Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Copyleft???
My response to "Of Birkenstocks and Wingtips: Open Source Licenses" by P.Gandel and B.Wheeler in EUDCAUSE Review.
Copyrighted content basically clarifies the ownership of the content and requires that any reproduction of the content must be authorized by the holders of the copyright and frequently requires exchange of money. An open source license places the given material in the public domain – for anyone to use and reproduce. However, not all open source licensing is the same. In fact there seems to be two main camps in the open source arena: proponents of copyleft and proponents of the licensing known as open/open.
The article at the heart of this post, "Of Birkenstocks and Wingtips: Open Source Licenses", compares and contrasts these two opensource license models. On the one hand we have copyleft. In it’s discussion of copyleft the GNU.org website states: "To copyleft a program, we first state that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms, which are a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the program's code or any program derived from it…”
The same is can be said about open/open software.
GNU’s description of copyleft goes on to say: “…but only if the distribution terms are unchanged. Thus, the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable.”
It’s here that the camps divide. You see, open/open licensing allows users who make modifications, even small ones, to license these ‘new’ materials however they wish. This includes the ability to copyright the ‘new’ code or content if they choose. In this case, materials once available to the community at large may become be lost to proprietary licenses.
Now it’s taken me a long time to sort out my thoughts on this issue. Both sides seem convinced that their license of choice will best promote further development. In truth, I still can’t make heads or tails of the way open/open code (a la http://www.uportal.org/) sustains both its free and its proprietary versions simultaneously. I have, however, solidified my thoughts as they pertain to open source content.
I checked out MITOpenCourseware (OCW) and they seem to share all aspects of these open source courses: the syllabus, calendar, reading list, lecture notes, assignments (sometimes with student responses) and even study materials. Having all of that knowledge vetted for you by top scholars is really pretty amazing. I simply can’t imagine an open/open type model that would make a meaningful contribution to this world knowledge. I can only image that it will effectively cut off these points of knowledge.
What I don’t see at OCW is a means for others to contribute. I have no idea how this would work, but it seems putting out only the original course contents takes us only part way there. Collaboration is integral to the opensource community and integral the development of knowledge.
Thinking about the usefulness of collaboration made me think of another site, a cooking site actually. Recipes.com. You can go to the site and find all sorts of highly rated recipes. Making the site (and recipes) better still, are the comments supplied by others who followed recipe. Ingredient substitutions, altering amounts, clarification of the directions – all of these thing make a good recipe even better.
Okay, so I haven't posted this until 11/22. The thing is - 10/12 was actually my first attempt at putting my thoughts down on paper. Guess I'm a bit slow :(
Copyrighted content basically clarifies the ownership of the content and requires that any reproduction of the content must be authorized by the holders of the copyright and frequently requires exchange of money. An open source license places the given material in the public domain – for anyone to use and reproduce. However, not all open source licensing is the same. In fact there seems to be two main camps in the open source arena: proponents of copyleft and proponents of the licensing known as open/open.
The article at the heart of this post, "Of Birkenstocks and Wingtips: Open Source Licenses", compares and contrasts these two opensource license models. On the one hand we have copyleft. In it’s discussion of copyleft the GNU.org website states: "To copyleft a program, we first state that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms, which are a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the program's code or any program derived from it…”
The same is can be said about open/open software.
GNU’s description of copyleft goes on to say: “…but only if the distribution terms are unchanged. Thus, the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable.”
It’s here that the camps divide. You see, open/open licensing allows users who make modifications, even small ones, to license these ‘new’ materials however they wish. This includes the ability to copyright the ‘new’ code or content if they choose. In this case, materials once available to the community at large may become be lost to proprietary licenses.
Now it’s taken me a long time to sort out my thoughts on this issue. Both sides seem convinced that their license of choice will best promote further development. In truth, I still can’t make heads or tails of the way open/open code (a la http://www.uportal.org/) sustains both its free and its proprietary versions simultaneously. I have, however, solidified my thoughts as they pertain to open source content.
I checked out MITOpenCourseware (OCW) and they seem to share all aspects of these open source courses: the syllabus, calendar, reading list, lecture notes, assignments (sometimes with student responses) and even study materials. Having all of that knowledge vetted for you by top scholars is really pretty amazing. I simply can’t imagine an open/open type model that would make a meaningful contribution to this world knowledge. I can only image that it will effectively cut off these points of knowledge.
What I don’t see at OCW is a means for others to contribute. I have no idea how this would work, but it seems putting out only the original course contents takes us only part way there. Collaboration is integral to the opensource community and integral the development of knowledge.
Thinking about the usefulness of collaboration made me think of another site, a cooking site actually. Recipes.com. You can go to the site and find all sorts of highly rated recipes. Making the site (and recipes) better still, are the comments supplied by others who followed recipe. Ingredient substitutions, altering amounts, clarification of the directions – all of these thing make a good recipe even better.
Okay, so I haven't posted this until 11/22. The thing is - 10/12 was actually my first attempt at putting my thoughts down on paper. Guess I'm a bit slow :(
# posted by JLynn @ 9:40 AM 
