Subject: open source article
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 09:58:36 EST

Hi,

I write an Internet Business Law column for Internet.com's Boardwatch 
magazine <www.boardwatch.com>. I'm writing a series of articles on open 
source and I'd like to get community feedback for my next article dealing 
with the question below. Can you post this or email your group members? If 
they want to respond or comment they can do so by emailing me at 
<[email-masked]>. I'll review responses until March 31, 2000, the deadline 
for the article. I expect the article will appear in the June magazine and 
online in July.

I'd like to hear dissenting views as much as those that agree.

Best regards, 

Tony

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QUESTION:

I believe that Open Source is a very important freedom movement, because, 
like Harvard's Professor Lessig says, code is law, but with a non-human 
police force. With closed code, we'll all be prisoners in the very near 
future. So I believe that code MUST be open.

But can anyone tell me why software can't be both open and sold like Windows? 
Why is it that software has to be basically given away if it's open? I'm not 
sure that anyone in Open Source has ever answered  this question. It just 
seems to be assumed without any critical analysis. Why can't Open Source 
developers get a royalty percentage of the sale price just like writers, 
recording artists or movie actors, and the product sold just like Windows is 
through traditional channels, so that the developers get paid for their work?

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