How Open is the Future? Marleen Wynants & Jan Cornelis (Eds) How Open is the Future? Economic, Social & Cultural Scenarios inspired by Free & Open-Source Software The contents of this book do not reflect the views of the VUB, VUBPRESS or the editors, and are entirely the responsibility of the authors alone. Cover design: Dani Elskens Book design: Boudewijn Bardyn Printed in Belgium by Schaubroeck, Nazareth 2005 VUB Brussels University Press Waversesteenweg 1077, 1160 Brussels, Belgium Fax + 32 2 6292694 e-mail: [email protected] www.vubpress.be ISBN 90-5487-378-7 NUR 740 D / 2005 / 1885 / 01 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/be/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. There is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license) available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/be/legalcode.nl. Foreword & Acknowledgements This volume offers a series of articles ranging from the origins of free and open-source software to future social, economic and cultural perspectives inspired by the free and open-source spirit. A complete version of How Open is the Future? is available under a Creative Commons licence at http://crosstalks.vub.ac.be. How Open is the Future? is also available as printed matter, as you can experience at this moment. The topic of free and open-source software emerged from the initiative by Professor Dirk Vermeir of the Computer Science Department of the VUB – Vrije Universiteit Brussel – to award Richard Stallman an honorary doctorate from the VUB. From then on we set out to create a neutral platform where the voices of artists, journalists, key social and economic players, policymakers and scientific researchers could mingle and reflect on a possible future and the preservation of our digital and intellectual commons. First of all, we want to thank all the participants and speakers at the first CROSSTALKS workshop, Windows by Day, Linux by Night, on 11 December 2003 and all the participants at our first Science and Industry Dinner on 20 February 2004, in par- ticular, guest speaker Tim O’Reilly for his talk and Richard Stallman for popping in and increasing the complexity of the discussions. We are grateful to all who contributed to this publication and spent a considerable part of their time clearing the trajectory from the free and open-source software issue 5 How Open is the Future? towards a future agenda for a new kind of commons in an open-minded knowledge and communication society. Special thanks go to people who engaged in fruitful debates with us on the issue, who gave tips and comments and reviewed the texts: Jean-Claude Burgelman, Marc Nyssen, Bruno De Vuyst, Serge Gutwirth, Mirko Tobias Schäfer, Marianne Van den Boomen, Séverine Dusollier, Peter Hanappe, Bernard Rieder, Marc Nyssen, Leo Van Audenhove, Leo Van Hove, Caroline Pauwels, Bram Lievens, Jo Pierson, Jacques Vilrokx, Ilse Laurijssen, Jan Belgrado, Jean Vereecken, Frank Gielen and Frederik Questier. Many thanks go to the people who supported the CROSSTALKS events and refined their con- cept: Dirk Tombeur, Luc De Vuyst, Michel Flamée, Theo D’Hondt, Viviane Jonckers, Dirk Vermeir, Olga De Troyer, Koen Smets, Nadine Rons, Christ’l Vereecken, Sandra Baeyens, Mieke Gijsemans, Kris van Scharen, and Monique Peeters. Particular thanks go to Marnix Housen for his inspiring support in the end phase of the book. We owe a lot of gratitude to Sara Engelen for her indispensable and creative dynamism. Luc Steels was the backstage motivator and caterer of critical comments. Furthermore we thank Veronica Kelly for enhancing this book with her wonderful and meticulous English editing, Boudewijn Bardyn for the art direction and layout, Kris van Scharen for the production and Dani Elskens for the cover design. CROSSTALKS owes a great deal to the stimulation of the Head of the VUB Interface Cell, Sonja Haesen. Last but not least, we thank Rector Benjamin Van Camp for his con- tinuous support and his encouraging engagement in the CROSSTALKS activities. The Editors 6 Table of Contents Foreword & Acknowledgements 5 Preface 11 Marleen Wynants & Jan Cornelis PART I – DRIVING FORCES: KEY PLAYERS & PROJECTS 29 Will the revolution be open-sourced? 31 How open source travels through society Marianne van den Boomen & Mirko Tobias Schäfer Free as in Freedom, not Gratis! 