[CLUE-Talk] Legal breaking of the MS monopoly

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Grant Johnson wrote:

*snip*

> Really, though, if the work is unpublished, but the corporation claims
> that this is original code, what proof is there that this is indeed an
> original work, and nor plagarism, if the work remains unpublished?

If you truly believe that any of your code has been appropriated,
you'd have to file a lawsuit and force the company to provide their
source code.

>  There is a possibility that some of the code I wrote has been hijacked
> (not a good chance) and is being used against my will for the profit of
> others.  How can these controls be better enforced with an unpublished
> work?  Is there a precedent?  The Vanilla Ice scandal where he claimed
> to have written the music that was also in the song Under Pressure may
> provide some insight.  How can we be sure that no GPL code has been
> stolen for a closed source product?

Okay, get your facts straight. Vanilla Ice was sued for sampling a
recorded work. It was right out there in the open. I believe he claimed
fair use, but it's been a very long time. I also recall some of the
members of Queen saying something to the effect of "It was very clever
the way he sampled it. Of course, we're still going to sue the s**t out
of him." It was also not a scandal. Other than a few people in the
music press, very few fans really cared that he'd sampled something,
he was just an idiot for not getting permission first. It's standard
practice for that genre of music to sample other songs.

How can we be sure that no GPL'ed code has been appropriated into
a closed-source product? We can't. As an author, I can't be sure
that one of my books or articles hasn't been translated into Japanese
and sold under another author's name. As a matter of fact, I've caught
a few unauthorized translations of my work on UnixReview.com and had
them taken down. That's why we have copyright LAW rather than a
copyright oversight committee that reviews everything ever published,
printed, recorded and/or distributed. To sort out the exceptions when
they happen.

> I have no beef with commercial software, however, the only reason for
> closing the source is to exclude fair competition.  This is especially
> true with OS products.  The only reason to close those is to limit which
> application can run with them, and to limit where the applications
> designed for them can run.  I provides no real advantage.  Solaris comes
> with source.  MVS (OS/390) for mainframes comes with source.  ERP and
> packaged applications like PeopleSoft or GEAC Payroll come with source.

Closing the source, while I don't advocate it, isn't done simply to
stifle competition. Companies who pursue a proprietary model assume that
it's easier to prevent others from stealing their code if they don't
have access to it. (Which, you have to admit, is true...) This doesn't
exclude competition in and of itself.

Betty Crocker doesn't have to disclose cake mix recipes, and the
cake mix industry seems to be doing just fine. They also don't have
a monopoly on the oven industry that requires virtually every oven
and microwave to ship with a case of Betty Crocker cake mix. The
point here is that the exclusion of competition is far more complicated
than lack of access to source code.

>  Why is there this one little hole called the desktop where this is not
> true?

There are many other applications that do not come with source code.
Microsoft is hardly alone there, though the effect may be greater.
The desktop is different because it's a different market. 99.9% of
the people who use and own desktop computers don't have the slightest
idea what to do with source code, nor any idea why they would want it
or why it's important that they should be able to see it.

Businesses who use ERP have a need for and an understanding of
how to use the source code. As customers they demand it. Until more
people demand it for their home computers it's unlikely to happen.

A big problem in the battle of Free Software vs closed source is that
most people don't even get that there's a political aspect to the
availability of source code, much less a viable reason to want it
other than getting free stuff. Until people understand why it's
important, Microsoft is going to continue winning.

Zonker
--
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier -=- jbrockmeier at earthlink.net
http://www.DissociatedPress.net/
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"If there's going to be any future for us, our first invention
must be a meme-killer. We must destroy in ourselves and in
the people around us the meme proclaiming civilization to be
an unsurpassable invention." -- Daniel Quinn