Matt Asay agrees with me
He didn't even know this, but Matt Asay and I agree that the freedom(BSD) > freedom(GPL). Matt sums up nicely what I've been writing recently:
Forcing people to share's one's version of freedom is not...free.
</p>
This is exactly how I feel. And some people might say, "Well, that's fine. But how can we all co-exist with differing versions of freedom?" And to that I would say, by having the kind of legal system which enables a variety of contracts which convey those different freedoms and stipulations over our creations.</p>
Some bonus cherries with this approach is that people are dynamic. Their values and opinions are in a constant state of flux. Many (most?) people tailor their principles to match circumstances. Under the variety-of-contracts system, people can use different contracts at different times on different projects for different purposes. Like Asay thinks of the GPL, I think a CC-BY-NC-SA licensed product is like a bomb for a (would-be) competitor. </span>So someone can tactically employ CC-BY-NC-SA and CC-BY-ND simultaneously to create a dual-license business model. Imagine that - more variety among licensing principles and terms makes good business sense.
fun followup
As a fun followup to my previous post, I thought I'd illustrate the same point using this very cool Creative Commons comic. After reading the comic, you should have a clearer idea of what the CC licenses are all about, right? In addition, I like the spectrum perspective shown in the opening and closing panels, as well as the 2nd-to-last panel explaining "Public Domain."
So here are the (rough) analogies I draw:
Copyright => Copyright EULA's
CC:Share-Alike => GPL, EUPL, etc.
Public Domain => LGPL, etc.
As I see it (and maybe Creative Commons sees it...?), Public Domain, and not GPL, is the extreme opposite of Copyright. With that in mind, my order of preference is from most-free to least-free:
1. Public Domain, LGPL, etc.
2. GPL, EUPL, etc.
3. Copyright, Windows Vista License, etc.
Addition:
I also just read a descriptive scenario whereby new CCPLv3-SA licenses are incapable of ENFORCING their copyleft doctrine down the chain of recipients.
See, if I was Sam, I would just put work A into public domain and stop worrying about it. And if first recipient, Dave, wraps it in TPM, creating d[A], then that's Dave's work now. 2nd-recipient Bob may like d[A] more, but it's up to Dave to give him permission to modify d[A]. Bob can always come get A from me with no strings attached.
closing [loopholes|business models] in OS licenses
I started out by reading Matt Asay's take on the EUPL. And I read just about every article or post to which he linked. Asay says that the GPL, for better or worse, "leaks like a sieve." I can only conclude from his statement, "I really like the way it [EUPL] closes the ASP loophole without closing off everything else, as well" that Matt dislikes at least the ASP "loophole" in the GPL.
(Disclosure: As an employee of SourceForge.net, I am dependent on an ASP model, like Google's or Yahoo's, for my livelihood.)
But I'd fall into the camp which thinks the "leakiness" of the GPL is a positive rather than a negative. In fact, I think even the GPLv2 is a bit too strict for my liking. As I understand it, when you distribute (old-school) any software which you received under a GPLv2 license, you must license your own modifications under GPLv2. Emphasis added to stress this point - any mechanism that sets up a "you must _____" condition places an inhibition on the recipient, not a freedom.
Apparently, the HPL, EUPL, and GPLv3 take this same inhibition and make it even more invasive. Under these, when you "communicate" (new-school) any software which you received, you must license all of your own modifications under the same license. The "communicate" term is defined in every license (or an equivalent principle is established) to prevent a person or corporation from using such licensed software to distrubte services (SaaS) without releasing all their own modifications or enhancements to the software.
I'm fine with these kinds of licenses, I suppose. I just don't happen to share this kind of perspective - feeling betrayed or cheated if someone enhances my software but doesn't give their stuff back to me. IMO, their work and labor went into those enhancements so I'm fine with them licensing their stuff however they want. I rest easy knowing my stuff will always be LGPL and (theoretically) usable by anyone. I'll admit this a pretty individualistic perspective. But then isn't the open-source community just made up of individuals. Why do we need someone like the EU or FSF to tell us how to feel, or what's best for ourselves?
I think the majority of people in the open-source community don't mind that Google and Yahoo (and SourceForge) modify some open-source software but don't distribute all those modifications when they "communicate" that software via their SaaS websites. Combine that with the fact that some of these extra-invasively-viral(?) licenses prevent other business models besides just the ASP one, and I can't imagine these licenses will be very popular. (Indeed, GPLv3 has already been ranted upon by more than a couple open-source supporters.)
open source revenue
I ended up reading this post because it talked about SourceForge (albeit the Enterprise software).
First, I don't agree that "serious" numbers are "multi-billion dollar" numbers. For one thing, of the 120k active information industry corporations which filed tax returns in 2002, only 264 of them received $0.25 billion or more in that year. (source) Personally, I can only think of 5 software giants which actually break into billions in terms of annual revenue - Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Electronic Arts, BEA. There are probably some others but I'd be willing to bet it's no more than a dozen or maybe two dozen.
So one point I would make is that software revenue doesn't have to be concentrated in order to be serious. After all, the 119,476 information corporations that make <$50 million per year (under which VA Software falls) can account for, very roughly, $188 billion of annual revenue.
The second point I would make is that the nature of open-source is such that its value is hard to quantify with $. Different people may value an open-source software package at $1 or at $200 or at $2,000. But they all pay $0 for it, so it's hard to measure the value, but it's obviously not 0. I realize this has nothing to do with revenue, but recognition of this fact is a prerequisite to building a good open-source business model, which has everything to do with revenue.
Finally, one goal of open-source is to lower the cost of software to users. In principle then, open-source companies shouldn't be as big as proprietary software counterparts. The goal of open-source is to grow the economic pie while at the same time requiring a smaller slice for the software industry. This is directly opposite to proprietary software which desires more and more money to pour into the software industry - whether or not the economic pie is growing at all.
Basically, revenue-focused analysis is not simple in the open-source world.
(some) economics of open-source
Either fittingly or surprisingly, I came across a great blurb re: economics of open-source while reading The Long Tail.
George Gilder:
In every industrial revolution, some key factor of production is drastically reduced in cost. Relative to the previous cost to achieve that function, the new factor is virtually free. Physical force in the industrial revolution became virtually free compared to its expense when it derived from animal muscle power and human muscle power. Suddenly you could do things you could not afford to do before. You could make a factory work 24 hours a day churning out products in a way that was just incomprehensible before the industrial era. ... The whole economy had to reorganize itself to exploit this physical force. You had to "waste" the power of the steam engine and its derivatives in order to prevail...</p>
From there, Chris picks up:
That suggests a way to put this in an economic context. If the abundant resources are just one factor in a system otherwise constrained by scarcity, they may not challenge the economic orthodoxy. They are then like learning curves and minimized transaction costs - drivers of production efficiency that serve to lower prices and increase productivity but do not invalidate the laws of economics.</p>
So, how about open-source?
The open-source "revolution" has, among other things, made a factor of production virtually free - software programs. It costs someone somewhere maybe $0.000001 to produce another copy of ajaxMyTop and send it to another user. But, Information Technology and Information Systems (effective ones) involve more than just software programs. Open-source does not invalidate the laws of economics in IT.
In light of this, there are 2 very different lessons to take away.
For those who think open-source is economically infeasible, the analogy demonstrates that thriving markets can and do operate on virtually free goods. It merely takes some learning to understand where and how to charge money.
For those who think open-source is just a first sign of an inevitable economic reversals, the analogy shows that economic principles continue to hold. It is rather market actors and their perceptions which are upheaved.
