The word that is "Proprietary"

[W. Yip]

At the risk of nit-picking:

I wish to make a probably novel suggestion that the Open Source Community
replace the word 'proprietary' with the word 'commodity' in our literature.

The word 'proprietary' is often used in context of with those software
released under restrictive licenses (eg. M$). 

The are certain problems with the word 'proprietary'. Firstly, and
fundamentally, it is legally a misnomer because open source software is
copyright, and copyright itself is a form of proprietary interest.
Secondly, by clustering M$ and all other selfish, anti-social companies
together under the word 'proprietary', we seem to be giving  the false
impression open source is 'non-proprietary', that is to say, the software
programmer does not own that which he releases under open source licenses.
(when actually he does) IOW, the word 'proprietary' does carry a fair bit
of bad baggage. I think it can dissuade a newbie as much as the word 'free'
can.

As to the word 'commodity', it is underpinned by much legal literature,
particularly the Chicago School of Economic theory, which is famous for
reducing copyright to the level of a commodity. There is much academic
debate on how intellectual property extends *beyond* mere profit motives
and being a static, rigid commodity to be exchanged and owned. Goldstein's
"Copyright's Highway" is such a book. <Insert arguments on how publishing
source code can faciliate innovation of computer science here>. It follows
that the word 'commodity' is far more effective in illustrating the
anti-social, materialistic and one-sided nature of what we now call
'proprietary software'.

Since the Open Source model recognisably occupies that middle ground
between pure computer science and commodity software, I think it more
appropriate to label companies like M$ as 'commodity software' instead of
'proprietary software'.

I hope you understand this, and would love to hear your reactions.


Cheers