[Politech] Replies to paper on open source, games, and public policy [ip]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Wed Nov 19 2003 - 06:13:15 PST

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    Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 18:31:11 +0000
    To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
    From: "Charles Arthur, The Independent" <carthur@private>
    Subject: Re: [Politech] Solveig Singleton on open source, games,        and
      public policy
    
    Hi ...
    
    At 9:30 am -0500 on 18/11/03, you wrote:
    
     ><x-flowed>---
     >
     >"FreeCiv" and its Discontents:
     >Policy Lessons from Open Source Games: A Case Study
     >by Solveig Singleton
    
    Well, I guess that about wraps it up for explaining why there aren't many
    open-source games.
    
    So could someone explain what the *hell* this has to do with governments
    adopting open source for things like office programs, which seem to get
    open-source-developed fairly well?
    
    One suspects the key reason why there's plenty of office software that's
    open-source yet little games software is because:
    -geeks need operating systems and office software they can rely on that's cheap
    -geeks don't necessarily need games.
    
    Seems like another example of CEI pursuing a strawman, punching it to bits,
    and declaring itself a winner.
    And I greatly enjoyed mentally replacing every mention of "innovators" with
    "Microsoft". It read just the same, except in the latter way it made sense.
    
    And by the way Apple, which could probably be called an "innovator", makes
    the codebase of its OSX operating system (Darwin) available on an
    open-source style basis. So the two aren't completely incompatible.
    
    Oh, and just to finish - I can think of two very fine open-source games in
    ongoing development: GnuChess and GnuGo. Both have very fine rankings on
    the internet tournament sites where you can play against them or other
    humans. There's freeware chess programs that are Master-level.
    
    In short, a badly-constructed example which ignored the wider meaning of
    the word "game". And since when was server software a game?
    
    
             best
             Charles
    -- 
      -------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Independent newspaper on the Web: http://www.independent.co.uk/
             It's even better on paper
    
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    Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 18:43:00 +0000
    From: David Tomlinson <d.tomlinson@private>
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    To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
    Subject: Re: [Politech] Solveig Singleton on open source, games,        and 
    public
      policy
    References: <6.0.0.22.2.20031118091732.022304a0@private>
    
    A responce to:
    
    >"FreeCiv" and its Discontents:
    >Policy Lessons from Open Source Games: A Case Study
    >by Solveig Singleton
    >The passionate and often vitriolic debate between advocates of “open 
    >source” software and “closed” or proprietary models is now drawing the 
    >attention of policy makers.
    
    I would question the use of games, as public policy rarely involves the 
    purchase of games, outside the eductaional sector. But what disturbs me 
    more, is that as a casual observer I am more aware of the issues 
    surrounding Open Source Procurment than a Senior Policy Analyst, who has 
    studied the subject.
    
    Mr Singleton should be moe aware of the real issues associated with Open 
    Source in Government, such as those outlined by Peruvian  Congressman DR. 
    EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ, which is a carefully considered analysis, in 
    contrast to Mr Singletons polemic (rather than reasoned policy argument).
    
    http://www.opensource.org/docs/bill-EngTrans.php
    
    Mr Nunez identifies the following issues:
    
         * Free Access of the citizens to public information
         * Perenniality of public data
         * Security of the State and of the citizens
    
    I suggest that Mr Singleton, read the whole document as he may find it 
    enlightening, and not monivated simply by anti-american or anti-microsoft 
    sentiment, which is the motivation Mr Singleton attributed the promotion of 
    open source in public policy.
    
    Microsoft then commented with a letter.
    
    http://www.opensource.org/docs/msFUD_to_peru.php
    
    Which is more considered case than that expressed by Mr Singleton.
    
    And to which Mr Nunez replies, restating the principles in another letter.
    
    http://www.opensource.org/docs/peru_and_ms.php
    
    Lessons for Pulic Policy.
    
