The software commons envisioned by Stallman not only exists; by any measure, it has been an overwhelming success. Its success can be measured in countless ways: the number of participants creating software for that GPL commons, the number of open source software programs in use, or the environments in which such software can be found. More than 90 of the 100 most powerful computers in the world run on GPL software, not to mention mobile phones and in-car entertainment systems; open source software is at the core of the business offerings of such large companies as IBM and Red Hat.
The Commons Analogy
The success of free software cannot be solely attributed to the GPL. The GPL extracts a price for using the commons. To risk taking the analogy too far, a landowner who has property adjoining the GPL commons and who wants to use it also has to add his own land to the commons. (Remember, this is the magical land of ideas which cannot be ruined by over-grazing.) This will have the effect of increasing the size of the commons as more and more adjoining landowners want to make use of the commons and donate their own land in the process. However, many of them may not want to join this scheme, either because they do not want to add their own land to the commons, or because they have already pledged their land to another commons.
Is it possible to generate a commons of ideas without forcing participants to pay the price of entry; without requiring that they add their own adjoining land to the commons? Is the compulsion of the GPL necessary, or is the social and community dynamic powerful enough to allow a similar commons of ideas to spring up on its own?
The software industry has given us several outstanding examples of this. Apache, the most popular web server software in the world, used by many of the world’s busiest web sites, is issued under a licence which does not ask users to pay the GPL price. Anyone can take the Apache code, and modify it and combine it with their other software, and release it without having to release any sources to anyone else. In contrast to the GPL, there is no compulsion to add your software to the Apache commons if you build on Apache software and distribute your developments, but many people choose to contribute in return even without this compulsion. FreeBSD, to take another example, is an operating system bearing some similarity to GNU/Linux which is licensed under a very liberal licence allowing its use, amendment and distribution without contributing back; nonetheless, many people choose to do so.
Free Riders
A parallel development to the GPL was the BSD licence, first used for the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). As opposed to the GPL, the BSD licence only requires the acknowledgement of the original authors, and poses no restrictions on how the source code may be used. As a result, BSD-licensed code can be used in proprietary software that only acknowledges the authors.
The GPL tackles an issue called the free rider problem. Because BSD does not compel people to contribute back to the commons, those who take advantage without contributing back are called free riders. The question is whether free riders really are a problem (as the GPL band would maintain), or whether they are (as the BSD band would maintain) at worst a cost-free irritant, and at best, a cadre of people who will eventually see the light and start to contribute, once they recognize the benefits. Supporters of both the GPL and BSD models of licensing have similar aims. In both cases, they seek to support a software commons which will enable the social mode of creativity to flourish.
While the BSD model could subsist in the absence of copyright, GPL relies (perhaps ironically) on copyright law to enforce its compulsion to share. It still remains an open question as to whether the better model is to use licensing to compel people to participate in the software commons, thus reducing the free rider problem (as with GPL), or whether voluntary engagement will result in a more active community (as with Apache). Designers working outside the digital domain will rarely have the chance to choose a GPL-style option.
The barrier to entry for any participant in a digital project is remarkably low. A low-cost computer and basic internet access are all that is required to have a system capable of running the (free) GNU/Linux operating system, accessing (free) project hosting sites like sourceforge.com or koders.com. A vast range of tools required to develop software (such as GCC – the GNU Compiler Collection) are also available as free software. Copying purely digital works is trivially easy. Physical (or ‘analogue’) objects are a different matter. Hardware development is likely to require more intensive investment in equipment (including premises in which the hardware can be placed), not just for development, but for testing. Electronic digital hardware is probably closest to software in terms of low barrier to entry: for example, the open-source Arduino microcontroller project enables an experimenter to get started with as little as $30 for a basic USB controller board (or less, if the experimenter is prepared to build the board). Arduino’s schematics, board layouts and prototyping software are all open source. BLUEPRINTS However, Arduino-like projects represent the lowest barrier to entry in the hardware world.
Complications of Analogue
An Arduino-style project is essentially a hybrid of the analogue and the digital domains. Prototyping software makes it possible to develop Arduino-based hardware in the digital domain, where it retains all the characteristics of the digital world: ease of copying, the ability to upload prototypes to fellow contributors for commentary, assistance and the chance to show off.
RIGHTS AND LICENSING SCHEMES
The re-use of designs is governed mainly by copyright, design rights and patents. Traditional open licensing schemes have been based on copyright, as this is the main intellectual property right which impinges on software, the most fertile ground for openness.
Software licensing schemes include the GPL (which enforces copyleft) and BSD (which doesn’t). Software licences rarely work properly when applied to other works. For literary, graphic and musical works, the Creative Commons suite is more effective. They allow both copyleft (share alike) and non-copyleft options. They may work well when applied to underlying design documents, which are covered by copyright, and control the distribution of those documents, as well as the creation of physical objects from them, but (depending on the jurisdiction) their protection is unlikely to extend to copying the physical object itself. Some efforts have been made to create licences that cover hardware; the TAPR Open Hardware Licence is one example. However, these efforts have frequently been criticized for their lack of effectiveness.
www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html
CREATIVE COMMONS AND DESIGN RIGHTS
Creative Commons licensing is fundamentally based on copyright, and there is little clarity or consensus on how such licenses would operate in relation to design rights across the myriad different jurisdictions and types of rights.
Those designers operating purely in the realm of copyright will find that there is already an existing structure of support in terms of Creative Commons licences and associated communities. Where other forms of intellectual property impinge, matters are far more murky. The Creative Commons licences are arguably drafted to be sufficiently broad as to cover unregistered design in certain circumstances. However, since they were not drafted with design rights in mind, it cannot be assumed that the copying of a three-dimensional object will automatically fall within the scope of such a license.
These are characteristics which enable network effects, and which make the open source