Open Source

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The beginning of a new year is a good time to sit back and reflect. Where is the open source movement going? What is the next frontier?

In 2005, we explored the business models of the open source movement (see Figure 1). We almost got through the entire list, though we still need to finish a column on the software-as-a-service model and its poster children, Webex and Google.

If you want to read these articles, they are available in the LinuxWorld Magazine archives (http://linux.sys-con.com/read/issue/archives/). If you are looking for a quick overview with lots of graphics and little text, check out the presentation that I gave at ObjectWeb Con 2006 in Paris on the openResource wiki at http://sterneco.editme.com/.

Crossing the Chasm
Looking ahead to 2006, the open source movement is likely to go "mainstream." To belabor a pop cliché, the open source movement is about to cross Geoffrey A. Moore's famous chasm (see Figure 2). It will morph from a ragged band of "innovators and early adopters" to the "early majority." This will happen through the marriage of open source software and digital content. Marriage is, in fact, the right word because the crossing of the chasm will be based more on legal, than technological, innovation.

It is safe to say that open content is in the air. It was the topic of a recent cover of The Economist. There were conferences on the legal framework for open content at MIT and Stanford in the past month. The ideas are all out there. 2006 will be the year in which someone executes on the idea and emerges as the next eBay. I chose eBay as the example because the current moment reminds me of 1996 when everyone was thinking about Internet auctions, but it was eBay that executed and emerged the winner - granted many years later.

To some of us intellectuals, it was the invention of the GNU General Public License in 1991 by Richard M. Stallman that really started the open source movement. True, Linus Torvalds is the most famous open source figurehead, but his technical and organizational contributions would have landed on sterile legal ground, if not for this prior invention by the Free Software Foundation. The kind of scholars who have led the fight for free, open, legal software are listed below (see www.fsf.org).

The Free Software Foundation is directed by:

• Richard M. Stallman, president
• Peter T. Brown, executive director

  The Free Software Foundation has six people on its board of directors. They are:

• Geoffrey Knauth, senior software engineer at SFA, Inc.
• Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford University
• Eben Moglen, professor of law and legal history at Columbia University
• Henri Poole, founder of CivicActions, a grassroots campaign technology consulting firm
• Richard M. Stallman, founder of FSF and the GNU Project and author of the GNU GPL
• Gerald J. Sussman, professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Send them a donation, now! They are good people and involved in a worthy cause.

Most important, the Free Software Foundation has now set its sights on open content. As a first move, it is working on a draft of the third version of the GNU General Public License, which you can read at http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft.This draft includes the clause:

Some countries have adopted laws prohibiting software that enables users to escape from Digital Restrictions Management. DRM is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the GPL, which is to protect users' freedom; therefore, the GPL ensures that the software it covers will neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions, from which escape is forbidden.

Wow! Pretty heady stuff, but I think what it means is that the file sharing programs like Grokster, et al, can't be designated as open source code because they can serve up digital content that is "subject to digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden." I love that phrase, "from which escape is forbidden."

This new version of the GNU is most definitely in response to the recent Supreme Court case, MGM Studios Inc. versus Grokster Limited. This case is extraordinary because it was decided 9-0, which means unanimously. When Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Antonin Scalia agree on anything, you know that they both have got it wrong. If you want a good read, check out this landmark decision at Please Click Here!

What the Supreme Court held was that "One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright...is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties..., regardless of the device's lawful use."

What the Supreme Court has set up is a situation in which the open source movement must come up with smarter ways to regulate open content, because the old "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" approach has ran out of gas. So the new GNU General Public License says if you use a peer-to-peer file sharing program to infringe copyrighted material, you have also infringed the open source software under the GNU General Public License copyright as well.

So Grokster can sue you!!

Now all the liability has been shifted to the consumer. Which is the American way. Hallelujah.

Creative Commons License
Luckily, there is a solution and that solution is in the form of a Creative Commons License (and its commercial extensions, which are yet to be fully defined).

Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org, was founded in 2002 by these people:

• Hal Abelson, MIT
• James Boyle, Duke
• Michael Carroll, Villanova
• Eric Eldred, Eldritch Press
• Davis Guggenheim, filmmaker
• Joi Ito, venture capitalist
• Lawrence Lessing, Free Software Foundation and Stanford
• Eric Saltzman, filmmaker
• Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, University of Michigan

This group of good-looking do-gooders - check out the Web site - was inspired by the open source movement and the Free Software Foundation.

As stated on the CC Web site, a Creative Commons License has three parts and four mix and match components:

• Commons Deed: A simple, plain-language summary of the license, complete with the relevant icons.
• Legal Code: The fine print that you need to be sure the license will stand up in court.
• Digital Code: A machine-readable translation of the license that helps search engines and applications identity your work by its terms of use. The creator of the digital content can mix and match four conditions, shown in the text box at the bottom of this page.

With Creative Commons as a backdrop, our major thesis for 2006 will be to explore the emerging business models in the open content arena and perhaps come up with some commercial extensions to the CC license that will enable artists to make some money without working for the MAN.

Our belief is that open content will propel the open source movement across the chasm from the "early adopter" stage in the technology life cycle to the "early majority" stage and bring the ideas and energy of the open source movement into the mainstream. When this happens, society will change forever and the intellectual property age started by Thomas Jefferson and his invention of the Patent Office will come to a gradual end. Richard M. Stallman may turn out to be more famous than he currently thinks.

CC License: The creator of the digital content can mix and match four conditions:

Attribution. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give credit the way you request. Example: Jane publishes her photograph with an Attribution license, because she wants the world to use her pictures, provided they give her credit. Bob finds her photograph online and wants to display it on the front page of his Website. Bob puts Jane's picture on his site, and clearly indicates Jane's authorship.

Noncommercial. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work - and derivative works based upon it - but for noncommercial purposes only Example: Gus publishes his photograph on his Website with a Noncommercial license. Camille prints Gus' photograph. Camille is not allowed to sell the print photograph without Gus's permission.

No Derivative Works. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it. Example: Sara licenses a recording of her song with a No Derivative Works license. Joe would like to cut Sara's track and mix it with his own to produce an entirely new song. Joe cannot do this without Sara's permission (unless his song amounts to fair use).

Share Alike. You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work. Example: Gus's online photo is licensed under the Noncommercial and Share Alike terms. Camille is an amateur collage artist, and she takes Gus's photo and puts it into one of her collages. This Share Alike language requires Camille to make her collage available on a Noncommercial plus Share Alike license. It makes her offer her work back to the world on the same terms Gus gave her.

Note: No Derivatives and Share Alike are mutually exclusive.