    Mr Singleton does not appear to be aware of tyhe destinction between Open 
    Source and Free Software. Open Source is a superset of Free Software and 
    includes a variety of licences one of the most permissive is the BSD sytle 
    licences
    
    See: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
    
    As opposed to Free Software, which is predicated on the FSF or GNU public 
    licence.
    
    http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
    
    However, I have argued that the GNU Public Licence, in effect uses 
    copyright to deny copyright. So not only does the licence place the 
    software in the public domain, as BSD stlye licence s effectively do, they 
    prevent appropriation by closed source software.
    
    However neither impact, on the use of the software, the GNU public licence 
    only impacts on modification and distribution of software. If you do not 
    wish to publicly distribute the software, then the GUN public licence 
    places no restrictions upon you use. (IANAL).
    
    However the fruits of public money should be available to the public, you 
    can make a choice can be made about the potential to commercialise the 
    fruits of public speading, and an appropriate licence selected.
    
    I am sure the argument has moved on since Mr Nunez, but I am not party to 
    it, I could further deconstruct Mr Singletons arguments, but no one is 
    paying me for my time. I would just like to thank Mr Singleton for exposing 
    his views and advice to a public forum, in return I have expended half an 
    hour of my private time responding in the hope of informing the public debate.
    
    I am sure more considered and professional responces will be forth coming 
    for more offical open source and free software sources.
    
    Regards
    
    David Tomlinson
    
    
    ---
    
    Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 11:51:03 -0800
    From: Creede Lambard <creede@private>
    To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
    Subject: Re: [Politech] Solveig Singleton on open source, games, and public 
    policy
    
    Declan,
    
    I can't help but think that the author of this article is making some
    incorrect assumptions about the types of games that would be successful under
    open source. This seems to be based primarily on the example of first-person
    shooters and other run-jump-shoot type, graphically intensive games, and
    relies as examples of failed open source models the work of Loki Games, which
    were not open source at all, but were ported from proprietary operating
    systems and sold as proprietary products with little open source content
    apart from an installer written by Loki.
    
    The author makes much of saying that artists will want to be paid, but then
    mentions "NetHack," which contains no artwork at all other than crude
    terminal graphics. GAMES Magazine recently profiled an Internet-based
    community who create text-based games similar to those pioneered by Adventure
    International and Infocom (and which trace their ancestry back to the
    COlossal Cave adventure in the mid-60s). These games use no graphics at all,
    but allow the player to imagine the setting from the text. Saying that these
    games could not be produced because artists want to be paid is much like
    saying that it's too expensive to produce radio drama because people want to
    be paid to paint the sets.
    
    Play-by-mail games such as those conducted by Flying Buffalo
    (www.flyingbuffalo.com) are perfect for open source game creation. They again
    require little or nothing in the way of graphics, just a database to store
    all the information and produce the reports for the players, and email
    capability for the players to negotiate with each other.
    
    Games have been played by mail for as long as there have been mail and games.
    Open-source clients already exist for chess, backgammon and go servers on the
    Internet. A programmer can make these clients as simple (curses-based console
    graphics) or as complex (with sound, background music and animated avatars)
    as he or she wants to make them.
    
    Perhaps the open source community simply hasn't found what games are best
    suited to its particular way of operation yet. I fully expect that it will
    eventually do so. Granted that Nintendo-Sega style games make money, but the
    open source world isn't all about money. It's more often than not about
    writing "software that doesn't suck," even -- and sometimes especially -- if
    the person who wants that particular piece of software has to write it
    himself.
    
    And even after reading the article twice I'm not sure how we got from "you
    can't make money with open source games" to conclusions about the role of
    open source in government.
    
    ---
    
    From: "Tony Healy" <thealy@private>
    To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@private>
    Subject: [Politech] Dearth of games highlights inconsistencies in open 
    source model REMOVEEMAIL
    Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 12:06:27 +1100
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    Declan
    
    Hargreaves' explanations for the failure of the open source model in games,
    referred to by Solveig Singleton in her paper, are wrong, in my view.
    
    Modern 3D games demand a high level of programming expertise and innovation
    which, contrary to popular mythology, open source simply cannot provide.
    Games also differ from other software in that the fast rate of change
    renders older public and university code bases useless for competing in the
    games market.
    
