================================================================
Lets accept (and this is perfectly believable) that
the current modes of "property transfer" in the open source
community mirror the tradition of "Anglo-American common-law
theory of land tenure".
His conclusions:
= This theoretical basis makes the open source community
self sustainable and economically viable.
= Calling all companies -- we're not antagonists, its safe
to move in and settle.
Now lets think for a second about what software is, in his analogy.
Its LAND. Land just sits there and does nothing. 2 points:
= You don't create land, you occupy it. There's a limited amount
of land, there is an unlimited amount of "possible" software.
(he made this point in the talk I think)
= By using LAND as his analogy, he makes the truly FREE SOFTWARE
folks look like a bunch of fools who haven't caught up with the
current wave of neo-liberalism. Right? Free software folks are
passé, just like marxists, and indians, and hippies, what with their
silly ideas about changing notions of the OWNERSHIP of
commodities that it is in HUMAN NATURE to want control and
self regulate.
======================================================================
So now allow me to offer an alternate analogy. Suppose software is the
CHILD of a programmer, rather than some chunk of LAND in a "NOOSPHERE"
environment of ideas that is just waiting for some brain to "arrive"
on the scene and stake a claim.
Everything Raymond says about how software changes hands is
true about how both LAND and CHILDREN change hands.
But which one sounds better as an analogy for software project
transfer? lets look at his property model, and you decide what
fits better. Eric says: "There are, in general, three ways to
acquire ownership of an open-source project"................
(see http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/ for reference)
1) Start a software project:
Do you think its more like staking a claim to a piece of
"unused land" (whatever that means.... i.e. is
a forest "unused")? Or do you think its more like
birthing a child?
Well, it depends how you look at ideas themselves. Do they
exist independently of people, of individuals? Are they
conquered and can they be controlled by man? And to what extent?
Or are they something that is created and unleashed on the world,
perhaps controllable in its early stages and then progressively
more and more independent as it is exposed to the rest of the world
(and vice versa)?
2) Hand over a project to someone else:
Is it more like transfer of deed for a piece of land? Or is
it more like transfer of care of a child?
Well, you can buy and agglomerate land without ever setting
foot on it. Transfer of land ownership is more about the value of
the title than it is about using the land to do something. You have
no obligation to DO anything with land you acquire, to improve it in
any way. Second, it doesn't matter who you sell your land to. You
don't care what they do with it (if they break laws, its the
governments' problem, if they let it lie fallow, its up to other people
to "squat it").
By contrast, in transferring care of children
the previous "owner" does not stop caring about the kid.
Presumably, they care about the kid no matter whose custody
the kid is in. You are going to make damn sure whoever is
taking care of your kid is reputable, and someone you trust to
take good care of the kid. Second, when you transfer control,
you don't get money, you don't get tangible compensation, you get
relief that the kid's needs are being taken care of, and that
has its own, perfectly sufficient, merits.
3) Take control of a project that is unclaimed or fallow.
Is it more like squatting land? Or is it like society taking a
kid away from a guardian who is irresponsible?
Well, squatting land only leads to conflict if the land is disputed.
The model is, you squat first, then if there are problems, you
resolve them legally.
With kids, people are a bit more careful. Before the state
allows a kid to be taken away from a family and placed with a
foster family, the parents have to be guilty of egregious violations
and the state is very public about making explanations for why
the change of ownership ahd to occur.
Obviously, the second analogy works better. As proof, just think
about what Eric said about how careful people are about
approaching fallow or unclaimed projects. Sounds a lot more
like the behavior of child welfare agencies than that of the
squatter camp.
===================================================================
Now, if you've gotten this far and you're still with me, here's the
problem with playing the analogy game. If software is like LAND,
yeah, maybe its safe for the companies to move in and mine the
inherent profitability of this wild intellectual frontier.
But, if software is like CHILDREN, you've got an interesting situation.
Children look like property, but only at a YOUNG AGE. As they
get older, they start to look like independent beings. (I think
ideas are the same way, but lets discuss that later)
If I am an alien who beamed down to a courthouse and observed the
goings on with minimal understanding of our culture, I might observe
the way children are manipulated and controlled, and conclude that they
are property. But if I stuck around to see them grow, Id see that
as the world is exposed to them, and they to the world, parents lose
control. And this occurs PRECISELY because of a process of
PEER REVIEW. Its not really that the parents loosen their control
on the kid, its really in the kid's nature. Kids take on a life
of their own, and parental influence fades as a necessary, and
usually unwanted result. This is natural.
Its also the NATURAL COURSE of ideas. No matter what the idea,
what the information, what the medium, the trend is toward diffusion
and diversification. Corporations and governments often
concern themselves with fighting this trend. That's what
propaganda, media manipulation, and intellectual property rights
are all about. Corporations need to own ideas
and release them in a way that creates profit. And now Eric
Raymond is busy trying to convince corporations that the
open source world is safe and will generate profit.
But is it really safe? Ideas aren't like land in a fundamental way,
and Eric knows this. Ideas can be shared, painlessly.
They don't need to be controlled. They don't want to be controlled.
They are born, and the parental "control" they need is
really just about introducing them to the world, motivating them
so that peer review actually occurs. After that they become part
of a community of ideas being shared and tested among a community
of thinkers. Take science for example, and look at the
fragmentation that occurs with different interpretations and ideas.
You get schools of thought, infighting, etc. Science has been
around a lot longer than open source and software engineering. I
don't open source to end up any differently -- you see
the beginnings with more complex software like compilers (egcs gcc)
and different distributions of linux. Its not bad at all,
but its not an idyllic pasture waiting for the corporate cows to
come a-grazing.
But personally, I hope corporations do clamber aboard this
bandwagon, en force, now that Eric is working to
convince them that its safe. When the industry
starts moving into its adolescent phases, the fun will begin.
As the software corporations come out of their shells, opening up
intellectually, they will be doing irreversible damage to
the foundations of their profit models, and
if they continue, they will relegating themselves to
service industry status. Sounds good to me!
Comments, anyone?
-C
-- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Christopher Cantor Room 502, Dept. of Computer Science Yale University, P.O. Box 208285 New Haven, CT 06520-8285 email: cantor-christopher@cs.yale.edu phone: 203/432-0677 fax: 203/432-0593 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++