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Re: Sunday, August 18, 2002
I'm going to step in here and defend Lessig. I read your rebuttal and I find a number of problems with it. Let's go through it together. Maybe we'll both learn something by the time we're done. Dave: "Lessig's analogy doesn't work. You can not see how Hemingway wrote, you can only see the words he published, the publication does not reveal the process. Similarly with software, students are free to study the published work, and use that as prior art (patents notwithstanding). Lessig's analogy is wrong." Me: I agree that Lessig's analogy isn't perfect, but its not nearly as far off as you claim. Without the source code to an OS, virtually nothing can be learned about the algorithms and techniques involved. I think its a mistake to say that programs reveal as much about their creation as novels do. It is true, however, that a fair amount can be learned from GUI apps without access to source code. Dave: "Further, I can sing a song I heard on the radio, but with published source, anyone would be able to sing the song as well as the person who created it." Me: Here is a failed analogy on your part. Publishing the source code does not give anyone without a great deal of time and intelligence the ability to do anything with it as well as the author. Sure, I can USE the software as well as the author, but I could already do that without the source. What I can't do as well as the author is make changes to the code, at least not without expending a great deal of effort to learn the software. Dave: "There's a reason why open source software hasn't produced very many memorable melodies. Programmers have to make a buck to keep programming. It's pretty simple." Me: I think your really misunderstanding Lessig here. Source can be "open" and still not be freely distributable. Copyright and "open source" are not mutually exclusive. Lessig's view is quite different from Stallman's. This is something thats sort of a pet peeve of mine, and its something I wish people talked about a lot more. You can give a paying customer the source code to your software without giving them the right to redistribute it or incorporate it into their own commercial products. Of course, the latter would be quite difficult to enforce without laws requiring source code to be open. Dave: "Or take Lessig's course from 1989 and get just as well educated. Software is unique among creative and thoughtful work, in this way. The source gives you an exact replica of the original. And software needs to be upgraded. It costs money to do that. That's why we don't publish the source code, so we can keep working on it." Me: As I've stated above, its takes a lot of time and effort to grok source code well enough to make changes/upgrades to the code nearly as efficiently as the original author. Giving customers your source is not going to stop them from asking for improvements. I doubt developers like you would take any noticeable hit at all. Oftentimes, open sourcing a product ADDS value. The bottom line is what I call my asshole principle, "If you can improve the world without any significant cost to yourself, then why not do it?" Only an asshole wouldn't. Come on Dave! Don't be an asshole. Lessig is not trying to destroy copyright or rob you of your capacity to earn a living. Jonathan Simpson
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