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:

Dear ilugers, There have been a no. of arguments put forth and back on the issue of IP and its implications.My understanding of these issues is very limited.This is a humble attempt by me to improve my understanding of these issues.What actually happened was i was trying to study for my exams when all these thoughts occured to me and the only way i could clear my mind of them was to type them down.

Feel free to comment/critisize the various points i have raised because thats the only way i can further improve my understanding of these complex topics.(invitation to crucify me ;-) )

regards, Sanil

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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

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