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[OT] licensing/copyright reading material (was: Ruby Editor

Todd Benson

7/25/2007 1:00:00 PM

have listened with strain
technocrats, righteous anger
not gentle whispers

Seriously, I'd like to find some good reading material about the
economy of the software industry, whether it be online or on hard
copy. I'm not afraid of forays into heavy economic theory. I ask
here only because I respect (naively?) the opinions of the people in
this forum. I'm mostly interested in Open Source Software concepts,
which obviously will make it hard to find what I'm looking for,
namely, a relatively unbiased look at them. Any recommendations from
the Ruby community would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Todd
9 Answers

Brad Phelan

7/25/2007 1:06:00 PM

0

Todd Benson wrote:
> have listened with strain
> technocrats, righteous anger
> not gentle whispers
>
> Seriously, I'd like to find some good reading material about the
> economy of the software industry, whether it be online or on hard
> copy. I'm not afraid of forays into heavy economic theory. I ask
> here only because I respect (naively?) the opinions of the people in
> this forum. I'm mostly interested in Open Source Software concepts,
> which obviously will make it hard to find what I'm looking for,
> namely, a relatively unbiased look at them. Any recommendations from
> the Ruby community would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Todd
>

A quick search with "open source economics" at Amazon gives

http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-1921927-8535361?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=open+source+economics&Go.x=0&Go.y=0...

Some of the titles found


The Economics of Open Source Software Development by Jürgen Bitzer and

The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber (Hardcover - April 30, 2004)

The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source by Martin Fink

Handbook of Research on Open Source Software: Technological, Economic,
and Social Perspectives by Kirk St. Amant and Brian Still (Hardcover -
Open Source Software Law (Artech House Telecommunications Library)

Open Source Software Law (Artech House Telecommunications Library) by
Rod Dixon (Hardcover - Dec 2003)

Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape by
Henry Chesbrough (Hardcover - Dec 6, 2006)

The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source by Martin Fink
(Paperback - 2002)


--
Brad Phelan
http://xt...

aurelianito

7/25/2007 2:00:00 PM

0

Google for "The cathedral and the bazar".

On 7/25/07, Todd Benson <caduceass@gmail.com> wrote:
> have listened with strain
> technocrats, righteous anger
> not gentle whispers
>
> Seriously, I'd like to find some good reading material about the
> economy of the software industry, whether it be online or on hard
> copy. I'm not afraid of forays into heavy economic theory. I ask
> here only because I respect (naively?) the opinions of the people in
> this forum. I'm mostly interested in Open Source Software concepts,
> which obviously will make it hard to find what I'm looking for,
> namely, a relatively unbiased look at them. Any recommendations from
> the Ruby community would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Todd
>
>

Todd Benson

7/25/2007 2:08:00 PM

0

On 7/25/07, Brad Phelan <phelan@tttech.ttt> wrote:
> A quick search with "open source economics" at Amazon gives

Thanks, Brad. I'll check those out. I was sort of looking for
material somebody here as actually read or heard about and not just
typed in to the search engine, though.

Todd

Todd Benson

7/25/2007 2:12:00 PM

0

On 7/25/07, Aureliano Calvo <aurelianocalvo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Google for "The cathedral and the bazar".

Yes! Resources along this vein are what I am looking for.

Thanks,
Todd

Josef 'Jupp' Schugt

7/25/2007 2:59:00 PM

0

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Todd Benson wrote:
> I'm mostly interested in Open Source Software concepts, which
> obviously will make it hard to find what I'm looking for, namely, a
> relatively unbiased look at them.

If you want unbiased information you at least need three independent
sources. One obviously isn't sufficient because then it is almost
impossible to find out to which degree or even *if* it is biased. With
two you can find out if at least one source is biased. But you still
have no means to tell which one or - which is more likely - that both
are biased. Only from three independent sources onwards you have a
chance of extracting unbiased information from the biased ones. But you
should be aware that on the one hand it is crucial that the sources are
indeed independent (often not the case) and that on the other hand
"unbiased" is a misleading term because the information that you extract
is again biased due to your own point of view.

To give a prominent example: The expected raise in temperature due to
global warming does not increase the surface temperature of the earth
beyond the highest temperatures since life begun to spread outside
oceans while it *is* expected to go beyond the highest temperatures ever
seen by mankind. If you call the temperature that will be reached
"unprecedented" the bias is that you disregard anything that predates
the existence of mankind. If you on the other hand say that such
temperatures are nothing new the bias is that you do not see mankind as
something special (about which most people would disagree even if their
faith does not explicitly state that mankind is something special). I
actually have no idea if an unbiased view on this matter is even feasible.