    I concur with Singleton that the lessons of the games market, where
    innovation is at a premium, highlight the dangers of the open source model
    for government. I have written on this subject in the Australian context:
    
    http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=616
    
    The value of intellectual property for innovation has also been confirmed in
    a paper by Sunil Kanwar and Robert Evenson, which used cross-country panel
    data on R&D investment, patent protection and other country-specific
    characteristics over the period 1981­95 to conclude that intellectual
    property rights unambiguously spur innovation.
    
    There is also an absurd implication in Hargreaves' explanations. To say that
    the stumbling block in open source games is that artists won't work for free
    implies that programmers will. I find it extraordinary that open source
    advocates do not examine this anomaly in more depth. The true explanation is
    found in the observations by Bertrand Meyer and Nikolai Bezroukov that
    so-called free programming is often funded by taxpayers in one form or
    another, and that open source essentially represents a distortion of the
    market.
    
    
    1. Shawn Hargreaves, Playing the Open Source Game, July 1999
    http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/games.html
    
    2. Solveig Singleton: "FreeCiv" and its Discontents: Policy Lessons from
    Open Source Games: A Case Study, CATO, 2003
    http://politechbot.com/pipermail/politech/2003-November/000227.html
    
    3. Sunil Kanwar and Robert Evenson: Does intellectual property protection
    spur technological change? Oxford Economic Papers 2003; 55:235-264
    (Department of Economics, University of Delhi, and Yale University)
    
    4. Bertrand Meyer: The Ethics of Free Software, Software Development
    Magazine March 2000
    http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/s=746/sdm0003d/0003d.htm?temp=OeMRYHq5pQ
    (Needs free registration)
    
    5. Nikolai Bezroukov: Open Source Software Development as a Special Type of
    Academic Research, October 1999
    http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_10/bezroukov
    
    
    Regards, Tony Healy
    
    ---
    
    From: "Dave Howe" <DaveHowe@private>
    To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@private>
    References: <6.0.0.22.2.20031118091732.022304a0@private>
    Subject: Re: [Politech] Solveig Singleton on open source, games,and public 
    policy
    Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 21:36:07 -0000
    
    Declan McCullagh wrote:
     > "FreeCiv" and its Discontents:
     > Policy Lessons from Open Source Games: A Case Study
     > by Solveig Singleton
     > The implication that open source "belongs" to the public is a
     > peculiar one,  since open source is not public domain.
     > The open source license entails considerable obligations,
     > the legal implications of which are sometimes unclear. For
     > example, the GPL rather complicates the question of fair
     > use and derivative works. (A derivative work is a work
     > based on another work,  perhaps by including a part of
     > the original work, or transforming it somehow).
    A poor, but common comparison. GPL is not the only Open Source licence - an
    example would be the BSD licence which Microsoft made use of to include
    networking code released under such a licence in their Windows product (an
    odd happenstance given their public aversion to the Open Source movement).
    The more restrictive LGPL licence allows use of the technology and "source"
    in a commercial product, with the stipulation that changes to the technology
    must be shared with the community (note this does not mean the commercial
    product, but improvements, bugfixes or changes to the technology that the
    company is, after all, getting for free)
    
     > Most importantly, the public would not be best served by forcing
     > innovators to work with one model of intellectual property license.
    Indeed - this is why the Open Source umbrella covers a multitude of
    possibilities.
    Another good example is the Mozilla licence - which allows GPL style "viral"
    use of all the source by the OSS community *but* also reserves to the
    originators all *commercial* exploitation of the source, either original or
    contributed.  MySQL operates a similar duality - you may use MySQL as much
    as you want, for free - *but* if you want to bundle it in with a commercial
    product without giving away that product to all comers, source and all, you
    need to commercially licence it from AB.
    
    
     > If the purpose of  government research is to fund projects otherwise
     > too risky for the private sector to fund, the researchers will need some
     > flexibility to ensure they are rewarded for taking the risk.
    What risk? if the government funds research, then all the costs and wages
    involved are covered by the government, win or lose.
    I can see why the *additional* incentive of being allocated the rights for
    commercial exploitation of any successful research might attract more
    "partners" than a pure research contract - but no other setup in the
    commercial world works this way. If I go to a research company and ask for a
    research team to investigate something for me, under contract, then I get
    quoted a price and any results of that research belong to me. I don't need
    to offer them costs+profit and *then* on top of that the right to sell
    whatever they discover to the highest bidder.
    
