O-STEP In The Limelight 64
Tony Stanco, whose new eGovOS conference is starting today, has also been pushing O-STEP (Open Source Threshold Escrow Program). It's an interesting looking program for escrowing code, pending money being raised towards it - you can get more details in PPT,OpenOffice, and HTML.
Who decides when? (Score:3, Funny)
Step 2:
Step 3: Err... Guys? Can I have the profit now? Umm... What do you mean the escrow program folded? You had WHO doing the book-keeping? Andersen? AARGH...
(Little known Step 4): Major shooting spree...
Money through open source? (Score:2, Interesting)
Keeping the escrow Locked (Score:2)
Re:Keeping the escrow Locked (Score:2)
Legitimizing Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Legitimizing Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
People are already getting paid for open source and free software. It is possible! Companies and non-profits are making money by
Bullshit. Write software - get paid for software. (Score:1)
Re:Bullshit. Write software - get paid for softwar (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you think about it, getting paid for what people actually *need* as opposed to what you think they'll need is more efficient anyway.
I have covered this already (Score:1)
The High Priests of the Bazaar
This paper presents a case against the open source movement and explains why the open source model does not work economically for the vast majority of those involved in the production of commercial software. There are several arguments against the OS (open source) model.
Open Source Doesn't Make Economic Sense For Most
The open source organization has presented a few cases that supposedly expl
Re:Legitimizing Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone? I think that is a little broad, not _everyone_ is interested in getting paid for work. There are plenty of volunteers out there. I would agree that many, or the majority of people want to get paid for thier work, but there is a significant number of developers that just like the warm fuzzy of putting out a good product that the public can make use of.
Re:Legitimizing Open Source (Score:1)
I think everyone does. It's just some people realize that green pieces of paper aren't the only form of acceptable pay.(Karma anyone?)
Re:Legitimizing Open Source (Score:2)
Ok, I was just using 'payment' in the strict sence of the word. Most People do derive something out of thier work: cash, kudos, karma, warm-fuzzies, or whatever.
Re:Legitimizing Open Source (Score:2)
Did I read that correctly? That's almost as strange as naked Raelians! [go.com]
o-step Rebirth (Score:4, Interesting)
interesting... (Score:2)
For too long, legislation and regulaton have lagged behind the technological paradigm. This is a step in the right direction.
FYI: RMS (HTH) (Score:5, Informative)
Whoa ... for us or against us? (Score:1)
From the article:
For eGovOS to win the full support of the free software and open source community, it must take a clear stand for our community. It should acknowledge the free software movement as a part of our community, and acknowledge Microsoft as its adversary.
This is awfully reminiscent of President Bush's standpoint on terrorism. Is such rhetoric helpuful?
Re:FYI: RMS (HTH) (Score:2)
If you read RMS' statement, there's an excellent reply that states:
I can understand why RMS doesn't want to act in a way that would seem to compromise his ideals. While that's great - and important -
Re:FYI: RMS (HTH) (Score:1)
While it might be an ego boost to only argue with people who agree with you, it does get in the way of actually convincing people to accept your point of view in the first place.
Yes, but if you wnt to talk to someone it helps if they actually acknowledge your existence
And I think RMS is looking for his ego boosts elsewhere (GNU/xyz anyone?).
Ransom model (Score:2)
AFAICT, they use the random model and function as a neutral escrow authority. The ransom model is not mentioned in the article though. Poor choice of name? Like free software/open source, I guess.
Laudable initiative, IMHO.
Release criteria? (Score:2)
Are the sales release criteria made public? What if a company wants to change them? Who is going to enforce this? What if a company wants to remove it, or refuses to gives sales figures?
Until these details are ironed out, this program is useless.
Software won't be as good under this scheme (Score:5, Interesting)
This way of doing things will lose one of the benefits of going GPL from day one. Since the code will be closed source for a period you can't build on top of already open software (unless lgpl), this means having to reinvent the wheel, which means higher cost.
On the other hand if the software is open source from day one customers will be less inclined to pay, profit suffers and the software won't be made.
