25 jan '07

Open Source is an idea that sprang from the computer industry, where people thought software should be transparent and thus able to be enhanced and modified by others for their own uses, rather than secret and jeaously guarded as a copyrighted and patented way of making money, for example by charging users to upgrade to the next version rather than letting them add new functionality themselves.

Often, open source is an expression where it simply means that a system is available to all who wish to work on it.

Proponents of open source argue that this leads to a better product, as it can be worked on by many people in a public and transparent forum; similar to the idea of a university producing a better level of thinking by involving many people in the debate. The free sharing of information has been institutionalized in the scientific enterprise since at least the 19th century.

Most economists would agree that open source candidates have a public goods aspect to them. In general, this suggests that the original work involves a great deal of time, money, and effort. However, the cost of reproducing the work is very low so that additional users may be added at zero or near zero cost - this is referred to as the marginal cost of a product. At this point, it is necessary to consider a copyright. The idea of copyright for works of authorship is to protect the incentive of making these original works. Copyright restriction then creates access costs on consumers who value the original more than making an additional copy but value the original less than its price. Thus, they will pay an access cost of this difference. Access costs also pose problems for authors who wish to create something based on another work yet are not willing to pay the copyright holder for the rights to the copyrighted work. The second type of cost incurred with a copyright system is the cost of administration and enforcement of the copyright.

The idea of open source is then to eliminate the access costs of the consumer and the creator by reducing the restrictions of copyright. This will lead to creation of additional works, which build upon previous work and add to greater social benefit. Additionally, some proponents argue that open source also relieves society of the administration and enforcement costs of copyright. Organizations such as Creative Commons have websites where individuals can file for alternative "licenses", or levels of restriction, for their works. These self-made protections free the general society of the costs of policing copyright infringement.
Thus, on several fronts, there is an efficiency argument to be made on behalf of open sourced goods.

Others argue that society loses through open sourced goods. Because there is a loss in monetary incentive to the creation of new goods, some argue that new products will not be created. This argument seems to apply particularly to the business model where extensive research and development is done, e.g. pharmaceuticals. However, others argue that visual art and other works of authorship should be free. These proponents of extensive open source ideals argue that there should be no monetary incentive for artists.

Linux is a completely free operating system with all the functionality of Microsoft Windows.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

Peter Gutmann's excellent look at the cost of the Digital Right Management system built into Windows Vista on the computer's performance:
www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Steve Gibson's excellent weekly podcast on computer security; www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

Attachment:
Cory Doctorow's excellent paper to Microsoft on the consequences of DRM