Leaving that issue aside the question is what kind of economy you have
in mind. You could narrow the subject to the software market alone. You
could include the impacts of the software on other markets. The iPhone
sales numbers were much different if it were not running an operating
system by Apple but one developed by Hewlett-Packard or Lenovo. Finally
you could go as far as viewing the influence of the software on global
markets of any kind. Software can (and actually does) enable producers
to directly sell their products to the end customer thereby bypassing
traditional ways of trade. The effect of this is manifold.

Josef 'Jupp' Schugt
- --
Blog available at http://www.mynetcologne.de/~nc-schu...
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Todd Benson

7/25/2007 4:55:00 PM

0

On 7/25/07, Josef 'Jupp' Schugt <jupp@gmx.de> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Todd Benson wrote:
> > I'm mostly interested in Open Source Software concepts, which
> > obviously will make it hard to find what I'm looking for, namely, a
> > relatively unbiased look at them.
>
> If you want unbiased information you at least need three independent
> sources. One obviously isn't sufficient because then it is almost
> impossible to find out to which degree or even *if* it is biased. With
> two you can find out if at least one source is biased. But you still
> have no means to tell which one or - which is more likely - that both
> are biased. Only from three independent sources onwards you have a
> chance of extracting unbiased information from the biased ones. But you
> should be aware that on the one hand it is crucial that the sources are
> indeed independent (often not the case) and that on the other hand
> "unbiased" is a misleading term because the information that you extract
> is again biased due to your own point of view.

Basically, you're saying go out and read everything and make up my own
mind on the matter, which I do plan to do; get down on the mat and
wrestle with some concepts that I've not bothered with before. All in
good time. I was just looking for a jump start that was "relatively"
unbiased. I was looking for aloof observation.

You are right, of course. I will have to wade through the extremes of
all viewpoints eventually.

> To give a prominent example: The expected raise in temperature due to
> global warming does not increase the surface temperature of the earth
> beyond the highest temperatures since life begun to spread outside
> oceans while it *is* expected to go beyond the highest temperatures ever
> seen by mankind. If you call the temperature that will be reached
> "unprecedented" the bias is that you disregard anything that predates
> the existence of mankind. If you on the other hand say that such
> temperatures are nothing new the bias is that you do not see mankind as
> something special (about which most people would disagree even if their
> faith does not explicitly state that mankind is something special). I
> actually have no idea if an unbiased view on this matter is even feasible.

I love this example, but I never throw it at doomsday theorists
because it is another one of those topics -- just like this one --
that I want to intelligently discuss with other people, but just
haven't had the time to research it myself yet. No doubt I would be
entering a mob armed with hatchets and sickles with only my bare
fists.

> Leaving that issue aside the question is what kind of economy you have
> in mind. You could narrow the subject to the software market alone. You
> could include the impacts of the software on other markets. The iPhone
> sales numbers were much different if it were not running an operating
> system by Apple but one developed by Hewlett-Packard or Lenovo. Finally
> you could go as far as viewing the influence of the software on global
> markets of any kind. Software can (and actually does) enable producers
> to directly sell their products to the end customer thereby bypassing
> traditional ways of trade. The effect of this is manifold.
>
> Josef 'Jupp' Schugt

Yes, I'm aware of all this. These are the dillemas that I wish to delve into.

Todd

Chad Perrin

7/25/2007 8:50:00 PM

0

On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 01:54:34AM +0900, Todd Benson wrote:
> On 7/25/07, Josef 'Jupp' Schugt <jupp@gmx.de> wrote:
> >
> >If you want unbiased information you at least need three independent
> >sources. One obviously isn't sufficient because then it is almost
> >impossible to find out to which degree or even *if* it is biased. With
> >two you can find out if at least one source is biased. But you still
> >have no means to tell which one or - which is more likely - that both
> >are biased. Only from three independent sources onwards you have a
> >chance of extracting unbiased information from the biased ones. But you
> >should be aware that on the one hand it is crucial that the sources are
> >indeed independent (often not the case) and that on the other hand
> >"unbiased" is a misleading term because the information that you extract
> >is again biased due to your own point of view.
>
> Basically, you're saying go out and read everything and make up my own
> mind on the matter, which I do plan to do; get down on the mat and
> wrestle with some concepts that I've not bothered with before. All in
> good time. I was just looking for a jump start that was "relatively"
> unbiased. I was looking for aloof observation.
>
> You are right, of course. I will have to wade through the extremes of
> all viewpoints eventually.

