[Fsf-friends] Re: [ilug-goa] My thoughts on the IP and Software

[V. Sasi Kumar]

Dear Sanil, 

These are genuine doubts that occur to many people who are just being
introduced to the concepts involved in GPL and copyleft. Although I
myself am not an expert in these, I shall try to explain a few things,
and perhaps others would make corrections and additions. Here goes: 

On Sun, 2002-12-08 at 00:04, Frederick Noronha wrote: 
> A young friend from Goa has circulated his views. If you have any
> comments, please free to send them to him. Thanks, FN
> 
> On Sat, 7 Dec 2002, Sanil Talaulikar wrote:
> > 
> > My thoughts on the IP and Software
> > 
> > The question i feel should be asked is not whether
> > knowledge should be proprietory or free
> > but whether the possesion of that knowledge puts that
> > person in a position to exploit society.
When knowledge is not free, it can be, and usually will be used to
exploit society. We know that in India knowledge used to be controlled
and how it was used to keep a section of society oppressed. 
 
> > I see nothing wrong in a person making money out of
> > intellectual property that he has created as the
> > person who creates IP is creating value which did not
> > exist before. The idea is similar to a farmer who uses
> > land and freely available rain and sunlight to grow
> > new crops.

There is nothing wrong in a person making money out of ideas that (s)he has created. But let us not call it intellectual property, because it gives an impression that it is similar to something material. And that is the problem with the last part of the above paragraph. An idea is not similar to agricultural produce.
Knowledge, they say, grows when you give. Crops, unfortunately, deplete when you give. To that extent, knowledge is like fire.
So let the person make money by charging for giving the knowledge, for teaching, so long as the knowledge is given without restrictions.

> >  
> > The real issue here is whether the possession of IP
> > puts the person in a position to exploit others.
> > For example,An Operating System such as Windows makes
> > a computer usable,It is a driver for productivity in
> > the modern world.computer knowledge is becoming almost
> > a necessity and something one cannot almost do
> > without.Thus by selling proprietory windows(and
> > restricting freedoms) at a price which people of
> > developing countries cannot afford The gap between the
> > haves and havenot's further increases
> >  
> > This the society should not allow to happen.The GPL is
> > a great way to prevent this exploitation.The great
> > thing about GPL(GNU Public Lisence)
> >  is that it assures contributing members that their
> > contributions remain protected.People will only
> > contribute freely when they feel that their
> > contributions will not be commercially exploited.I
> > consider GPL an ingenious tool in the hands of the
> > society to prevent its exploitation(and its creator a
> > genius). 
> > 
> > But i dont subscribe to the extreme view that all
> > software should be GPl'ed.This is because the only way
> > a person can make money from GPl'ed software is by
> > 1)training people to use it and
> > 2) distributing it .
> > 	As regards to 1), according to me software should be
> > so easy to use that it should not require training at
> > all.If i want to make money out of GPL'ed software i
> > have to make my software 
> > difficult to use so that i can earn from it.This again
> > puts the creator and contributors of Gpl'ed software
> > in a unique position to exploit user's by charging a
> > high fee.

You have a point when you say that the person who develops the software would tend to make it more complex if he intends to make money out of training people to use it. This is taken care of in GPL because anyone is free to take and modify it, so long as it remains under GPL. In other words, society would take care of the problem! So it becomes useless to make the software difficult to study!

> > 	Ideally GNU/Linux should be so easy to use that it
> > empowers people so that more and more people can take
> > part in the digital revolution and contribute to
> > it(and we are getting there).

If you look at the changes in GNU/Linux that have occurred over the years, you would realise how rapidly it has changed into a very user-friendly OS. But let us not forget that the computer is still a tool, like a pencil, or a typewriter. Do you remember how long it took you to learn to write using a pencil? Learning a skill takes a bit of time. We can only make it short.

> > As regards to 2) How much money can you actually make
> > by distributing GPL'ed software?The problem is that it
> > costs nothing for a person who has obtained the
> > software directly through me to make one copy of it or
> > a million copies of it or distribute it on the
> > Internet. This is a crucial point on which software
> > differs from other products.If have bought a car or
> > any other tangible product i need to own the means to
> > produce/modify it before i can think of reproducing
> > it.Even then i will incurr a cost on every item i
> > produce.
> > 
> > The only way the software creator can earn from his
> > creation is by restricting certain freedoms The Open
> > source licensces allow this.

I guess what I stated earlier should have mitigated some of these doubts. Restrictions in freedom can be only to the extent of ensuring that the freedoms are not cut off by anyone down the line. It is that freedom that GPL has taken away, so that the freedoms we value are preserved. You still can create software and sell it to buyers who may be willing to pay for it because they want you to make that kind of software (custom-made) or because they want support.
But if you plan to make software for general use and want to restrict the freedoms so that you can sell copies, then that becomes proprietary software, and you would be contradicting your statements about GPL! Nobody is asking people to create such software as a means of making money. Please read several articles on this topic by Stallman at www.gnu.org.


> > According to me even creating proprietory software is
> > not bad as long as the creator does'nt intend to
> > exploit users or divide society.for example,i need not
> > provide the source code for software i developed for a
> > commercial store because the owner of commercial store
> > is unlikely to be interested in it as long as it
> > increases his productivity.In fact, the commercial
> > store is in 
> > a position to exploit me if i provide provide him with
> > freedoms to distribute, copy and modify the software
> > and its source.
> > 
> > One may point out,if i have bought a car i am not
> > forced to go to the car manufacturer for service or
> > modifications, i have the freedom to choose to who
> > services or modifies my car.
> > But again it is the nature of software that forces its
> > creator to put these restrictions.When i go to a
> > service station i dont provide the blueprint of the
> > car to him.Even if he has the blueprint he still does
> > not have means to reproduce it.

It is precisely this that makes software different. Incidentally, not only software, but also literature, music, and all kinds of information. Imagine, if Vyasa and Kalidasa had copyrighted their writings and demanded royalty everytime Mahabharatha or Sakunthalam were read or played!

> > 
> > Finally it all comes down to what purpose the software
> > is being used and the intentions of its creator.  

Let us not forget that the creator is also part of society. Let us also not forget that none other than Sir Isaac Newton once said, "If I could see further, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants."