"Open source" instead of "free"
Allan J. Heim
A friend pointed me to this new document by Eric Raymond (pbuh):
http://sagan.earthspace.net/~esr/open-source.html
ESR argues that the term "free" should be replaced with "open source."
I'm pleased; I've long thought that there's been too much screeching
that the FSF is being obfuscatory by using the term "free," even though
it's clearly explained in the GNU Public License.
--
Allan J. Heim mailto:a...@netscape.com http://help.netscape.com/
*** I'm speaking only for myself, not for Netscape, so relax. ***
Tim Smith
Allan J. Heim <a...@netscape.com> wrote:
>A friend pointed me to this new document by Eric Raymond (pbuh):
>
> http://sagan.earthspace.net/~esr/open-source.html
"File Not found
The requested URL /~esr/open-source.html was not found on this server."
--Tim Smith
PILCH Hartmut
b...@hayamasa.demon.co.uk (Ben Bullock) writes:
>Certainly "free software" is ambiguous. This is the well-discussed
>vagueness of the English word "free". However does "open source"
>encapsulate the ideas of the GNU licence much better than "free" does?
...
I have drafted a proposal for a new order of competition in the
software market, in which separate definitions of "published software"
and "free software" are given and assigned a separate legal status.
I think what Eric Raymond calls "open source" corresponds to "published",
not to "free".
I would be interested to hear criticism of these definitions and of
the concept itself. The information technology market is working on
rules that were not made for it and that can't make it work but in
a monopolistic way. How can these rules be reshaped so as to work?
Is this a solution? What would be a better one?
Here is a text copy, see also
http://www.a2e.de/phm/konkrefen.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground Rules for a Non-Monopolistic Information Technology Market
A set of new ground-rules for the information technology market are
needed, if it is intended to work like a market. The following
legislative proposal would really stamp out monopolism while
protecting legitimate commercial software.
precise legal terms open and free
legal definition of some basic terms:
open system:
a system whose relevant functionality is fully specified, so
that
1. external systems can call the relevant system functions and
use them in automated sequence (automatability)
2. a capable system builder could emulate the system, i.e.
construct a system that conforms to the specification and be
sure that thereby it is fully compatible to all external
systems with which the open system interacts. (emulatability)
published system:
a system for which complete and fully documented building
instructions (source code) are available publicly, so that
anyone can easily adapt it for a new task by just modifying the
building instructions.
free system:
a published system of which copies and derived versions may be
freely distributed, provided that
1. The recipient is enabled to find the original work. Usually
this means that at least the URL of the original work is
specified the title and/or other prominent places of the
system.
2. Any copyright notices of the original are included
3. Any modification of the original is clearly documented and
justified in terms of improvements achieved by it.
4. The redistributed version is no less free than the original.
open hardware:
hardware for whose relevant functionality driver software can
be written based only on the documentation (without reverse
engineering or poking into hidden features)
open operating system:
operating system which can be rewritten or emulated according
to the specification (without reverse engineering or poking
into an existing implementation of this OS specification).
open software:
software which is itself an open system and does not depend on
non-open system.
software and intellectual property laws
Software copyright and algorithm patents shouldn't entitle the
patentee to prohibit people from using the algorithm, but they could
give him a right to charge royalties from commercial applications of
their work.
openness certification
The openness of a (soft- or hardware) system can be certified by
submission of suitable documentation to the patent office or a similar
organ.
The patent office makes the documentation accessible but doesn't
examine it in depth. The applicant swears that it is sufficient for
guaranteeing opennes in the legal sense (see above). Any third party
may prove that it doesn't, e.g. by building a valid emulator for
Win2000 according to the documentation and showing that Word2000
doesn't run on it because it makes use of hidden features.
As a part of openness certification, the building instructions (for
software: the source code) must also be filed with the patent office.
If they are to be kept secret, a yearly growing secrecy fee must be
paid to the patent office.
The patent office publishes the building instructions as soon as
1. the secrecy fee is no longer paid on time
2. someone proves that the system is not truly open
After publication, the system at first becomes a published system, then,
after two more years, a free system. The status as a published system can
be prolonged by payment of a lesser, but also incremental, licence fee
to the patent office.
differential taxation
1. Acknowledgement of free software as a public infrastructure and of
donations for free software as in the public interest and
therefore tax-deductible.
2. Preferential taxation of open and published systems.
3. At least in certain fields such as operating systems and network
protocols, all systems should be required by law to be either open
or free or both
labeling requirements
Protection of consumers: any software or hardware sales packaging must
inform the buyer about the product's openness, and, if nothing
appropriate is available, accept a label such as: The ministry of
industry warns: This soundcard may not be useable under a future
software configuration, since no sufficient interface information has
been made available.
special duty of public and semi-public institutions
* Openness Certification as a precondition for use in the public
service. It is made illegal for officials to spend public money on
non-open information products. Any information prepared as a
result of public funding must be free.
* Public institutions such as patent offices, telephone- and railway
companies or market-dominating companies, no matter whether state
owned or not, are obliged provide certain public information such
as time tables, telephone books, law texts, normative dictionaries
and patent disclosures to the public without charge and in a
standardized format that is independent of any non-open piece of
soft- or hardware.
public bidding for public infrastructure
Informational public infrastructure (i.e. informations such as fonts,
dictionaries, network protocols etc. which everybody citizien should
have at free disposal but which, once provided in the required open
form, will be copied and no longer bring money to their creator) is a
state task. The state is obliged to publicly bid for informational
infrastructure, using a competitive bidding system, whose openness and
accessibility has to satisfy highest possible standards (i.e. use
mailing lists, usenet, www, ftp and whatever may be suited to improve
accessibility, give detailed account for all expenditures).
Most of the above principles are not revolutionary, some are mere
extensions of thoughts implicit in the existing patent system, some
have even been practised in the US. Not only are they applications of
basic principles of market economy, they are even widely applied in
areas outside information technology, such as mobile
telecommunications for instance. The EU authorities require big
players such as Siemens, Nokia, Ericsson etc to publish their
standards and to allow a seamless hand-over from one regional
operating company to the next, so as to ensure that none of the big
companies helps one operator create a supraregional monopoly by using
an un-published winning standard that everybody has to conform to.
Siemens and the others are actually quite eager to cooperate, just as
would the software companies, if the ground rules were properly set by
the governments.
In the information age, the invisible hand of market economy no longer
functions by itself. The rules of the game have to become more and
more artificial. Without artificial new rules, market economy is
metamorphosing into monopolistic capitalism.
[top] [next]
_________________________________________________________________
http://www.a2e.de/phm/konkrefen.html
1998-02-02 ｩ PILCH Hartmut (mail/pgp/www)
--
+=========================================================================+
|PILCH Hartmut <p...@a2e.de> PEI2 , Han2mu4 |
|MA phil., shtatekzaminita tradukisto por la =||= ,---, | /__ |
|Germana, Japana kaj China (inkl. Kantona) lingvoj -||- ## /+-/ / |
David Woolley
In article <EoE3sr.7Kx@a2e>, PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e> wrote:
>
>I have drafted a proposal for a new order of competition in the
>software market, in which separate definitions of "published software"
Published has a specific meaning in copyright law, and as all free
software licenses are based on copyright law (they give freedoms beyond
those implied by the copyright laws), it would be dangerous to overload
the term.
Incidentally, there is a misunderstanding in the recent discussions that
licenses restrict. In fact they permit; they allow uses which would
otherwise be forbidden by copyright law. Apparent restrictions are
really exceptions to the permissions, not restrictions.
(Some commercial licenses may be based on confidentiality law, but that
can't apply to published, in the copyright sense, material.)