Thoughts on commercial use of FOS
Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter
January 30, 2002
by Peter SuberI've been arguing with friends recently about the commercial repackaging of FOS. If authors create free online access to their work, then it's not only free for researchers but also for commercial publishers. What rights should users have to incorporate FOS into commercial products (with or without add-ons) and what rights should authors have to block it? (See FOSN for 7/17/01 and 8/7/01.)
Now I know that true friends of FOS can disagree strongly on this question. Some other time I can go over the major arguments pro and con. Right now I want to focus on the fact of the disagreement itself.
The disagreement is somewhat ominous to me because the open software movement experienced a schism on just this point. The free software wing of the movement (the Richard Stallman school) blocks commercial use, while the open source wing of the movement (the Eric Raymond school) permits it.
The free software school uses the GNU General Public License (GPL), which requires those who adopt, modify, and redistribute GPL code to give their users all the rights they themselves enjoyed, including the right to see and modify the code free of charge. That prevents commercial use and that is part of the point. It's also one reason why Microsoft is blowing the trumpet to warn corporate America not to use code protected by the GPL.
The open source movement doesn't use just one kind of license, the way the free software movement uses the GPL. But the open source licenses typically allow users to incorporate open source code into larger projects which are then sold for profit as closed source packages. Section 1 of the official Open Source Definition asserts that open source licenses "shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale." This is why, for example, IBM can incorporate the Apache server (open source) into WebSphere (closed source) and sell it.
There is at least one reason to fear that the FOS movement may bifurcate along similar lines: its proponents already disagree on this question.
But there are some reasons to think that it may not bifurcate. There are several differences between scholarship and software that may be germane here. One is that software has a greater potential for commercial success than scholarship. More people are willing to buy it and the market for it will bear higher prices. Another is that the authors of scholarship tend not to be the parties who profit from its sale, while the reverse is true for software. A third difference is that scholars build on previous scholarship by quoting and citing it, not by copying and modifying it. Will these differences make a difference?
One way to avert bifurcation seems unavailable to us, namely, to convert people who think one way to think the other way instead. By all means let the reasoned discourse continue. But I suspect that this is an issue calling for political accommodation, or agreement to disagree, not for the clincher argument that converts infidels and certainly not for the One True Church that suppresses free thinkers.
I've moved around a bit since I started thinking about these issues. I now lean toward permitting commercial use. But I want to make this preference genial, or compatible with the opposite preference, so that the FOS movement can recruit and retain authors who oppose commercial use. I also want an exception to prevent the exploitation of consumers who, if they were better informed, would not buy what they could get for free. Is there room for waffling here? Could evangelistic waffling prevent bifurcation?
What do you think? Will the open scholarship movement bifurcate? Are there steps we can take now to prevent bifurcation?
Free Software Foundation (Stallman school)
Open Source Initiative (Raymond school)
GNU General Public License (GPL)
Open Source Definition version 1.9 (see Section 1)
Open Source Licenses
Apache open source license
IBM's WebSphere
Microsoft's opposition to GPL
* Postscript. For a case study in the blending of FOS and commercial interests, see the next story.
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Peter Suber
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