     > Privatizing revenue streams through
     > intellectual property or other means often serves the public well.
    Few IP restrictions serve the public well; the only real good Patents do is
    to encourage public documentation of innovation in return for which the
    holder is guaranteed exclusive rights to use and abuse that process or
    method for a limited term. That was fine in the era of gentleman researchers
    finding their cleverest inventions being taken and mass-marketed by the
    nearest big business in the field without a penny of return; however, those
    days are well past - commonly patents are taken out on "novel uses" of
    existing technology (or even business methods!), on minor lab discoveries
    without any known benefit (in the hope someday down the line something
    similar can be claimed to be derived from that process) and every big
    company now has whole filing cabinets full of patents purely to use as
    weapons in licencing wars and raise the barrier to new entrants to the
    field.
    Few and far between are the bright new innovators who, without working in a
    lab for a Big Company or in university, come up with a new and novel
    invention that revolutionizes even a small part of the market.
    
    
     >Procurement Policies should be Neutral.
     > In several countries, including Brazil, China, Germany, and Singapore,
     > government procurement policies have been rewritten to require
     > preferences for open source. Proposed legislation in Oregon and
     > Texas seeks to direct state officials to "consider" open source
     > against proprietary software "on a value-for-money" basis. For any given
     > software purchase, there might well be good reasons­ - including cost,
     > quality, standardization,  and security requirements­ to prefer either
     > open source or proprietary versions.
    Indeed so. There are a wide range of factors to consider - Open Source is
    never even effectively free; it always runs on hardware which must be
    bought, requires support and maintanance (which may be free but which
    equally may require you to hire programmers and staff only to give the
    fruits of their labour back to the world) and generally as Microsoft are so
    fond of pointing out, the payment made for a disk containing software is
    only a single item in the overall cost.
    That said however, odds are good that a functionally equivilent open source
    package will be more cost effective than an expensive payware one - because
    all other things being equal, you will *still* need to buy hardware, hire
    staff, and pay for some support.  Many companies feel more comfortable with
    support contracts on hand - even if some aren't worth the paper they are
    printed on (nobody in the industry is foolish enough to guarantee to fix any
    or all problems in software within a time limit; the few that do often have
    little or no "pull" with the suppliers anyhow, and can only report problems
    upstream and pray that the suppliers produce a fix before *they* (not the
    suppliers) get sued for not sticking to the terms of their support
    contract.)
    With hardware this is much easier - you can afford to offer a guaranteed one
    day fix if you are capable of replacing every component (shipping an entire
    new machine) just to meet your deadline, and taking the old one apart for
    salvage afterwards.
    Similar support of OSS (which costs as much and occasionally more than
    support for closed source products; at least with CSS you have the guideline
    of the original sale price to calculate your 10% support offering :) is a
    little simpler; no, if you rush a urgent problem out into "the community"
    you aren't guaranteed a fix (and if you try pushing too hard, you might find
    those who could help laugh in your face) but worst possible case, you can
    hire your own programmers and pay them by the hour to, if not fix the
    underlying problem, at least produce a problem-specific "cludge" to work
    around the symptoms until they *can* fix the problem (or until the community
    out there is insulted by the crudity of your patch and fixes the problem
    themselves)
    
     > Presumably, a competent software buyer can weigh all of these factors
     > while making his decision. Note that it will not always be clear which way
     > these concerns cut. For example, the idea that open source code is more
     > secure than closed source code is open to question.
    Indeed so. I will not get into that argument here, as both sides have good
    and bad arguments, and both sides are usually too blinkered to see that the
    other side has good arguments (while covering their opponent's bad arguments
    like proof positive of failure, of course)
    
