Re: Copymiddle

First, I agree substantially with Gabriel Wachob's analysis of this proposal. I feel it is neither desirable nor would it be a practical alternative to the GNU GPL and other free software "public licenses" or copylefts. It is similar in some regards to existing dual-license practices.

Second, the issue here is not particularly the legal, but rather the economic and SW development dynmaic aspects of the proposal, and is probably off-topic for CNI-COPYRIGHT.

Jonathan Franklin <jafrank[_at_]umich.edu> wrote:
>
> Copyright Incentives: Neither Left Nor Right But Center
>
> Marshall van Alstyne
> University of Michigan
> School of Information
> 304 West Hall
> 550 East University Ave.
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> mvanalst[_at_]umich.edu
>
> In 1983, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) introduced the concept of
> "copyleft", a copyright licensing scheme designed to reshape copyright
>

[snip]
>
> While the copyleft approach has helped several popular UNIX-based
> programs enjoy distributed development and widespread use, it introduces
> a second problem. It limits the economic incentives to make follow-on
> investments. Freedom from copy restrictions can imply freedom from
> income. While, in principle, copyleft permits a software developer to
> charge a distribution fee for the bundled software good and its
> derivative innovation, in practice, the requirement of full disclosure
> prevents an author from deriving income from more than a single sale.
> Having sold the software once, a seller must then compete with source
> code available from the first buyer. Such a seller has no market power
> selling against an identical copy of their own product. For software,
> this results in a price at or near marginal cost which approaches zero.

This fails to recognize that with a distributed *development* model, as in Open Source (tm) Software, the marginal cost of *production* for the *vendor* also approaches zero. The historical role of ISV is replaced by the role of source tree maintainer -- effectively an editor whose role it is to include good code submissions and exclude bad code. (For more on the nature and importance of this role, see Alan Cox's recent Slashdot article: http://slashdot.org/features/98/10/13/1423253.shtml).

Development is performed by parties whose marginal benefit of production exceeds marginal cost, as in production of certain other economic "public goods" such as language, the law, or participation in public fora. Hal Varian's work on software, the computer industry, information, and intellectual property touches on many of these themes, though it doesn't cover free software in any detail. I recommend his website (http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/) and essay "US Government Information Policy"
(http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/policy/policy.html) which discusses information as a public good.

> Accordingly, we introduce a profit incentive period into a copymiddle
> license which an innovator uses to distribute their software and
> promote complementary investments in product and network growth.
> Under the copymiddle licensing strategy, an innovator would permit
> the creator of a derivative work to retain interest in the subsequent
> improvements for a reasonable period - seven years, for example -
> before shifting to copyleft.

Seven years is far too long for effectively leveraging distributed development.

That said, the proposal is similar to what some have called a "Delayed Public License" (DPL), or dual licensing. Under this scheme, the current or a commercial release of code is made under non-copyleft license. After a period of time (usually a year), the code is reissued under a copyleft or other public license. Ideally, the original is distributed with source, and user modification is allowed, but distribution is not. This model has worked effectively for several products, most noteably L. Peter Deutch's Alladin Ghostscript. It is a proven compromise between open and proprietary software.

The proposed "copymiddle" does not appear to improve in any way on the dual-license scheme, but rather appears to borrow the worst of all worlds.

> From a broad societal perspective, copymiddle licenses are attractive.
> First, it harnesses market forces to dynamically shorten the effective
> period of exclusion and to increase investment.

As has been pointed out, seven years is several generations of development in software -- seven years ago, "integrated office suites" were just being presented and Windows 3.x was becoming a standard. We are now in the third generation of both products. An effective "closed term" might be nearer one year or less.

> Second, copymiddle helps solve the problem of enablement. Under
> existing statutes, a copyright petitioner need only submit portions
> of a software good.

I believe this refers to copyright registration requirements as given by the US Copyright Office. This is a problem vis-a-vis proprietary "closed code" models, and is certainly not at issue WRT copylefted software.

> Third, consumers improve their access to existing products when the
> product becomes freely distributable.

Again, the "improvement" is only WRT to a proprietary model -- the proposal is less successful in this regard that copyleft.

-- 
Karsten M. Self (kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com)

    What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
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