Unfortunately, I think bias is stronger in general in this area than in
many others. It is only fairly recently that a perspective that
considers the possibility that copyright law is not intrinsic to the
concepts of proprietary rights has become publicly acceptable to any
degree again (it was once more normal to regard copyright as separable
from property rights, but things changed in the 20th century).

For a look at what copyright and patent law went through as ideas before
being provided for in the US Constitution, and the considerations that
followed, it's instructive to read the writings of Thomas Jefferson in
personal letters on the subject (searches for likely terms with "Thomas
Jefferson" in the search terms, on Google, should help there). It's also
worthwhile to read writings of supporters of the Free Culture movement,
perhaps starting with the 1,000 foot view in the Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Cultur...

Obviously, the Free Culture movement is about as biased as it gets, and
there are some questionable premises in some of these writings. A source
of writings with less questionable premises, and less radical viewpoint,
but probably no less biased perspective is the Right to Create weblog, a
very well-written treatment of the idea that current patent law is way
outside the realm of reasonability:

http://righttocreate.blo...

The Free Software Foundation offers the writings of Richard Stallman and
others, which often carry a tone of reasonability but assume premises
that are at times self-contradictory and rather extreme. The writings of
Theo de Raadt, the man who started the OpenBSD project (OpenBSD's Linus
Torvalds, basically), has very strong views on the subject that are worth
reading to help understand the landscape. His is a primarily practical
(very engineer-like, rather than philosophical like Richard Stallman's)
approach to open source software. Linus Torvald's commentaries on the
subject are, like de Raadt's, very practical, but unlike de Raadt he
takes a position that proprietary and open source software are
equivalently effective and useful, that there's nothing wrong with
proprietary software per se, and one must choose licensing based on need.
The self-contradictory issue with de Raadt's approach is in the simple
fact that he maintains strong copyright control over the format of the
OpenBSD installer CD, and Torvalds' relates to the fact that his
arguments against the GPLv3 should, taken to their logical conclusion,
prompt him to use something more like the BSD license rather than the
GPLv2 that he favors. Just my personal observations, devoid in this
context of value judgment.

There are a couple of small projects just barely getting off the ground
that favor an open source approach, but are specifically opposed to
certain other open source approaches out there, that come to mind.
They're advocacy efforts that are still in early planning stages, and not
widely known yet, but what little information they provide at this time
might be of interest for purposes of completeness of understanding of the
various positions on the pro-open source side of things. One is the
Software Liberation front:

http://softwareliberatio...

The other advocates what it calls a Copyfree approach to licensing:

http://co...

There's an interesting piece of writing about intellectual property law
that gives a supposedly Libertarian take on it:

http://www.libertariannation.org/a/...

. . though of course there are other arguments within libertarianism
both for and against. A book, available online, called "Against
Intellectual Monopoly" might also prove interesting:

http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/a...

Interestingly enough, the strongest arguments I've found online *for*
copyright and patent law as applied to software are those of Microsoft's
executives in various press releases over the years. That should suggest
some Google search terms for you, I would think.

For offline, hardcopy materials, the already suggested Amazon search
turns up some interesting options. Unfortunately, I haven't read much of
the hardcopy materials on the subject, and of what I have read the titles
tend to be fairly interchangeable so I have some difficulty recalling
which I've read and which I have not.

For the most part, the least biased-sounding stuff tends to be materials
written by advocates for open source software -- which, of course, means
there's bias, but they're pretty good at not sounding biased. There are
also many on both sides of things who sound very biased indeed, such as
Richard Stallman and Steve Ballmer. Linus Torvalds is an odd duck, in
that he really seems very evenly divided between closed source and open
source software, but his bias (more difficult to recognize than some,
perhaps) is toward a particular type of software world wherein
proprietary and open source software are mixed and carry fairly equal
weight.

The Ruby list probably carries some of the least biased commentary I've
ever written on the subject of open source software licensing and
copyright law, including this very email.