     > While there are a plethora of worms and viruses directed at
     > Windows because of the political proclivities of hackers,
       I would argue it is because it is an easy target - One of the major
    factors in the efficiency of a burglar alarm and home security system is
    that it doesn't matter as an absolute how good or bad it is - just that it
    is better than the other targets the burglar has to attack.
       There are a vast number of windows systems out there whose owners have no
    idea of security, will double-click almost anything that arrives in email,
    and who prefer an email client that makes life easy and has pretty pictures
    rather than one that makes life hard and is text-only.
       If that great number of people had Linux instead of windows, yes, we would
    see the commonest viruses and worms attacking insecure and badly configured
    Linux boxes. But for now, even a badly configured linux box is a harder (and
    less common) target than a windows box.
       That isn't to say that it is entirely based on numerical count - the
    commonest web server out there is Apache, yet the most commonly attacked is
    IIS.  When apache is attacked though, the community is outraged, patches are
    rushed out as fast as possible, and applied almost as fast.  When IIS is
    attacked, largely MS will ignore the problem, suggest turning off whatever
    "valuable feature" the attack relies on, or point to a patch they issued
    some months previously and smugly claim that any now-suffering machines are
    due to non-application of this patch. Well, in the latter case, yes - they
    are. IIS admins are more lax than apache admins, more used to MS patches
    breaking other things (so don't dare apply them in a production environment
    until they have tested them on a spare server, when they have time) and
    generally don't keep their IIS servers fully up to date with whatever
    patches are available (this may have something to do with the carefully
    fostered impression that MS servers take less skilled personnel to operate,
    so overall have a lower TCO than unix - which unfortunately means less
    skilled and more overworked admins trying to keep them safe and secure)
       To come back to the original point - Open source is not some universal
    security bandaid (nor is SSL Vpn, IPv6, ATM or whatever else the vendors
    sales force is pushing this week)
    
     > this problem will not affect all proprietary software and might equally
     > affect an open source program used by a political target.
       Unless tightly targetted, normally an attack is on low-hanging fruit. for
    this reason, *ANY* monoculture is bad (I would write a paper on that, but
    the last guy who did got downsized for possibly offending microsoft)
       An example that might get Commercial backs up a little less is the current
    DNS system - largely BIND, and to a great extent the same version of bind.
    A massed attack on bind (and there have been plenty of vunerabilities over
    the years) could make the whole web near-unusable; there are alternatives,
    and those little islands of sanity would survive, but as the DNS system is a
    co-operative mesh of delegated authority, losing any link means losing
    whatever is below it (so if for example .co.uk relies on BIND, then it
    doesn't matter if you and microsoft.co.uk are both using Windows 2000 for
    your DNS, your search will get as far as .co.uk and then stop. you won't
    know how to reach dns.microsoft.co.uk so can't look up www.microsoft.co.uk
    for your web browser or mailstop.microsoft.co.uk to send them email)
    The only thing more important to the web than DNS is the BGP protocols used
    by the ISPs to route traffic between themselves - but as that is not quite
    as reliant on a single product, it could probably survive a massed attack
    (ok, some isps might need to switch from cisco to juniper or vice-versa for
    their border routing, but the world would recover relatively quickly)
    
     > A government-mandated preference for one over the other simply leaves the
     > end user with fewer options. Where government purchasing power drives
     > the market, it might leave all users with fewer options.
       If this is true, surely it mandates that the government should move in
    favour of open *standards* - rather than open source products.
       By promoting purchase of products that can communicate effectively with
    all comers supporting the standard, they encourage not only the current
    players to market their open source or commercial products to people, but
    new players to produce new, but equally compatable products in the same
    arena.
       Embrace and Extend disrupts open standards and attempts to close them to
    competitors - which is good for the vendor who can achieve that, but bad for
    everyone else (including customers of the vendor who find they are producing
    output incompatable with software not produced by the same vendor, while
    everyone including themselves can read the output of those who stick to the
    standards)
    
