From: daviddow...@my-dejanews.com
Subject: Tim O'Reilly responds in detail to Stallman's acquisations
Date: 1998/11/17
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FYI: Tim O'Reilly publically states in detail
his position regarding Stallman's argument that the Free Software
principles should apply to his books and that he is a hypocrite in his
support of open source.
He was responding privately to a question by Australian programmer David
Downie who consented to the publication of the correspondence on the
O'Reilly web page. See the e-mail at: http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/
Full text;
From: David Downie
To: ask_...@oreilly.com
I have a question for Tim O'Reilly.
Aparently Stallman attacked you at one of your conferences, and pointed
out that ALL of the arguments for open source SOFTWARE can be applied
equally to DOCUMENTATION ie BOOKS. ie YOUR BOOKS.
How do you respond to the argument that all of your support is just to
line your own pockets through your refusal to release your books under the
GPL? You have the best unix books, Open Source is unix, it is in your best
interests for the whole world to learn unix and hence buy your books.
It is an interesting argument, and I haven't heard what your response was
(although I did hear it was quite lengthy). I would appreciate it if you
could outline your rebuttal either personally or on your web page (and point
me to it).
Regards
David Downie
David--
>>>I have a question for Tim O'Reilly.
>>>Aparently Stallman attacked you at once of your
conferences, and pointed out that ALL of the
arguments for open source SOFTWARE can be
applied equally to DOCUMENTATION ie BOOKS.
ie YOUR BOOKS.
This isn't quite right. He argued that to the extent that documentation
can be considered a necessary part of a product, that it ought to be free,
so people can modify it when they modify the software. I agree with him
about basic documentation for a product--and, for example, if you look at
the Perl distribution, there is a lot of good free documentation that is
part of it. All free software authors need to take seriously the job of
documenting their work, and users of a product can helpfully contribute
documentation in the same way as they contribute bug fixes or improvements.
When he takes the next step and says that authors of value-added books
have an *obligation* to make them free as well--there we part company.
>>>How do you respond to the argument that all of your support is just to
line your own pockets through your refusal to release your books under the
GPL? You have the best unix books, Open Source is unix, it is in your best
interests for the whole world to learn unix and hence buy your books.
Richard thinks there is a moral imperative underlying the free
redistribution of software, and now, by extension, other information.
Richard feels that since there isn't any physical cost associated with
copying software, limiting free redistribution is a form of extortion. I on
the other hand feel that it's immoral to try to compel someone else to give
you something they've created without compensating them in some way. That
is, when software is freed, it is a gift, not the result of an obligation. I
found Richard's comments at the Open Source Developer's Day, where he called
John Ousterhout a parasite because he now wants to build proprietary tools
on top of tcl, a defining moment. This is akin to children feeling that
their parents owe them an inheritance, or people on welfare feeling that the
government owes them a handout. Richard should be grateful for what John has
already given, not castigating him because he doesn't want to give even
more.
I believe that the imperative underlying Open Source is pragmatic rather
than moral. That is, it's a great development methodology that leads to
better software and leads to the formation of communities around that
software. Eric Raymond's paper, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, sets out a lot
of these pragmatic arguments for Open Source software.
The pragmatic arguments for open source software include:
You've developed the product to "scratch your own itch" and because bits
are easily copyable, there is no incremental cost, and possible incremental
benefit, from giving other people access to your work.
By releasing as Open Source a tool that you originally developed for your
own use you gain a cadre of co-developers who will give you back bug fixes,
additional functionality, and the gifts of their own work on the same terms.
This is a value-exchange, just not a monetary one. And yes, there are "free
riders" on the system, but even these free riders, who contribute no code,
contribute their attention and the good word, thus spreading the use of the
package and finding you more potential contributors. (Effectively, they are
carriers of your meme.) They also give you their esteem. As Raymond points
out, in a "gift culture", you get status as a result of what you give away.
Status has always been important in the hacker community.
By releasing Open Source software, you contribute to the overall health of
the programming community, who will give you products of their own work. You
benefit from the entire ecosystem, not just from the input of the community
into your own specific project.
Now, let's look at those arguments as they apply to books.
First, very few people write a book to "scratch their own itch." Instead,
people generally write books for two reasons, to serve other people (a noble
goal), or to earn something (either money or esteem, or both) for
themselves. So one of the fundamental motives underlying free software is
often missing. If someone wants to write a book because they believe in the
Open Source or free software movement, more power to them. I'll be happy to
publish that book if I think it's a good book. But I'm not going to tell my
authors that they have an obligation to do so!
In fact, we have published several books under copyleft (most notably the
Linux Network Administrator's Guide) at the request of the authors, and are
prepared to do so for other books, provided that the authors are aware of
the negative impact that we believe this will have on their sales (and
consequent royalties.) For instance, when we published the Linux NAG, it was
republished by both SSC (as a standalone book) and Macmillan (as part of a
"Linux Bible" or some such), neither of whom paid royalties to the author.
Their costs were therefore lower--but more to the point, they took away
some of the market for the book. The Linux NAG has always done less well for
us than other Linux books for which we'd expect comparable sales, and
perhaps partly as a result, the author was demotivated to continue updating
the book. (We've now got someone else working on a new edition.)