Would you like some egg with your chicken?
So suppose we make a more company friendly GPL? (FSF probably won't like it so a lot will have to be created from scratch, but less that for the proposed scheme), Requiering that source be disclosed after a profit threshold is reached won't work since a company could cheat by setting the threshold redicoulously high. What might work is some kind of time-delayed GPL e.g "If you modify this source and make binaries the source must be provided no later that three months later". That way the a free softwrae author can be sure that nothing based on his code will stay closed forever, and companies could benefit from already developed code. Still it would probably depend a lot on the free software community and their willingness to change their lisences, and you can bet you'll see different time limits depending on what the authour of a piece of code thinks is acceptable. But if something like this is implemented I believe both business and the community could benefit. (except for evil monopolies ;) )
Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme (Score:2)
Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme (Score:2)
sounds suspiciously like copyright . So maybe the answer is to fix copyright law so that useful things aren't hoarding WAY after the "incentive" to create them in the first place has gone away
That wouldn't work quite as you seem to believe. If something is not copyrighted (ie public domain) there is no way to force someone that makes a derivative work to release the source
In fact the idea I outlined above uses copyright to achieve what we want. If I released some code under a lisence like this I own the
Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme (Score:1)
Therefore you can take all the GPL code you want, build on it for any period (a month, a decade, whatever), and as long as when you release/distribute it, you release it GPL, then you have still fully complied with the GPL.
All you do, is sell the release of the improvement to a cartel of expectant users.
Naturally, it may be more economic if you engage this cartel in the process of arriving at a fair price. Hence, why The Digita [digitalartauction.com]
Existing open source code is not irreplaceable. (Score:1)
Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme (Score:1)
They could -- but the potential customers would know that the threshold had been set ridiculously high, and would be far less likely to buy in. This proposal is effectively a promise, which they could not break due to the escrow, that if enough copies are sold, they will make the source available; this encourages companies and governments to buy it as
Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme (Score:2)
Really? How many people know that the threshold for TransGaming releasing their Direct3D work is (or was) 20,000 subscribers? How many people know roughly how many subscribers they actually have?
Seems the escrow idea was already tried, and at least in the Wine project it led to a high-tension fork of the code, not really the intended effect.
Abandonware argument (Score:5, Interesting)
The part that gets me is that there has to be a "trusted entity" that ensures that the release occurs once this mysterious threshold is reached.
I think there is a great parallel here in the pharmaceutical industry. After all, we all know that drug companies don't fight for extended patent rights to drugs that improve peoples lives. They are always real nice about making their "threshold" amount then releasing their drug(s) to generic and whole-saler manufacturers so that the majority of the people can benefit.
It is not ALWAYS about money.
Re:Abandonware argument (Score:2)
They even patent the same drug multiple times if it does multiple things to your body (usually as side effects)... for example, birth control pills can help reduce acne (this is a side-effect). So a drug company can patent a birth-control pill TWICE, once as the actual invention (birth control) and once as an acne medication (accidental consequence). The birth-control examp
Re:Abandonware argument (Score:1)
Nice sarcasm, btw. But the parallel is not that good, since for software there is an ability to choose that you don't have with drugs. Th
Re:Abandonware argument (Score:2)
The software company also needs to have the integrity to disband or adapt when their software reaches maturity. Once a piece of software implements well everything it is required to do, there is no incentive for people to buy new versions. Once this happens, the company has
A similar idea to the Digital Art Auction (Score:2, Interesting)
A good idea, with some problems (Score:4, Insightful)
I can imagine a few things going wrong in this system where the buyer of the software is harmed. The example in the article about Corel escrowing Word Perfect is a good one: What happens if they set the escrow value at $50M but only sell $40M of software? Then the early adopters lose out, since now they are stuck with a product as proprietary as MS Word, but not as popularly supported. I think that for this reason, many products will not be purchased until they have some serious momentum. This is a catch-22.
