Re: [ox-en] gates on open source
- From: Russell McOrmond <russell flora.ca>
- Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 16:32:05 -0400 (EDT)
On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Timm Murray wrote:
More important then that, I think, is this point: "for a country to deny
itself the benefits of these high-paying jobs . . . ". From this statement,
we have to assume that the only source of computer-related jobs is in
comercial software development--that is, software that will sit on a shelf at
Best Buy or wherever for consumers to come along and buy.
When I made a presentation to some highschool audiences (Two senior
highschool classes, and one professional development day for a group of
teachers), I broke things down a bit differently. In fact, I deliberately
excluded "private software" (Software developed/used in-house and thus
never distributed) as the audience would never interact with this type of
software. When one includes in that private software, the almost
insignificant part of the industry that is "Software Manufacturing" (IE:
creators of propriatary software where licenses are sold) is relatively
insignificant.
I'd love to see a recognized study that shows how much
private-vs-distributed software there is, to try to put the myth of
"software manufacturing" being a critical part of the economy.
For different software business models, I used the following:
http://www.flora.ca/copyright-2001.shtml#business-models
Selling Licenses
Prominent method use by bigger businesses, modeling business practices
against those that worked in the Industrial economy. This model makes
money by creating artificial scarcity of software through restrictions
in the ability of consumers to copy and access works.
Software as a Service
The growing ASP (Application Service Provider) market which includes
players from both the Free Software and proprietary software markets.
The new Microsoft .NET initiative as well as the compatible Free
Software Mono projects will most likely primarily use business models in
this category. In this business model the customer is purchasing the
processing ability of remote software which is never sent to the
customer, and thus copyright is not a factor. Authors who wish to keep
their code private would do so through Trade Secrets which rely on
privacy laws and not copyright.
Servicing Software
This is the most popular business model used by the Free Software
industry where programmers get paid to innovate and increase the value
of existing Free Software. In this case copyright is primarily needed to
protect authenticity of software (IE: the copyright notice identifies
the author) which gives credit to the author. Copyright laws are also
used by the GNU GPL (GNU General Public License) to protect derivative
works from removing freedoms afforded in the original intellectual work,
to ensure that the availability of Free Software will continue to
expand.
More:
Report on visit to a high-school as a guest speaker
http://weblog.flora.ca/article.php3?story_id=129
Copyright Issues: Professional Development day, Feb 22, 2002
http://weblog.flora.ca/article.php3?story_id=114
Submission to 2001 copyright reform consultation
http://weblog.flora.ca/article.php3?story_id=52
---
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
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