     > Those who absolutely cannot overcome their animus against Microsoft should
     > remember that many other companies besides Microsoft produce
     > proprietary software, many of which are not American.
    Microsoft is a common target because of their repeated and well-documented
    abuse of monopoly power.  IBM used to be the "big bully" on the block, and
    in a few years it will be someone else. That most of these companies are
    american is not surprising - most of the innovation in the computer world
    took place in america, and amercian companies got a head-start that few
    non-american companies can catch up with (there are exceptions - the most
    secure firewall in the market is usually held to be Checkpoint's - which is
    an israeli company.)
    Anti-microsoft sentiment is seldom anti-american (which is another issue -
    although the deliberate policy of shipping security-crippled products to the
    rest of the world has partially led to the common impression that american
    products are insecure).
    Few buyers will deliberately search out non-american alternatives to
    microsoft - while many will search out non-microsoft alternatives to
    microsoft products (in the corporate email arena, microsoft's only two
    serious competitors are lotus and novell - both american companies)
    
    ---
    
    From: Zero Sum <count@private>
    Organization: Tobacco Chewers and Body Painters Association
    To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
    Subject: Re: [Politech] Solveig Singleton on open source, games, and public 
    policy
    Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 11:54:05 +1100
    User-Agent: KMail/1.5.2
    
    Declan, I was rather sorry to see such an apalling mismash of truth and
    deception publish with comment.  I hope you will publish this in response.
    
    
    While there is much that Solveig has to say that is of interest,
    unfortuately either by ignorance or obfuscation there are a number of
    fundamental errors in his missive that somehwat undetermine his case.
    It is posible that he may wish to reconsider some of them an producer a
    newer, more accurate version...
    
     > Policy Lessons from Open Source Games: A Case Study
     > by Solveig Singleton
     >
    [snip]
    
     >It tells a cautionary tale for those who would prefer open
     > source out of ideology, without attention to results. Government
     > procurement and research funding policies should remain neutral,
     > preferring neither proprietary nor open source licensing.
    
    The inherent assumption that all those who prefer open source do so out of
    ideology is completely false.  I'll ask a question, "If Microsoft Windows
    was a product produced in the PRC by PRC programmers, would you condone
    it's use in American government institutions and defence areas?".
    Caution, if you answer "yes", many people will question your sanity.
    I very much doubt that any government is pleased to have its informational
    infrastructure "0wned" by another country...
    
    I personally vastly prefer Open Source.  But not out of ideology.
    
    [snip]
    
     > Finally, the lag between the development of open source games and
     > proprietary games illustrates the relative slowness of the open source
     > development process in completing very complex projects. It may be no
     > accident that Linux lags behind the Mac operating system or Windows in
     > developing consumer-friendly interfaces suitable for a mass consumer
     > market, although the (originally proprietary) Unix model from which its
     > overall pattern is taken goes way back.
     >
    Humm...  Take another look.  The recent releases of the KDE interface are
    _more_ consumer-friendly than anything Microsoft or Apple have to offer.
    I am selling systems based on precisely this fact.  I am selling home and
    SOHO systems to people who are utterly astounded at the ease of use - and
    the ease of modification and installation of new software.
    
    Again, no ideaology here.  Purely a superior product.
    
     > It should not be surprising that the open source business model has
     > weaknesses as well as strengths. There is room in the market for a long
     > continuum of types of intellectual property license. The English
     > language is public domain, as are many common story lines and much
     > creative imagery­but few good novels are. Government cannot and should
     > not pick winners and losers in the world of technology any more than in
     > the world of language. Policy should be neutral. The following
     > recommendations would help keep it so.
     >
    Yes, policy should be neutral.  But by chosing proprietry environments it
    is ensured that all further choices are not neutral.  Say you think that
    "gnumeric" is the best spreadsheet program (I am not asserting the that it
    is), if you have chosen a proprietry foundation, then too bad, it is too
    late, your choices have been limited by the proprietry environment that
    you chose.  While on the other hand, if you chose an open environment
    there is no reason that you cannot use say, Excel if you wish (although it
    may not be the latest and greatest version).
    
    With regard to English being in the public domain, you have some
    contrasting opinions about that.  Microsoft decided that the word windows
    was not public domain.  Thankfully they lost their case.
    