69 An interview with Richard Stallman, the embodiment of the dilemma of our digital commons Marleen Wynants The Open Source Paradigm Shift 85 Tim O’Reilly Open Courseware and Open Scientific Publications 111 Frederik Questier & Wim Schreurs Roots Culture - Free Software Vibrations Inna Babylon 135 by Armin Medosch 7 Table of Contents PART II – MAKING IT HAPPEN: CASE STUDIES FROM BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, EUROPE & BEYOND 165 Extremadura and the Revolution of Free Software 167 Achieving digital literacy and modernizing the economy of one of the European Union’s poorest regions Angel Vaca Building Open Ecosystems for Collaborative Creativity 199 Peter Hanappe A Walk through the Music Bazaar & the Future of Music 231 Sara Engelen Open Source, Science and Education 275 Marc Nyssen & Frederik Cheeseman Open Standards Policy in Belgium 285 Peter Strickx & Jean Jochmans PART III - ETHICS & BOTTLENECKS 293 The Patenting of Life 295 An interview with VUB scientist Lode Wyns about the dangers of patents in biotechnology and the pressing need for ethics in law Lode Wyns Fostering Research, Innovation and Networking 309 Jan Cornelis Is Open-Sourced Biotechnology possible? 357 Daniel de Beer Legal Aspects of Software Protection through Patents, 375 and the Future of Reverse Engineering Bruno de Vuyst & Liv Steuts 8 How Open is the Future? PART IV – THE FUTURE IS OPEN 393 Advancing Economic Research on the Free and Open Source Software 395 Mode of Production J.-M. Dalle, P. A. David, Rishab A. Ghosh, and W.E. Steinmueller The Future of Open Source 429 Ilkka Tuomi The Future of Software: Enabling the Marketplace to Decide 461 Bradford L. Smith Dual Licensing – A Business Model from the Second Generation of 479 Open-Source Companies Kaj Arnö Towards a EU Policy for Open-Source Software 489 Simon Forge ANNEXES 505 I. The GNU General Public License (GPL)- Version 2, June 1991 507 II. Building Innovation through Integration 517 A Microsoft White Paper – July 2000 Index 527 List of Pictures 533 9 Preface Marleen Wynants & Jan Cornelis “What if Leonardo da Vinci had patented his ideas?” At first sight, the question seems a perfect metaphor for what might happen to our knowledge-based and commercially driven society if fundamental ideas are no longer a public good. Given the growing skepticism about the intrinsic value of patented technologies and copyrighted content descriptions, it could indeed seem that patents on da Vinci’s ideas might have obstructed the engineering industry and most of the innovations and developments that make our society what it is today. But let’s concentrate on facts, not myths: da Vinci’s ideas were not public! The artist Leonardo da Vinci worked on commission throughout his life and did not publish or distribute the contents of the technological innovations in his mirror-written codici. The fact is that most of the notebooks remained obscure until the 19th century, and were not directly of value to the explosive development of science and technology that occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries. If some of Leonardo’s ideas had been patented, they might have changed history and the engineering landscape of socie- ty in a fundamental way, just as Galileo’s patent on the telescope led to enormous breakthroughs in astronomical research and its instruments. But why then did Leonardo never allow his anatomical studies to be examined during his life? Maybe the answer lies in his explicit comment on intellectual property: “Do not teach your knowledge, and you alone will excel”. So maybe it’s not so strange after all that da Vinci’s best preserved notebook, the Codex Leicester, was bought by Bill Gates in 1994 and has found a home in Seattle. 11 Marleen Wynants & Jan Cornelis Bowling Alone? The da Vinci case proves that the issues of creativity, invention and ownership and their potential social, economic and cultural relevance are not simple. And especially in a time of increased networking and digital collaboration, the traditional notions of property and ownership are challenged in many ways. One of the possible incentives to start reflecting on the opposing social and economic forces in our society is the Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) movement. Most of the initial discussions were restricted to free and open versus proprietary software. Yet the interdependence of innovation and society calls for an interdisciplinary and constructive approach when exploring the processes of creating, validating and distributing. Where are the limits to owning and sharing? Where does using end and abusing start? How about ethics in politics and law? What about sharing what is yours? What about sharing what is not yours? How can we move to a more open culture and economy and yet preserve the quality and efficiency a thriving society needs? Can we learn from the perspectives and models of the open-source soft- ware industry? The following pages offer an affirmative answer to this last question. There are different perspectives to be taken into account, in which facts and history play a fundamental role. That’s why we begin our book with the driving forces, the key players and projects associated with the Free and Open-Source movement (Part I). What follows are innovative scientific experiments and some current and colorful education- al, cultural and political cases (Part II).