paradox Open Source / Open Content

[Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.]

Your question seems to raise several issues. As stated, however, I had
difficulty in determining whether your concern is really about software
or content (i.e. publications made available by software). 

When you asked: "what if someone uses our software to restrict access to
publications by offering them on a pay-for-view basis?" it is unclear to
me whether your concern primarily is adding a technological  access
barrier to the source code (as is done with some e-books) or is directed
to the selling of publications? The former is a legitimate concern of
open source as it relates to software distribution, the latter is not.
Your question may involve multiple copyright holders. If you have a
proposed license, you might want to simply to post it to the list?

Rod

Rod Dixon
Visiting Assistant Professor of Law
Rutgers University Law School - Camden
www.cyberspaces.org
rod at cyberspaces.org


> -----Original Message-----
> From: sandro_zic at web.de [mailto:sandro_zic at web.de] 
> Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 9:36 AM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Cc: stephan Eissler
> Subject: paradox Open Source / Open Content
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'd like to ask for your comments and advice.
> 
> My name is Sandro Zic, core-developer of the oc4ware which is 
> the software of 
> some international Web-portals like the 'Open Community 4 
> Science' which will 
> start on Monday (unfortunately, only in German up to now).
> 
> These portals will form a kind of content or knowledge 
> network of free content. 
> We basically adopted the idea of open source for all kinds of 
> knowledge work 
> like research and teaching at universities.
> 
> Our Software is currently GPL licensed and one could say, 
> that the GPLs idea - 
> as stated in the preamble - is right what we want on the 
> level of Open Content or 
> Open Knowledge, just replace 'software' with 'content' or 
> 'publications':
> 
> "The licenses for most software are designed to take away 
> your freedom 
> to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public 
> License is 
> intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free 
> software--to 
> make sure the software is free for all its users."
> 
> Nevertheless, we encountered a paradox and thus think of moving away 
> from the GPL as the software license of oc4ware. The problem 
> is that if 
> everyone has the possibility to run our software without any 
> restrictions, 
> he might jeopardize the idea of Open Content/Knowledge.
> 
> For example, a big commercial content provider could use our software 
> to start a commercial content network, doing just the same 
> things like our 
> open content network does - except for the fact that users 
> have to pay for 
> accessing the publications offered.
> 
> This is the paradox: If the software is free to use for 
> anyone and the idea 
> and aim of our project is to provide the freedom to share and change 
> content/knowledge of any kind - what if someone uses our software to 
> restrict access to publications by offering them on a 
> pay-for-view basis? 
> This runs counter to the idea _why_ the software is 
> programmed: freedom 
> to share and change content/knowledge.
> 
> To solve this problem, we think about creating our own 
> license, which is 
> basically GPL, but with two additional points:
> 
> Anyone who uses our software for commercial purpose in the fields of 
> science and education,
> a) is obliged to offer the publications for free 9 months 
> after they were 
> published.
> b) is obliged to keep his site (using our software) functioning to 
> communicate with the central routing servers of our network 
> which hold 
> together the decentral repositories.
> 
> The rationale behind this is that our software can be used 
> without any 
> restrictions in all fields except science and education. There are no 
> restrictions at all if the software is used for internal 
> purposes (like 
> company intranet education). But the commercial use is restricted, if 
> publications are offered to the public, regarding the above mentioned 
> points.
> 
> I hope, I made clear our problem and would very much appreciate any 
> help. Maybe there's already been a discussion on such a topic 
> (though I 
> did not find any), maybe you got an idea how to solve the 
> paradox, maybe 
> a proper license already exists, or maybe there is no paradox 
> at all ;)
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> 
> Sandro Zic | http://www.oc4home.org
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> 

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