>
> >To give a prominent example: The expected raise in temperature due to
> >global warming does not increase the surface temperature of the earth
> >beyond the highest temperatures since life begun to spread outside
> >oceans while it *is* expected to go beyond the highest temperatures ever
> >seen by mankind. If you call the temperature that will be reached
> >"unprecedented" the bias is that you disregard anything that predates
> >the existence of mankind. If you on the other hand say that such
> >temperatures are nothing new the bias is that you do not see mankind as
> >something special (about which most people would disagree even if their
> >faith does not explicitly state that mankind is something special). I
> >actually have no idea if an unbiased view on this matter is even feasible.
>
> I love this example, but I never throw it at doomsday theorists
> because it is another one of those topics -- just like this one --
> that I want to intelligently discuss with other people, but just
> haven't had the time to research it myself yet. No doubt I would be
> entering a mob armed with hatchets and sickles with only my bare
> fists.

Note, for instance, that even that example relies on biased assumptions.
There's a fair bit of science and some strong opinions supporting the
idea that the scope of anthropogenic global warming trends assumed in
this example are alarmist and unrealistic. In fact, there's some
question about what positive effects might occur as a result of global
warming trends even if they are true. The proponents of anthropogenic
global warming crisis are more visible, but they are not the only
credible position on the subject. I've got some available reading on
this subject queued up as well, but it's so far off-topic it really
shouldn't be mentioned in any more depth here. I only addressed it to
point out that on such charged issues I'm not sure you can ever find
anything that qualifies as "unbiased".


>
> >Leaving that issue aside the question is what kind of economy you have
> >in mind. You could narrow the subject to the software market alone. You
> >could include the impacts of the software on other markets. The iPhone
> >sales numbers were much different if it were not running an operating
> >system by Apple but one developed by Hewlett-Packard or Lenovo. Finally
> >you could go as far as viewing the influence of the software on global
> >markets of any kind. Software can (and actually does) enable producers
> >to directly sell their products to the end customer thereby bypassing
> >traditional ways of trade. The effect of this is manifold.
>
> Yes, I'm aware of all this. These are the dillemas that I wish to delve
> into.

There are a great many arguments for all sorts of positions with regard
to open source software out there. The most cogent and well-supported,
however, tend to be those that make clear a basic economic model as the
basis of the argument, so you know up front what the bias of the argument
will be. Richard Stallman's arguments depart from this somewhat in that
his very collectivist bent with regard to software economics is somewhat
hidden between the lines of his arguments, but if you understand that
fact of his assumptions the remainder of his argument becomes strikingly
clear and strong, in that light. The corporatist position of Microsoft's
executives is of course unavoidable, and thus casts all of those
arguments in a revealing light for anyone able to differentiate between
corporatist capitalism and free market capitalism. Linus Torvalds, Eric
Raymond (author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", meantioned elsewhere
in this thread), and Theo de Raadt are quite open and forthright about
their biases. Thomas Jefferson's writings on the subject are
instructive, in that he makes a very strong, clear, cogent argument
against copyright and patent law in principle, then ends up caving in at
the end and making some weak statement to the effect of "but we want to
encourage innovation, so I guess we'll go with it anyway" (wildly
paraphrased).

Best of luck with all this. Feel free to contact me off-list to share
with me any information of interest, questions, or arguments you find
interesting -- copyright and patent law make up a subject of great
interest to me, as it applies both to ethics and economics.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.ap... ]
Marvin Minsky: "It's just incredible that a trillion-synapse computer could
actually spend Saturday afternoon watching a football game."

Todd Benson

7/26/2007 4:50:00 AM

0

On 7/25/07, Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote:
> Best of luck with all this. Feel free to contact me off-list to share
> with me any information of interest, questions, or arguments you find
> interesting -- copyright and patent law make up a subject of great
> interest to me, as it applies both to ethics and economics.

Thanks, Chad. There's certainly a lot of food for thought here. I
appreciate it.

Todd

Eugen Minciu

7/26/2007 7:56:00 AM

0

Excerpts from Todd Benson's message of Wed Jul 25 17:11:40 +0300 2007:
> On 7/25/07, Aureliano Calvo <aurelianocalvo@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Google for "The cathedral and the bazar".
>
> Yes! Resources along this vein are what I am looking for.
You might want to try "Producing Open Source Software" by Karl Fogel.
While it covers a lot more than what you asked for, it has a chapter
entitled (ahem) "Money" which might interest you. :)

The book is freely available online at http://produc...
You can even download a PDF, if you like.
>
> Thanks,
> Todd

--
Eugen Minciu.

Wasting valuable time since 1985.