OPEN SOURCE JUSTIFIED

-Patel Hardikkumar J08080 Introduction: The rapid growth of the open source movement , fueled by GNU/Linux operating system and recently with support of companies like Google, red hat and traditional proprietary softwares trying to protect their possition in IT has led to a moral dilemma over use of proprietary system. In this article I have tried to explain two diffrent ideologies and their views in terms of IP in computer science. Proprietary Proprietary code refers to software whose source code is not to be shared freely among its users. Companies use legal means like nondisclosure agreements, patents to safeguard their source code. Softwares like windows , autocad etc are example of proprietary software. Their main advantage over Open source software is that they are economically more superior than open source community that use this source to fight against open source movement and tries to stop innovation coming from outside. Proprietary proponents believe that persons (or companies) who create software have rights to it because it is a product of their efforts. The creator of the software acquires rights of ownership in the software by expending labor in its development according to John Locke's theory. These rights of private ownership include the right to profit from the sale, distribution, and use of the software. Open Source Open source(free software) ideoplogy was first given by Richard Stallman when he observed that IP regulations are stoping him from researching further. Open source software refers to software whose source code is shared freely among community and anyone can download source code, modify it and can redistribute it. Software like linux, gnu gcc etc are example of open source softwares. Free software ideologues permit others to modify and redistribute programs, and find it acceptable for people to profit from the redistribution of the software. But they also want any improvements to be shared with the community of developers. Netscape developed its Internet browser based on Mosaic, an Internet browser whose source code was in the public domain. In 1998, Netscape made the source code for its browser available, leading to the term "open source" (Schmidt, 2004). Microsoft used the Mosaic source code as the basis for its browser, Internet Explorer, but has made the software proprietary.The development of Internet Explorer was done using other people's

knowledge and ideas, and the use of those ideas obligates Microsoft to share the improvements it made to those. View towards IP First question comes in someone's mind is what is IP? IP means intellectual property and according to current law and under the world trade organiozation's agreement of trade related aspect of intellectual property rights, the inventor of a particular product or process should be given exclusive right to research more on that IP and to earn exclusively from that invention and the term of protection should be minimum of twenty years. Patent of product allows owner company to stop any other company from producing similar kind of software and in this way software owner can stop any other developer from producing same software with different algorithm also and it also stops reverse engineering. It has been shown recently that due to patenting of product from process has resulted in exactly one major drug invention in US after 1961 compared to other countries. Proprietary:People who believe in this ideology they support current international IP regulations. They believe that abstract object like software can be controlled and protected just like any other physical product. According to them current IP regulations are necessary because of mainly two reasons. First, creative people need to support themselves. To do so they should be able to earn from their creation so they should be given exclusive right to their creation so they can earn from their creation. Second, to motivate further innovation and creativity, people should believe that system protects their creations regorously. They believe that weakening current IP ragulation will demotivate developers from developing new softwares. Their main aim is to maximize their products advantage in market so they can increase their profitability. Some of the proprietary people believe that current IP law should be expanded and they should be given monopoly for infinite time. Open source:People who belive in this ideology they tries to change current international IP regulations. From their point of view current IP ragulations should not apply to software. They think that current IP ragulations supresses innovation and creativity. When Open source or free software community is talking about free they does not mean that its free of cost it means that free speech. They would like to change focus of IP law from securing property rights to protecting free speech. They think that software development is a social phenomenon and developers have obligation to share ideas to improve softaware for all of society.

