Open source: not a religion
Introduction
A while ago I was surfing GNU's website. I was surprised to find out that they still claim they are an operating system. But that's beyond my point. I had been annoyed with GNU's attitude for a while now. Ever since the GPLv3 and the ruckus that followed it. I got the impression that GNU does not care for open standards and a world where problems and solutions can be easily shared and implemented, without the "hush-hush this is our secret", I got the impression that they wanted to make all software "Free". Of course, not free as in beer, but free as in freedom as they stated numerously.
The irony of freedom
I like open-source because it gets rid of the idea that things need to be ultimately secret in order to profit from them, think of the Coca-Cola formula (although OpenCola made me laugh). Especially in a world where copies of things like digital files are a matter of pressing two keys, people should not have to keep concepts and ideas secret. If you publish what you've found, others can review your work and maybe find bugs, or suggest additions. I can only imagine how many bugs would be uncovered in MSIE should the source be opened, providing that we would actually want its source. That's why I see open-source as a nice way of editing. It's not like I want every single program to be open source. If you're provided with the source of the program though, it is only fair to tell the provider that you uncovered a bit of bad code, or even "fork" your bit of the code and provide it as you want it to be. But free, as in the GPL sense of free, does not mean you are free to keep that code to yourself. You should license it under the exact same license you got it from, or a clone of it. How is that free?
Enter copycenter
Gee, that does sound cheesy, doesn't it? Let me elaborate. While restricting licenses, such as the one provided with your copy of Windows Whatever only permit you to use the binary form of the program and keep the actual ownership of the software to themselves, are called copyright licenses, the other extreme is called copyleft. You may have recognized it from the mirrored ©-sign. These licenses, such as the Eclipse Public License, or even the very extreme (though funny) WTFPL are aimed at creating this sense of trust to the user and the community. There is however an alternative to these to. As I said, enter copycenter. Copycenter licenses, such as the BSD license and the MIT license permit you to use the licensed source code in proprietary software. No wonder these licenses both originate from universities!
Freedom to steal
I guess the motivation for the clause in the GPL that obliges you to use the GPL and the GPL only on your forked work, was that the people that wrote code for the GNU system were afraid that some big company would take their code and walk off with it, making money with a proprietary version. I can understand that fear though, I wouldn't like it either if someone walked off with my work and earned money with it. However, consider this: If a company decides to use an open source project in proprietary software, they are not going to bother working on that source code themselves. They will let the community do the work of improving the code. Only in extreme circumstances they will have their own monkeys dive in the code to fix something they need badly. What's wrong with a company taking an open source project and tailoring it to their needs, selling the result? The only bad thing that might happen is the company claiming that they wrote the code themselves. Thus rendering the community of users unaware of the source of the sourcecode (excuse the pun), and therefore the free (as in freedom), and sometimes free (as in beer) version. This is why I like the the CC-BY license. It permits everybody to use, copy, do whatever they want with the work, as long as they give me credit. That way, the roots of the software remain public. That's right, I hereby give you the freedom to steal, under one sole condition, namely that you adhere your copying, not necessarily the result, to the CC-BY license.
Epilogue
Open-source software to me remains merely a way of editing, albeit one known for the good results. The software community as a whole should not be afraid to share sourcecode that solves certain problems or introduces a new, clever idea. On the other hand, we should not be afraid that some big-bad-company walks off with our code as proprietary software, as long as they credit us. In the meantime, if the project ceases to go on, the need for the proprietary version will also have ceased. I am not pronouncing a war on GNU, the GPL or the FSF, I think the work they do to advocate free software is great, actually. I do however pronounce a nuance in the idea of free software and an attitude of less fear for "that which is proprietary". Because while proprietary software developers are afraid of their software becoming open to the public, the free or open source software community on the other hand is afraid of their software becoming proprietary. Am I spotting a loop?
