Mark Webbink and Greg de Koenisberg talk about free/open source software ------------------------------------------------------------------- Greg has a hacked, Android, Google phone. Mark has an iPhone. Mark was the statistion for the Duke men's basketball time for 20 years, ending in 2001. --- Open Source Software Greg begins by describing what sofware is ------------------------------------ People that can read binary code are mostly dead source code example: if (lolcat is funny) { // do something } Binary code example 010101010010100101010 ----- Makes reference to sneaker-net, what's that? Networks, connect coders/software writers Internet changed everything-- anyone wanting to share source code could. With rise of Internet, there was a rise in open soruce software: realization of common problems to solve, then could work together. From legal perspective, who owns what: employees write for company, company owns code, don't take the code to do something else. Hippy anarchists write code, who owns it? I own this piece, you own that piece, different owners for different pieces, but who owns the whole thing? This turns out to matter when there is money to be made. --------------------------------------- Mark talks about IP as it pertains to software International law is different: in US for IP protection, we have patents, copyright, trademark, trade-secrets In terms of international law the first three are mostly universal. All four forms of IP protection apply to software. Software is the ONLY artifact to which both copyright AND patent protection apply. What does copyright protect? Expression NOT ideas. Copyright is actually a bundle of rights that apply to property: real property, personal property, intellectual property. The last is intangible: more than one person can posess it at the same time. Copyrights: copy, derivative work, distribute. We don't typically talk about the right to perform or parody for software. US Copyright office is federal, not state law, under Library of Congress. Contract issues are governed by state law, but copyright law is federal. Copyright for software lasts "forever": 75 years after death for personal. 95 years after publish or 120 years after created for companies. This is effectively forever since software only lasts for 5-10 years. Berne convention governs copyright internationally -- US copyright is enforced in other countries that adhere to the Berne convention. You write it down, it's copyrighted. To enforce copyright "rights", you must register with the copyright office, but you're protected with rights without filing. Patents protect ideas embodied in devices: patents consist of claims. Patent gives you the right to stop others from doing what the patent claims. Patent doesn't give you the right to do what you patent, your invention may depend on other patents, for examples. Patents do prevent others from using your ideas. Patent is federal law, circuit court in DC handles all appeals. Patent law is enforced in teh US, not internationally except for stopping export. US Patent doesn't help overseas. Duration: 20 years from date of filing. Lemelson claims for patents issued in the 1950's, his patents were REALLY broad and he played games with issuing the patent -- so now it's from date of FILING. Until about 2015, we have both date of file and date of issue because the law changed in the 90's. Takes 3-5 years for a patent to issue. Sometimes this can be unfair. Patents: processes and methods embodied in software. Modern software applications use 100s to 1000s of patents. Do companies know what all the patents are? No, not until sued. It costs too much to find all the patents, so wait until you get sued. What about trademark: color, smell, sound, phrase, logo. You get the right to stop others from using the trademark. We can hold the same trademark on different goods unless my mark covers everything. Trademarks governed by federal, state, and common law. If you use a trademark for a while you start to get protection. You can have state or federal trademark. It's not international. Trademarks can last forever, renew registration every 10 years. Trademarks are based on their use, you must use trademarks to have them 'work'. Quicken, Adobe, Windows, etc are examples of trademarks. Trademarks are just as important to open source as they are to proprietary software. Customer lists can be trade-secrets. Companies keep source code closed using trade-secret. If it's not a secret, it's not protected. If someone discloses the secret, it's not protected any longer -- even if the disclosure is malicious. Trade secret is typically state-law, not federal. look at fsf.org and opensource.org; all free software is open source, but not vice versa. Both convey right to copy, modify, distribute. These are all licenses based on copyright. GPL and BSD are the most widely used licenses, these are copyright licenses. Copyright law and open source licensese: two extremes are public domain and proprietary, in between is where open source lies: PUBLIC DOMAIN --------------------------------------PROPRIETARY BSD GPL |||| close to p. domain has restrictions ---------- Greg: Why do I care about licensing and copyright as a developer?: I don't want to go to prison. What is the open source about? You must share (GPL), but the BSD is "it's ok to share, but you don't have to" Are there battles about licensing? Yes. Proprietary software: sharing is bad, very bad. Why? We'll lose money. Software Development Life Cycle | # | b | u | / g | / s | / | / | +---+/+------+ | / | ------------------------------------- # developers If you only have a few developers then ..... ---- Demos are for venture capitalists, but they don't work very well when you do the demo. Most people fail in getting money to develop their software. For open source software: put an idea with source code out, your'e welcome to use it, if it doesn't work, fix it. If it doesn't do what you want, fix it. In Open Source: I don't care if it doesn't work, fix it, don't complain. I'm not making any money about it so don't complain ------ If you have many developers, the rules change What does it mean to fix software/ Open source software can get better over time, harder to do over time with proprietary. It is better over time to do open source software. When your software gets better, people will pay you to get the new version. How does red hat make money? How is it a billion dollar company? ----- Mark now talks: Redhat doesn't give away its software, really. Originally redhat would give the software away and then get money via support. But that didn't work. Redhat lost 60-80 million/quarter when Mark first started in the first year of going public. So, what did Redhat do to fix that? What did they do to become profitable? Three part process. Engineers: what is it that redhat can do to make customers want to use the software? Don't shove every patch/fix out fast. Update on a yearly of every-8-month basis. Customer: licensing up front: doesn't work, distribute one copy and everyone can make copies, that won't work when copies are free. Go to subscription model. What about licensing: How can we get you to pay? We will give you the free software only after you sign an annual subscription fee. Even if you used to get it for free. Now customers became part of the development process. Keep customers happy, that's the key. Magic: economics of up-front subscription-for-services worked. Redhat is the #1 company for customer perceived value. Greater than microsoft, oracle, etc. Legal, Financial, and Engineering combined to make ti