Why should we change current IP law and support open source: Very few programs are totally original since they use common techniques which are trivial and in use for long time now. Therefore software creators should not have total rights of private ownership since the software they created could not have been created without the knowledge and labor of others. In certain cases some developers patented techniques which trivial and noone thinks about them as major breakthrue. Such patents stops further development of software which is using that technique for long time. In begining of GNU GCC compiler toolchain creation developers faced this problem. The most strong argument against patents and IP law is that they inhibite thought of a person by licencing of software and methods. Software are made of abstract mathematical theories and ideas. Ideas can be come in any person's mind. It has been observed that the person who derives certain facts would not come up with second idea which is better than the first idea. He always tries to protect his current idea and also in this case to get more revenue out of that idea. In case of software patents anyone can come up with better idea or mathematical explanation of certain facts but he can not employ it because it has been derived from previous idea. One example is of apple's fluid touch display its an idea which can come in any person's mind but apple has patented idea of fluid touch because of that noone can improve algorithms employed in that software and it stops other from thinking about it and in a way slowers the growth of technology. A very controversial issue today is owning a patent on a computer algorithm. A patent provides an exclusive monopoly on the use of the patented item, so the owner of an algorithm can deny others use of the mathematical formulas that are part of the algorithm. Mathematicians and scientists are outraged, claiming that algorithm patents effectively remove parts of mathematics from the public domain, and thereby threaten to cripple science. In addition, running a preliminary patent search to make sure that your new program does not violate anyone's software patent is a costly and time-consuming process. As a result, only very large companies with big budgets can afford to run such a search. This effectively eliminates many small software companies, stifling competition and decreasing the variety of programs available to the society [The League for Programming Freedom, 1992]. Open Source Ideologues also argue that the greatest good is served by having a system that allows anyone to modify software. But their primary ethical position is that software is an expression of ideas. Permitting someone to have rights of ownership in software excludes others from using those ideas in developing new software, which interferes with the rights of expression of

software creators. Richard M. Stallman, who founded the Free Software Movement in 1984, wanted to promote the right to "use, study, copy, modify and redistribute computer programs" . Open source movement also gives fair chance to new company or developer who is trying to get his software in market. In current situation all the major patents are owned by BIG SOFTWARE companies and they are not willing to share knowledge which they owns so they get major advantage over new companies and new companies have to pay money for some trivial patents like checking spelling in document. Open source model will effect companies from developing countries like India and they will be able to compete in global market. One of the example of this is Indian Open standards Policy, when after three years of hard work this policy was finalized in India. The number of vendors providing cards and card readers shot up. Instead of four foreign companies that were involved in making smart cards earlier, more than a dozen Indian companies entered the market and bid competitively for projects in this sector. Obviously, intellectual property right rents dropped dramatically (since the standard opted for royalty-free specifications) and the market price of a card fell from Rs. 300 to Rs. 30.(source The Hindu)

Arguments against open source and their criticism Proprietary software giants mainly give two arguments against the open source position. First, that there will be little incentive to create software if one cannot profit from it; and second, it is not fair to the creator to put effort into creating software and not profit from it. We can point to the creation of Linux, an open source operating system, as a counter example to the first argument. Red Hat, a software company that sells a licensed version of Linux, is able to profit from sales and support of Linux even though Linux is open source. Red Hat provides service and support that customers value. Customers can choose to do business with other companies that service and support Linux or develop their own expertise for supporting Linux. We can use the justice framework to counter the second argument, by arguing that this model is fairer because it serves to limit the amount of profit to what customers think is a reasonable value, rather than permitting monopolistic profits that could be extracted with proprietary software. For example, a number of software packages can be obtained at no cost, and the creator requests that people who find value in the software send a payment to the creator.

Conclusion best result will come from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself and the group -John Nash Our ultimate aim is benifit of entire human society for that we need creativity. Restricting knowledge means restricting creativity. The greatest good is served by having a system that allows anyone to modify software. According to me Open source ideology gives more freedom to any developer who wants to develop their idea into software. Open source ideology removes traditional monopoly given by IP regulations. Softwares required for growth of our society shouldn't be restricted to general masses because that will hinder overall development of our society. I think that we should rethink IP rights for software development. Open source will give more open environment for development of software. So we should remove current IP rights or atleast reduce duration of IP rights. We have to make certain personal sacrifices for greater good. References: www.opensource.org www.fsf.org http://progfree.org/ David P. Schmidt , Intellectual Property Battles in a Technological Global Economy: A Just War Analysis Guglielmo Faldetta , The Content of Freedom in Resources: The Open Source Model K. Gopinath , Computer Software and Intellectual Property Rights: Issues at Stake for Developing Countries