Community commentary: Encouraging open code in public procurement policies

Rod Gammon AEG-Inc at hawaii.rr.com
Mon Feb 25 23:45:52 PST 2002


Some notes on copyright:

* By holding copyright so long, it is also a barrier to innovation because
the initial innovator has less incentive to continue.  Imagine if Thomas
Edison's first patent were so secure and lucrative that he retired right
there.  He would be Steve Jobs?

* There is backlash in the academic community against printed journals and
their expenses.  A few journals have even gone online only in response.

* Supreme court has agreed to hear a case about recent copyright extension
(so called mickey mouse case because disney is involved).  This is my
biggest complaint, it's not as if the senators and money buying the laws had
anything to do with helping out the lonely author.  It's all about
protecting megacorp's property.

* I support the "information shared is better" argument, but is there any
quantitative study of it?  There's "cathedral and the bazaar", but I
remember its argument as based on anecdote.  There's the security record of
MS IIS vs. Apache, but the juiciness of MS as a target must skew the
percentages.

* There is plenty of quantitative analysis showing that government funding
of public goods is important- light houses etc.  I lump my original rant
that gov't should prefer open source under this- public code is a public
good.

* "The gotta eat problem"- one way out is that being important in an open
project can lead to the gravy train in consulting and hiring- both Icaza and
Torvalds have good jobs now because of open source pasts.  Stallman got a
MacArthur grant ($.5 million).  Of course they are first string superstars.

aloha-
rg



More information about the LUAU mailing list