling the fields or somesuch, you didn't have time
to invent anything. So you either had a patron, or you didn't invent
anything. Now, people have enough leisure to hold down and job _and_
invent things, obviating the need for patrons. But overall, the patron
system has been replaced by patents and copyrights.
(Incidentally, I'll say this just to aggravate people. RMS is an idiot.
His idea that all software should be free, blah blah blah, is pure
socialist garbage. Yes, thank RMS for emacs, gcc and the like, but he's
still an idiot. Whew! Am I glad this is the politics list!)
But digital media and digital "inventions" have changed the way we look
at copyrights and patents, and stretched them beyond their original
charter. Used to be that if you wanted to copy a book, you had to spend
hours at a photocopier, and spend loads of money, much more than the
original book would have cost. Now, with electronic media, you can copy
something like this in short order with almost no expense. It drives
the media companies nuts. And with the internet, you can copy a CD and
distribute thousands or millions of copies in hours. Once people who
make money off the copies start see potential profits evaporate, they
get very interested. All of a sudden the "Fair Use" clause of copyright
law starts to get in the way.
Can you separate source code secrecy from software commercialization? I
don't really think so. You can't effectively sell your code for $100
when someone else can distribute that same code for the cost of a CD.
That's why the traditional software company model (selling software for
money) doesn't work in the Open Source community, and why Open Source
companies struggle and fail a lot. You can lock up the source code, in
which case you're selling a tool only. You can patent the tool. You can
even embed code in it that prevents it from running on machines other
than the one on which it was installed (copy protection, or Windows XP).
If you're selling software for money, then you have no choice but to
make it difficult for others to duplicate the software, which means no
source code. Moreover, you may have to do other things as well, like
licensing, trademarks and patents.
Now, let me contradict myself here. There used to be accounting software
called "SBT" that was coded in FoxPro and usually sold with source code.
(It's changed hands and changed names now, and I don't know what its
status is anymore.) Of course, we all know that there's no such thing as
"one size fits all" accounting software. Word processing software maybe,
but not accounting software. As a result, there was a whole cottage
industry of companies who sold SBT and then also sold modifications to
fit individual companies. I used to work for an SBT consultant. We'd
sell a company SBT (with source code), and of course it wouldn't exactly
fit their needs. But then we'd also sell them on the idea that we could
modify it to fit their needs. And sometimes, since the business world
changes constantly, you'd get a company where they'd need to
continuously change the accounting software. Which in turn kept us in
business.
Now of course, you couldn't get SBT source code unless you bought it.
And SBT only sold the software through dealers, the same ones who made a
living off code modifications. The SBT license prohibited passing the
source along to your friends and such.
So this was a case where, even making source available, you could still
make money. But it's a unique case, since it involved accounting
software. And it also had the twist that the source code was _licensed_,
not "Open Source".
<snip>
> No, I just posed it for general discussion, not for personal reasons.
> But I bet there are a fair number, maybe listening in on SLUG, that have
> met with this potential duplicity. Can you be true to open source
> ideals and still expect to profit? I suppose that's why I lean toward
> the BSD model. Even better, it would be great to be in a position to
> sell your software and still dictate the terms of eventually opening the
> source.
>
I agree with you; I like the BSD model. And some companies work this
way, though I don't know how they really do it. Ghostscript is like
this. The version you have on your computer is several revs back from
the latest, because the latest source code is not available. Every few
revs, they release an older version's source code. There is a similar
model for Sendmail. In that case, I believe their idea is to take the
Sendmail base code and customize it for large companies, etc. Only time
will tell if companies like this can truly survive in the long term.
Personally, I don't like the GPL, because it effectively enforces RMS's
socialist idea that all software must be free. Cars aren't free, so why
should software be free? If people want to make source code available
out of the goodness of their hearts, I'm all for it, and I'll support
them. I'll even write some of it myself, and I have. But I don't like
the free software idea being _forced_ on me.
The BSD license allows commercialization, unlike the GPL. But in
general, if you're going to make it in the Open Source world, you have
to do something other than sell software. You have to sell services or
consulting, or add value (via closed source software, the way SuSE
does).
<snip>
> This is the meat of the issue as I see it. It isn't the algorithms, or
> the general implementation that is unique and therefore worth secreting
> away; with enough dollars, that can be reproduced. It's the ability to
> hide API's and change code to the competitive advantage of the owner.
>
I don't think the reproduction part is that easy. Microsoft has a habit
of buying up other companies for their technology, because it's too
costly to independently develop that same technology. And they're likely
to run into litigation problems.
"Hidden APIs" sounds like you're talking about Microsoft, which is a
unique situation. They own the OS, and they put in unexposed APIs that
they take advantage of with their desktop software. Adobe could do the
same thing with PageMaker or InDesign, making it more difficult for you
to produce add-ons. But I think that type of thing is seldom encountered
in the real world. Most software is sold as standalone packages, where
there are no APIs per se.
<snip>
> I haven't been around computers long enough to remember this, but it
> fits the issue. And that issue is, "for a large company that already
> has a significant presence in a software category, is copy protection
> really the main issue for keeping the source code under lock and key?"
When you say "copy protection" you're really talking about a specific
thing that is anathema to users everywhere. I'll reach way back into my
past again for this one. Used to be a spreadsheet called "Lotus 123"
(yes, the same Lotus as Lotus Notes, which is now owned by IBM). 123
came on 5-1/4" disks which were "copy-protected". Users hated this
scheme, and Lotus eventually dropped it, because it caused no end of
problems and aggravation. That's copy protection. It's the same thing
they're introducing for CDs and which they've already introduced for
DVDs. You can't play your US-bought DVD in a French DVD player. Or vice
versa. People hate this type of thing, and I hope they raise the same
stink with the studios that users raised with Lotus.
It doesn't sound like you really mean "copy protection". It sounds like
you are talking about locking up the source. And unless you're doing
accounting software, I don't know if you can "sell software" for profit
without protecting your source code.
Let me also add that it isn't really copyright that protects you here.
It's the license. Copyright just says that you're the copyright owner
and you have sole rights to copying (other than "fair use"). You can
assign certain of those rights, which is what happens when you sell a
novel. You assign certain of your copying rights to Avon books, for
example, so that they can print the books in North America. By the same
token, you can assign and restrict the rights others have to the copying
of your source code, via the appropriate license. That's what the GPL,
BSD, Artistic and other licenses are about. So probably what this really
all comes down to is what type of _license_ you'll have with your
software.
Okay, I've pontificated enough. ;-}
Paul
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