     > • Innovators Should Not Be Required to Make Government-Funded Software
     > Research Open Source.
     >
     > Some have suggested that all government-funded software research be
     > released as open source. Open source advocate Bruce Perens, for example,
     > argues:
     >
     > “The people pay for government-funded research; its fruits should be
     > available to all of them equally. We promote Open Source/Free Software
     > licensing of all taxpayer-funded software and data as a means of
     > distributing research results fairly.”
     >
     > The implication that open source “belongs” to the public is a peculiar
     > one, since open source is not public domain. The open source license
     > entails considerable obligations, the legal implications of which are
     > sometimes unclear. For example, the GPL rather complicates the question
     > of fair use and derivative works. (A derivative work is a work based on
     > another work, perhaps by including a part of the original work, or
     > transforming it somehow).
     >
    Either Mr. Singleton is extremely ignorant here or is being disingenuous.
    The GPL is one of many, many Open Source facilities.
    
    I suggest that he scan his computer for the word "Regent".  I he is using a
    Microsoft product, he will find many, many occurences.  It would appear
    that Microsoft developed their TCP/IP stack by starting with an Open
    Source product (FreeBSD, I believe).  This isn't really surprising as they
    were so far behind at the time that would never have caught up.
    Microsoft probably owes its continued existance and certainly a great part
    of its profitability from taking Open Source software and using it in
    their proprietry systems with absolutley no "derivative works" issues.
    
    Similarly for the Mac whose OSX is based almost entirely on Open Source
    work.
    
    This one really requires a retraction and apology from Mr. Singleton if he
    is to retain any creedence whatsoever.
    
     > Most importantly, the public would not be best served by forcing
     > innovators to work with one model of intellectual property license.
    
     > If the purpose of government research is to fund projects otherwise too
     > risky for the private sector to fund, the researchers will need some
     > flexibility to ensure they are rewarded for taking the risk. Privatizing
     > revenue streams through intellectual property or other means often
     > serves the public well.
     >
    Since the MS TCP/IP stack came from Open Source, the Mac TCP/IP stack is
    part of OSX also from Open Source, there are very, very few people able to
    use email that do not owe that fact to Open Source.
    
    Researchers are normally paid salaries by some institution to do the
    research.  I think that Mr. Singlton is being somewhat disingenuous if not
    downright dishonest here.
    
     > • Procurement Policies should be Neutral.
     >
     > In several countries, including Brazil, China, Germany, and Singapore,
     > government procurement policies have been rewritten to require
     > preferences for open source.
    
    For very good and sound reasons.  Security, longevity and public
    participation and ownership of the data being among them.  That a
    goverment use and come to depend software that can be turned off remotely
    by another government skirts close to the wrong side of the borders of
    lunacy.  It is certainly not soemthing the US would tolerate.
    
     > Proposed legislation in Oregon and Texas
     > seeks to direct state officials to “consider” open source against
     > proprietary software “on a value-for-money” basis. For any given
     > software purchase, there might well be good reasons­including cost,
     > quality, standardization, and security requirements­ to prefer either
     > open source or proprietary versions.
     >
    You have a problem with this? If you do, why do you think taxes should be
    wasted?
    
     > Presumably, a competent software buyer can weigh all of these factors
     > while making his decision. Note that it will not always be clear which
     > way these concerns cut. For example, the idea that open source code is
     > more secure than closed source code is open to question.
    
    Please Mr. Singleton, you may open the question but few reputable security
    experts would do so.  Security by obscurity is not security is the ususal
    mantra.
    
     > While there are a plethora of worms and viruses directed at Windows
     > because of the political proclivities of hackers, this problem will not
     > affect all proprietary software and might equally affect an open source
     > program used by a political target.
    
    I've been a hacker for over tthirty years.  I've never written a virus or
    been on a system that I didn't have an invite to be in and I never will
    knowingly do so.  Please get your terminology right and do not accuse and
    insult the people who provided you with access to the Internet and that
    capacity to write the email that I am answering. And please remember that
    you used software derived from open source software to do it.
    
     > A government-mandated preference for one over the other simply leaves the
     > end user with fewer options. Where government purchasing power drives the
     > market, it might leave all users with fewer options.
     >
    Please justify that ridiculous statement.
    
     > Furthermore, some of the political support for building preferences for
     > open source into the process comes from anti-Microsoft sentiment,
     > compounded in Europe by more general anti-American sentiment.
    
