Law Offices Of Michael G. O'Neill |
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| We Support The Open Source Movement | |
| The Open Source Movement |
Free As In Freedom, Not Free Beer |
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The Open Source movement is undoubtedly one of the most influential forces of
social change in the world today, and yet I suspect that 19 out of 20 Americans
have never heard of it. Of those 1 in 20, many have only a vague notion of
what it is all about.
The "source" in open source refers to computer source code. Computers only "understand" two things, 0 and 1. This is binary code. (Actually, zero and one are representations of and "on" or "off" state in computer memory, but I don't want to get too technical here.) Everything that a computer does is brought about by millions of commands built upon 0's and 1's. It is virtually impossible for humans to read and write commands in binary representation, so computer languages have been developed for that purpose. The programmer can write instructions in a programming language, and those instructions are converted to binary code. The source code is the set of instructions written in the programming language. The basic tenet of the Open Source Movement is that the source code of computer programs should be open and available to all. Why is this concept, as simple as it is, the source of so much controversy and why would it be a powerful agent of social change? The answer to this not so simple question is even less simple. It lies in the strange confluence of copyright and licensing law. In a broader sense, it demonstrates the awkward and cumbersome problems that arise when traditional legal concepts are employed to new technologies. The law is rooted in tradition and precedent, and it is forever playing catch-up with the real world. Copyright, as its name suggests, is the right to copy something. Copyright protection is extended to the original expression of any idea or information. Common examples of copyrighted material are books or a songs. A license is the right to use something in a very general sense of the word. Many people have roommates. Stricly speaking, the roommate has a license to use the apartment. Most McDonald's restaurants are franchised. The franchisee is given a license to use the name McDonald's and other licensed products in the operation of the business. Think of a license as "renting" something, except for real estate, which has its own special rules. When you rent a car, furniture, tools, you are using that property with the permission of the owner, and that is a license. Next |
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