[wos] Open API panel: Open Source Licenses are Obsolete

[Gregers Petersen]

Dear Janko

Would it be possible for you to email me copies of the .pdf's your refering to ?

I have some of the same thought as you have - and to me it's an expression of a 
"meeting" of opposing institutional models of 'ownership' as part of a property 
discurs. Just as you note (or as I believe that you note), this might be an 
indirect way towards introducing property claims and appropriation of the work 
of others. To me there is a very interesting perspective in the re-newed focus 
on the use of BSD-license based software and more "exotic" programming languages 
(Ruby) ....?

But I'll be in Berlin during WOS :-)


Janko Roettgers wrote:
> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/08/open_source_licenses_are_obsol.html 
> 
> 
> Open Source Licenses are Obsolete
> 
> By tim on August 01, 2006
> 
> Last week at OSCON, I made the seemingly controversial statement "Open
> Source Licenses Are Obsolete. During the Q&A period, Michael Tiemann
> of Red Hat and the Open Source Initiative took issue with my
> statement, pointing out just how much value open source licenses have
> created. I don't know whether he really didn't understand what I was
> saying or whether he was just intentionally misunderstanding to make
> his own point. But it's clear to me at least that the open source
> activist community needs to come to grips with the change in the way a
> great deal of software is deployed today.
> 
> And that, after all, was my message: not that open source licenses are
> unnecessary, but that because their conditions are all triggered by
> the act of software distribution, they fail to apply to many of the
> most important types of software today, namely Web 2.0 applications
> and other forms of software as a service.
> 
> I've been banging this drum for many years. In fact, in preparing for
> my talk, I looked up an old discussion I'd had with Richard Stallman
> in Berlin during the summer of 1999. I had just given a talk (pdf) on
> what I was then calling infoware and now call Web 2.0, and made my
> point about the failure of open source licenses in the world of
> software as a service. Richard came up to the mike after my talk, and
> said:
> 
>    "I came up to the mike again because I wanted to address the topic
> that Tim O'Reilly raised....a proprietary program on a web server that
> somebody else is running limits his freedom perhaps, but it doesn't
> limit your freedom or my freedom. We don't have that program on our
> computers at all, and in fact the issue of free software versus
> proprietary [only] arises for software that we're going to have on our
> computers and run on our computers. We're gonna have copies and the
> question is, what are we allowed to do with those copies? Are we just
> allowed to run them or are we allowed to do the other useful things
> that you can do with a program? If the program is running on somebody
> else's computer, the issue doesn't arise. Am I allowed to copy the
> program that Amazon has on it's computer? Well, I can't, I don't have
> that program at all, so it doesn't put me in a morally compromised
> position."
> 
> He just didn't get it. I was surprised to see Michael still
> misunderstanding the import of my comments, even today. What's more, I
> more or less made this same point in my Open Source Paradigm Shift
> talk at OSCON in 2003 (pdf) , and specifically addressed the licensing
> issue in an Infoworld interview that I did at the time. But it seems
> that I'm finally getting out of the Cassandra zone, and getting a
> little bit of attention on this issue.
> 
> I don't think that the answer is to try to make free and open source
> licenses that restrict the behavior of web applications, so that, for
> example, the GPL would bind Amazon or Google and keep them from using
> Linux. Instead, what we need is a new "open services definition,"
> which is what I began calling for at OSCON. We need a set of
> guidelines for open services that is as thoughtful and provocative as
> the original open source definition. And Michael may just have been
> yanking my chain, because OSI has already been giving this topic some
> thought. I've begun discussions with OSI for a brainstorming meeting
> soon. More soon on my thoughts for what ought to go into an open
> services definition and an accompanying open data definition.
> 
> 

-- 

Gregers Petersen
Anthropologist, Ph.d fellow
Department of Organization & Industrial Sociology
Copenhagen Business School
Kilen, Kilevej 14A, 4.
DK - 2000 Frederiksberg
gp.ioa at cbs.dk
(+45) 3815 2811
Skype: gregers.ioa
www.cbs.dk/staff/gp
www.icco.dk


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