    I don't knowingly work for or with criminals.  The fact that Microsoft is a
    criminal organisation was established by American courts, and as yet, they
    go unpunished.  In much of Europe there are laws called against
    "consorting" with criminals and criminal organisations.  It is actually an
    arguable case that the use of Microsoft software and/or making a payment
    to Microsoft is a criminal offense in much of the world.  and you write
    this off as "sentiment".
    
     > There are mutterings that should Microsoft cut prices to meet the Linux
     > competition, it would be illegal in Europe. This does seem to be looking
     > the gift horse of competition in the mouth. Those who absolutely cannot
     > overcome their animus against Microsoft should remember that many other
     > companies besides Microsoft produce proprietary software, many of which
     > are not American. In any case, enshrining Company A versus Company B
     > battles in general technology policy would allow a faddish tail to wag
     > what should be a stolid working dog.
     >
    Here Mr. Solveig totally leaves reality for some sort of divinely inspired
    message.  Please read carefully and try and understand.
    
    You can't "cut prices" to compete with something that is free of charge.
    
    It is possible to have a reasonable case against Microsoft.  A large number
    of American state governments have done so.  That is not "animus".  I
    realise that English is your second language, but there are plenty of
    English dictionaries.
    
    "Linux" is not a company.
    
    Oh, and in case you assume that I am a "Linux wienie" (whatever that is) I
    would like to make the point that there are 7 computers in my house for
    the use of myslef and my family.  None of them run linux or are ever
    likely to do so.  At least one of them is incapable of doing so.  It is my
    belief that while it is demonstrably impossible to secure Microsoft
    products, that that is pretty close to true for linux too.
    
     > Conclusion
     >
     > The development of exciting ideas in software is not a matter of rote.
    
    It certainly isn't.  Not is it something that MS does as part of its
    regular bussines.  I have been in the industry of over thirty years and I
    have yet to see a single innovation my Microsoft.
    
     > The business is, as businesses go, still very young. As the years pass,
     > many new models of developing and licensing software products will
     > emerge.
    
    Err, I think you must have left this in from something you wrote thirty
    years ago.  I'm old, and spent my entire working life in the industry and
    during that time many new models of developing and licensing software
    products have indeed emerged.
    
     > Some day, perhaps, someone will program a “software artist” to
     > illustrate open-source games without the present problems of
     > collaboration and risk. Tinkerers will continue to improve closed-source
     > programs and general development models. There is no end to this
     > process, no inherently-for-all-time best model, just as there is no
     > “standard issue” computer user. In view of this, governments should stay
     > well away from procurement and funding policies that prefer one model
     > over another­proprietary, open-source, or anything in between.
     >
    Wrong.  The problem with proprietry products is that you surrender
    ownership of your data to the owner of the proprietry format in which it
    is stored.  I've already lost data to products "no longer supported".
    
    What program you (or the government) chooses to use doesn't matter.
    What is _important_ is that the data formats be open so that they remain
    forever accessible.  Since proprietry products use proprietry formats they
    should be avoided at all costs.
    
     > Solveig Singleton is a lawyer and Senior Policy Analyst with the
     > Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Project on Technology and Innovation.
     >
     > Notes:
     >
     > i. The “open source” development process includes releasing the source
     > code of the software to the public along with the software; others may
     > tinker with and improve on the code in turn so long as they in turn
     > release their code, a process governed by the General Public License, or
     > GPL.
     >
    If Mr. Singleton is as he claims a "Solveig Singleton is a lawyer and
    Senior Policy Analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Project
    on Technology and Innovation", he must know that the above is an outright
    lie, as he either knows better or should know better (In Australian law
    holding a professional position requires you to have knowlege of the
    subject and "know or should have know" is a legal term).
    
    What he says of the GPL is true, but that is only one of many, many
    licences and without the benefit of those other licences it would be
    unlikely that he would have the job that he has would exist. (follow the
    money folks!).
    
    -- 
    Zero Sum<count@private>   Nullus Anxietas Sanguinae
    
    Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
    will make violent revolution inevitable.
             John F Kennedy.
    
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