Law in the Internet Society

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TomGlaisyerPaper1EbensArgument 16 - 10 Dec 2008 - Main.TomGlaisyer
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Introduction

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Efficacy and Efficiency of Anarchic production

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<		Eben's argument rests on the efficacy and efficiency of the free software movement following the adoption of theGeneral Product License (GPL). The evidence for productivity under the auspices of the GPL and other types of open source licenses is ever more plentiful - Samba, Mediawiki, Apache, Firefox - the list goes on. Few are now willing to defend the "closed" proprietary model (See Shawn Shell for the only article I could find from a quick search of Google and Google Scholar). Microsoft does so yet even they have opened a open source lab which seemingly seeks to benefit from external contributions of resources though doesn't license them in a "free" manner. Moreover, it is generally accepted that the success of free and open source software proves that it is of a comparable quality and reliability as that of proprietary software. These advantages are underpinned by the fact that if the code doesn't quite work as needed the technologists have the ability to fix it themselves, and no less importantly, technology executives can be confident that they won't be left managing proprietary tools for which support is either no longer available or suddenly 30% more expensive. Without question, the facts on the ground suggest that free software production works and works well.
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>		Eben's argument rests on the efficacy and efficiency of the free software movement following the adoption of theGeneral Product License (GPL). The evidence for productivity under the auspices of the GPL and other types of open source licenses is ever more plentiful - Samba, Mediawiki, Apache, Firefox - the list goes on. Few are now willing to defend the "closed" proprietary model (See Shawn Shell for the only article I could find from a quick search of Google and Google Scholar). Microsoft does so yet even they have opened a open source lab which seemingly seeks to benefit from external contributions of resources though doesn't license them in a "free" manner. Moreover, it is generally accepted that the success of free and open source software proves that it is of a comparable quality and reliability as that of proprietary software. These advantages are underpinned by the fact that if the code doesn't quite work as needed the technologists have the ability to fix it themselves, and no less importantly, technology executives, avoid the game playing inherent in selection processes for software licenses, and can be confident that they won't be left managing proprietary tools for which support is either no longer available or suddenly 30% more expensive. Without question, the facts on the ground suggest that free software production works and works well.
 

Open Source Production under a "free software" model


Revision 16r16 - 10 Dec 2008 - 21:22:30 - TomGlaisyer
Revision 15r15 - 29 Oct 2008 - 17:55:59 - MarcelEggler
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