Another issue, as another poster mentioned, is that software that begins its life as proprietary can not build upon the free software foundations. The other main problem is that some software can't be open-sourced because it includes other proprietary components that are licensed, not bought. So, for the free-software community there is still an advantage (more free code, even if it's missing bits, is still good), but for the people who bought the software in escrow there is less advantage, since they can't actually use the opened source for their production work.
If escrow not met, release under another license. (Score:1)
Re:If escrow not met, release under another licens (Score:1)
Re:A good idea, with some problems (Score:2)
In other words, just the same as if they bought proprietary software that was not escrowed. It certainly doesn't make the software a worse proposition.
Re:A good idea, with some problems (Score:1)
If open source is important to me, and I have the choice between the following:
1. A proprietary program
2. A proprietary program that will be escrowed
3. An open source program that isn't as good as #1 or #2 but would be sufficient
I will choose #2 if I get the source eventually. However, if the source is never released, then I would have been better off with
Re:A good idea, with some problems (Score:1)
One possibility would be to have the escrow money reduce the duration for which exclusive copyright is claimed. For every X thousand dollars given, a year is taken off of the 95 year limit (with no grandfathering for further copyright extensions.) Thus you always get some progress for your money.
Great approach... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in short O-STEP is a GOOD-STEP; but more needs to be done in this arena.
On a side note: Did anyone else hear that Disney World is enjoying farmer's tax-exempt status because they have a few cows on the property?
Blender (Score:1, Interesting)
I think it would be great if more closed source software was made available in this way.
A possibility for Corel WordPerfect? (Score:1)
won't work, and it's unnecessary (Score:5, Interesting)
Escrow models break this: I have no guarantee that the source will be released, and I personally won't be able to pay to get it in its entirety. From my point of view as a user and potential contributor, escrowed code is as uncertain as commercial code.
There are enough people who have an incentive to release code open source to keep us all happy. And against open source competition, even escrowed code doesn't stand much of a chance.
O-Step:: ObsoleteStep (Score:1)
I can't believe this stuff makes it onto the
is this worth it to you? (Score:2)
i can't decide if its worth the extra expense, since i have dsl at home and can live without the net if i gotta, when i gotta. however, does anyone think that that kind of cost could for that service would be enough for a dsl/phone replacement????
Open source != GPL (Score:2)
leggovos my eggovos! (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't figure out what it's supposed to accomplish. If it's a FS/OS advocacy platform and showcase, then why is Microsoft there at all? Tony Stanco and Bruce Perens both seem to be of the opinion that Microsoft will somehow embarrass themselves by showing up and speaking amid all of the real free software companies and developers. This is NOT going to happen. Microsoft is going to do their typical Hollywood pyrotechnics and when everyone's hypnotized they'll start talking about how great
O-STEP is another winning acronym for a program of source code escrow? Sounds like one of the most artificial and forced cases of free software backpedalling. Who would actually use this program? Why bother? Either you release it or you don't. When you put a "time-bomb" on open-sourcing software, you're treating open code as something to be avoided. Open code seems most useful in the early stages of product. "Release Early, Release Often", right? right? How useful was Netscape's release? Not as useful as it would have been if project was open from the beginning. Dealing with WordPerfect source code at this point will be similarly bewildering. It's just a stupid idea.
problem of diminishing or zero marginal cost (Score:1)
An idea stolen from bruce schneider (Score:1)
"street performer protocol"
The 1st person to implement this in the real world was stephan king,
unfortunately for the open source world this initial experiment failed
miserably. The never ended up releasing the final chapters to the book,
many people who had put in their $1 or $2 never got it back because the
escrow said it would cost more than the money they were getting back to
get the money back to them. Which makes you wonder how on earth was it
possible for people
sigh (Score:1)
I think what many people don't realise is that software provides a SERVICE, and people pay for that service. When you pay $400 (or whatever) to Microsoft for ms office, you're not paying for the cd it is on, or for the source code, or for the license, you're paying for something that does spell checking, double spaces and prints (and a whole lot of other crap you prolly don't nee