Villa: Pushing back against licensing and the permission culture [LWN.net]

Villa: Pushing back against licensing and the permission culture

Posted Jan 30, 2013 5:09 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

I understand and respect your point of view but there is also another way of looking at this. The value you get out of software, the value you can charge money for, is the value of solving the customers problem with technology. Restricting access to your code after you've solved the customer problem is of no benefit to anyone while allowing access and copying can be of a benefit to others and having access and being able to copy their work can be of a benefit to you.

I highly doubt that you'd refuse to do work for a paying customer if you weren't able to retain copy rights to the work, and I doubt the customer would refuse to pay you and leave their problem unsolved.

Villa: Pushing back against licensing and the permission culture

Posted Jan 30, 2013 7:04 UTC (Wed) by samlh (subscriber, #56788) [Link]

You are thinking too small. Often, the problem is too difficult to do the work if only one customer would pay you. You need either many customers, or to charge more than one customer would be willing to pay. There is the option of starting with a minimal subset and adding features over time, but this can be very difficult, especially if the minimal subset is still quite large.

Take large accounting software as an example. There have been many one-off solutions made for the big companies that could afford them. However, nowadays many solutions are customizations of a common platform. The cost of implementation is lowered because the platform maker can spread the cost of common features and updates across multiple customers, and the customers are happy because the quality and flexibility is better. The common platform can gain large features anticipating future needs, even if no one company would be willing to pay for it.

The economies of scale for software (and games, and books, and...) can only work if creators can sell their product more than once, and copyright is the best tool we have for this.

Now, if copyright terms were reduced somewhat, it could still be possible to get your initial investment recouped before it was a free-for-all, but changing the law would need to be done carefully.

Villa: Pushing back against licensing and the permission culture

Posted Jan 30, 2013 17:17 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

I think you are right. Much of the copyleft ecosystem is built on cross-organizational groups where no one entity wants to foot the whole bill for development but are willing to pool resources together to get the big projects done. The recent popularity of Kickstarter is also another similar situation where the development cost is paid for up front so that small customers can get big projects done.

Even in the absence of copyright allowing one to sell licenses in the traditional sense, if the software is worth having then it seems that there should be someone(s) who will pay for it. I don't know if Redhat is the exception that proves the rule or a demonstration that you can still charge money and do well without using the traditional copy rights. They haven't folded just because CentOS exists for example.

Villa: Pushing back against licensing and the permission culture

Posted Jan 30, 2013 18:54 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Even in the absence of copyright allowing one to sell licenses in the traditional sense, if the software is worth having then it seems that there should be someone(s) who will pay for it.

This is kind of self-obvious because absence of copyright will only affect tiny slice of the software: 10% (if even that!).

If you are paid to write piece of Facebook or Twitter then you can not distribute source not because it's copyrighted but because your contract includes the NDA (which means that you can not even distribute some numbers which are thoroughly uncopyrightable).

And from said tiny slice a lot of projects can be financed in kickstarter-like model. Companies donate code to Android not because they are receiving royalty!

I don't know if Redhat is the exception that proves the rule or a demonstration that you can still charge money and do well without using the traditional copy rights.

RedHat is an exception because of existence of copyright. Government spends taxpayers money to enforce copyright while any other model will need to find all the resources "inside" which of course will make it less effective. In the absence of copyright there will be more kickstarter-like activity, donations and other such things.

This does not mean full abandonment of copyright is a good idea. But it's good idea to compare disastrous consequences of it's enforcement (absolute lack of privacy for one if person-to-person copying is considered illegal) with it's benefits.

Villa: Pushing back against licensing and the permission culture

Posted Jan 30, 2013 11:27 UTC (Wed) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]

> If other people had the right to use and sell my hard work with no recompense, not only would I be angry, I would likely not code at all.

Then you should stop producing Free Software right now. Others can both use and sell your Free software without recompense. See also, Red Hat.

In a world without copyright, I would continue to produce software in a world without the GPL. It's not like I receive remuneration for Free software that I produce now, nor that others bundle and resell.

I would _not_, however, release the source code except to close, trustworthy friends. If others were to want to find out the secret sauce, they'd have to reverse-engineer it, like they do now.

Villa: Pushing back against licensing and the permission culture

Posted Jan 30, 2013 15:09 UTC (Wed) by samlh (subscriber, #56788) [Link]

> Then you should stop producing Free Software right now. Others can both use and sell your Free software without recompense. See also, Red Hat.
>
> In a world without copyright, I would continue to produce software in a world without the GPL. It's not like I receive remuneration for Free software that I produce now, nor that others bundle and resell.

Just because the recompense is intangible, that doesn't mean it isn't there. With the GPL, I am getting the satisfaction of contributing to a common pool, and thanking the original author for distributing under a free license. The copyleft provisions prevent unequal contributions--Red Hat releases the changes they make to the GPL software they use.

BSD is a tougher argument, and I contribute to fewer BSD projects as a result.

I support the right for people to *volunteer* to contribute to free software; I do not support not having the right to decide.

> I would _not_, however, release the source code except to close, trustworthy friends. If others were to want to find out the secret sauce, they'd have to reverse-engineer it, like they do now.

If someone broke into your server, anyone could use the source code without penalty, and you'd be up shit creek. You'll have no rights to the source code, and while the first person could get in trouble for hacking, everyone else who got your code could do as they wished with it.

Finally, you are ignoring other fields such as literature or music where there is no secret sauce to keep hidden. As an avid reader, I realize that today authors don't make that much money, and publishing is not a particularly high profit-margin business. Take away the ability for an author to sell to multiple people and far fewer authors will make enough to live on.

Villa: Pushing back against licensing and the permission culture

Posted Jan 30, 2013 18:36 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Finally, you are ignoring other fields such as literature or music where there is no secret sauce to keep hidden.

Literature and music existed for thousands of years without copyright which makes this discussion quite surreal.

I'm not sure abandonment of copyright will stop development of programs but it sure as hell will not not stop creation of new literature and music works.

As an avid reader, I realize that today authors don't make that much money, and publishing is not a particularly high profit-margin business. Take away the ability for an author to sell to multiple people and far fewer authors will make enough to live on.

And this is bad thing... exactly why? Sure, amount of throw-away literature will go down, but I'm not convinced that good authors (you know, the ones who people really like) will not be able to sell nothing. Yes, it's harder with books as compared to music (music is supported by live concerts just fine), but then it's cheaper to create, too.

And, again, I'm not saying that it's always a bad deal to use copyright as subsidy to authors, but we should never forget that it's form of subsidy, not a natural right.