This experience seems to undercut the argument that just like free
software, freely available documentation will "spread the word" and result
in wider use of the product, thus greater book sales. This does not seem to
be the case in practice. Apart from the fact that there are significant
costs in book publishing and distribution that are not necessarily there in
software, you have to take into account the differences in distribution
methods for the two products. While most free software is downloaded
directly by the user, or put on a machine by a vendor, books are typically
purchased through an extremely inefficient system. Only about 10% of our
books are sold directly to the end customer. The greatest majority are sold
through indirect channels like bookstores, libraries, and corporations. And
the buying patterns of these middlemen are not under the control of the
publisher. There is far more product than available shelf space, so books
that sell below a certain threshhold are returned and not reordered. So, for
example, if there are three versions of the same book, they may well divide
the market when they are first released, leading the middlemen to decide
that there's not enough demand to keep any of the titles in stock.
In order to combat this problem, we're working (with a
number of other publishers) on a license that will allow
binary redistribution of a book's contents with the
software,
but will reserve the right to print, publish and sell
printed
copies to the original publisher. But mind you, even with
that
license, we're going to be experimenting, not going at it
wholesale. The point is that if Open Source is really a
better
model, it ought to lead to better results. If it doesn't,
then we
need to learn from experience where it fits and where it
doesn't.
Giving away books as open source would certainly seem to meet the third
benefit I listed above, of contributing to the overall health of the
community, but in fact, I'm not sure that even that is true. I believe that
without the economic incentive that a publisher offers, far fewer books
would be written, and that the net gain for the community would be less.
At bottom, this is true even of software, I think. There are value-added
features that the Open Source community doesn't seem to be good at
providing, and that commercial companies can do a better job at. New
companies like Sendmail, Inc., Scriptics, and ActiveState are exploring a
hybrid business model, which relies on Open Source as an important technique
for spreading the word, fostering innovation, improving product quality,
and giving back to the community, but reserves certain products as value
added so that they can make money.
At the end of the day, I see Open Source as a free market economy of
ideas. If you look at free markets, there are all kinds of value exchanges,
not just exchanges of money. But if you take away value exchange altogether,
and mandate forced sharing, you vitiate the very thing that you hope to
create.
I believe that the generosity that is at the heart of the Open Source
community is a kind of enlightened self-interest, not a moral imperative. It
behooves all of us to find the right balance between what we give away and
what we keep for ourselves. An awful lot depends on your goals. You pick the
hat to fit the head.
I give great kudos to Richard and to anyone else who gives away their
software without any thought of personal gain. I also give great kudos to
people who figure out how to build something valuable enough that other
people want to pay for it. And I see no reason to tell people they should
move to one side of the balance or the other.
Well, that's not quite true. I do believe very strongly that there are
some things that are common goods, that belong to everyone by right. A good
analogy is the environmental movement. Even if we don't own the environment,
we have some rights in it. And someone who clear cuts the forest and
doesn't replant it, or pollutes and doesn't clean up after themselves, is
wronging the rest of us. In a similar way, someone who takes something that
was created by others and tries to take away the freedom that was granted by
the original creator is the equivalent of an environmental criminal.
But here, once again, I part company with Richard. I far prefer the BSD
style licenses to the GPL. If I build proprietary added-value on top of
someone else's work, I don't take anything away from them or their users.
They have no obligation to use my added value. Where the "environmental
crime" comes in is when you try to actually deny people the right to use the
original package. This is the kind of thing we saw talked about in the
Halloween Document, where Microsoft was talking about subverting open
standards.
In short, I feel that undercutting an open standard so that other people's
products don't work is wrong. But simply adding value, and offering a
derivative product is fine--as long as that was the intent of the creator of
that product.
A really good example of this is the X Window System. It was designed with
the express intent that people would build proprietary products on top of
it. So when GPL fans deride the license because it allowed people to build
things that weren't contributed back to the community, they are deriding the
intent of the creators. It's a little bit like Puritans complaining because
other people are having fun.
That being said, there are definitely issues with the BSD style license
that the GPL addresses. In particular, it is possible for the market to
fragment more easily. But like software, licenses need to evolve to more
perfectly meet our needs. A lot of good work and thinking is going into this
area, and I'm confident that we'll eventually find even better ways to
encourage both the common good and the economic incentives that can be an
important stimulus to the creation of value.
And once again, I think this is in the end a pragmatic or scientific
issue, not a religious one. Open Source is like gravity. Our goal is to
understand the laws that make it work, not to decree how we'd like it to
work.
My goal is to encourage people to write great books that really help
people, and I'm charting the best course I know how towards that goal. So
far, I think the results speak pretty well for themselves.
--Tim O'Reilly
From: David Downie
To: ask_...@oreilly.com
Thanks for your response. I was interested in how open source advocates
could state `All software should be Opensource', but that books could be
tightly regulated for profit.
After reading your response it appears that you have never advocated that
all software should be opensource, but rather in some circumstances the open
source development methodology can be harnessed to produce a very high
quality product that is free for all. However, it may be that this isn't your
goal, or you may believe that the adoption of such a methodology may not be
optimal for your particular product. Further, you believe that there is no
*moral* obligation to adopt such a methodology, for your work is your own
unless you choose to give it to others.
That all sounds reasonable to me. Originally I thought
Stallman was right in his criticism and your
involvement smacked of hypocrisy. As it turns out, I
wasn't fully aware of exactly what your stance was.
Regards
David Downie.
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