Re: licensing

Taran,

You're correct. Some people on this thread, however, don't understand 
the role of copyright/intellectual property. People from various 
countries will have a different view of the subject based on the 
precepts of their governments/constitution, etc.

In the US, the presumption extended beyond the government paying for 
intellectual properties. In the US, the government precludes themselves 
from copyright and patents. If the government pays for something, it's 
public domain.

As far as citizens, the protection of a copyright or patent should only 
allow for the collection of bounties for a limited period.

The pharmaceutical industry follows the intent, but the software 
industry does not.

Since no amendments to the constitution exist, eventually, the DMCA and 
other changes to the copyright laws will fail a test of 
constitutionality. In the meantime, we're strapped with the notion that 
the same rules of commerce apply to governments. They don't.

OSSI (http://oss-institute.org) recently did a CRADA which allowed us to 
go into a government entity and extract technology to open to the 
public. We received funding from commercial entities.

The entire Internet received funding from the US Government originally 
and that's why it has a tradition of open standards and open source.

All this falls under the doctrine of " for the common good". You can see 
a revision of this doctrine in Massachusetts today.

Now, this hasn't been a bad thread. It's demonstrated the confusion 
around the issue. The license should protect the "people" as in "we, the 
people".

-Tom


[email protected] wrote:
> Jeremy,
> 
> The point is that when it comes to software developed by a government, 
> the citizens are the people paying for the product. When you pay taxes, 
> you pay your government to do certain things.
> 
> Why would you pay your government to write software that another company 
> - in another country - can profit from? I don't know how to atomize this 
> further for people to understand, but if I need to, I will try.
> 
> Taran
> 
> Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> 
>>> You're right. We disagree. Intellectualization of reality still leaves
>>> us with reality. That farmer will still pay for code in proprietary
>>> products if their government chooses a BSD license.
>>>   
>>
>>
>> I don't understand how the farmer is forced to purchase proprietary
>> products.
>>
>> But I do understand how the farmer (since he is knowledgable) can choose
>> to build a proprietary product (and a financial livelihood) based on the
>> properly-licensed code.
>>
>>   Jeremy C. Reed
>>   http://bsd.reedmedia.net/
>>
>>
>>  
>>
> 
>