[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[FYI] MS-Mundie: Why open source is still questionable



http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20010517/tc/mundie_why_open_source_is_
still_questionable_1.html

------------------------------- CUT --------------------------------

Mundie: Why open source is still questionable  

By Craig Mundie, Special to ZDNet  

Responding to critics, Microsoft's Craig Mundie says the licensing 
model used by many open source firms turns existing concepts of 
intellectual property rights on their heads.  

[...]

The GPL turns our existing concepts of intellectual property rights 
on their heads. Some of the tension I see between the GPL and strong 
business models is by design, and some of it is caused simply because 
there remains a high level of legal uncertainty around the GPL--
uncertainty that translates into business risk.  

In my opinion, the GPL is intended to build a strong software 
community at the expense of a strong commercial software business 
model. That's why Linus Torvalds (news - web sites) said last week 
that "Linux (news - web sites) is never really going to be a rich 
sell."  

This isn't to say that some companies won't find a business plan that 
can make money releasing products under the GPL. We have yet to see 
such companies emerge, but perhaps some will. Recent history tells 
us, however, that finding a business model that works is difficult. 
According to ZDNet News, "Ransom Love, CEO of Caldera Systems...said 
he thinks Microsoft was right in its claim that the GPL doesn't make 
much business sense."  

What is at issue with the GPL? In a nutshell, it debases the currency 
of the ideas and labor that transform great ideas into great 
products.  

Alfred North Whitehead, the renowned British philosopher, logician 
and mathematician, observed: "It is a great mistake to think that the 
bare scientific idea is the required invention, so that it has only 
to be picked up and used. An intense period of imaginative design 
lies between. One element in the new method is just the discovery of 
how to set about bridging the gap between the scientific ideas and 
the ultimate product. It is a process of disciplined attack upon one 
difficulty after another."  

In other words, a critical flow of information and experimental data 
follows every major scientific discovery and results in the 
verification, refutation or refinement of the new idea or theory. To 
facilitate this process, neither copyright nor patent protections are 
available for abstract ideas or theories. This is as it should be.  

Legendary inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and 
Henry Ford (who held thousands of patents between them) succeeded 
precisely because they were able to use funding, management and 
market insight to deliver their innovations as unique, practical and 
useful products. Arguably, the creativity and inventiveness needed to 
deliver their products was comparable to that needed for the 
underlying theory or discovery that made their business possible in 
the first place.  

When comparing the commercial software model to the open-source 
software model, look carefully at the business plans and licensing 
structures that form their foundations. This comparison leads to the 
conclusion that the commercial software model alone has the capacity 
for sustaining real economic growth. Intellectual capital has always 
been, and will remain, the core asset of the software industry, and 
of almost every other industry. Preserving that capital--and 
investing in its constant renewal--benefits everyone.  

------------------------------- CUT --------------------------------