From robmyers at mac.com Wed Sep 1 08:15:57 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 13:15:57 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Open Source Hardware In-Reply-To: <554743.1093619235118.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> References: <7517D9BC-F54F-11D8-8E2B-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <6.0.0.22.2.20040824105143.025f4cf8@po10.mit.edu> <7944681.1093522783939.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <87sma96eiq.fsf@vaclav.privatezone.b-only.com> <6F97169C-F798-11D8-A907-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <554743.1093619235118.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Message-ID: <1304717.1094040957301.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Via The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/01/neuros_open_source/ ' "We're willing to support the community in a way that not many HW companies are, including releasing documentation and even schematics in addition to source code," said NA president Joe Born. ' - Rob. From marshall at MIT.EDU Wed Sep 1 15:11:33 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 15:11:33 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Open Source & Games Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040901150114.025d5dd8@po10.mit.edu> There's an interesting post from slashdot on how open source may not be the best development model for games. http://www.osnews.com/printer.php?news_id=8146 The author argues that the main reasons are (attempted summary): (1) long development cycles with very short consumption cycles, that limit useful feedback. Two years [of development] is a long time in the gaming world. It would be very hard to keep any sort of public interest alive with weekly test releases where the only change might be that a weapon was tweaked, a room was added halfway through the game, the lighting was adjusted, or load time was slightly reduced. From the audience perspective, games don't get better gradually. That would be like expecting the general public to sit through the same movie every week for two years as the editing was tuned and small scenes were gradually added. Not only would the audience not enjoy it, they would also be likely to riot after about six months of showings. (2) reuse of characters & graphics is difficult Now imagine that the developers for our open source Doom 3 can take the art from Doom 2 to use as a base for Doom 3. But this isn't very useful. The artist can't load the art for an Imp monster circa 1993 into The GIMP, apply a filter, and suddenly have an amazing 3-d model with bump mapping. In fact, the only area of game development where reuse is a major advantage is the ability to use an existing game engine. But most closed source developers already do this. It would be interesting to see if we could design licensing mechanisms that would facilitate open content for markets with these characteristics. MVA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-bizcom/attachments/20040901/135334b6/attachment.html From robmyers at mac.com Wed Sep 1 16:02:28 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 21:02:28 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Open Source & Games In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040901150114.025d5dd8@po10.mit.edu> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040901150114.025d5dd8@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: On 1 Sep 2004, at 20:11, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote: > There's an interesting post from slashdot on how open source may not > be the best development model for games.? I worked in games for two years. We almost finished the project. :-) > The author argues that the main reasons are (attempted summary): > (1) long development cycles with very short consumption cycles, that > limit useful feedback. Successful games have long consumption cycles, and rely on new materials to extend their lifespan. Role-playing games (like the Dungeons and Dragons 3e computer games) rely on player-created modules for gameplay. Single-player games, like "The Sims", have expansion packs of new materials released to supplement those shipped with the game. "Modding", producing new characters, maps, challenges and stories for existing games, building on the materials shipped with the game, is a major ingredient in building communities of consumers for games from the more successful companies. This is Open Source in all but license. > (2)? reuse of characters & graphics is difficult > > Now imagine that the developers for our open source Doom 3 can take > the art from Doom 2 to use as a base for Doom 3. But this isn't very > useful. The artist can't load the art for an Imp monster circa 1993 > into The GIMP, apply a filter, and suddenly have an amazing 3-d model > with bump mapping. In fact, the only area of game development where > reuse is a major advantage is the ability to use an existing game > engine. But most closed source developers already do this. This is a hacker's argument regarding art... :-) Those low-polygon models for the monster may have been reduced from high-poly models. Those low-resolution textures likewise will have been reduced from hi-res textures. So if the source materials were available, this would be useful And even if they were lo-poly/lo-res to start with they can be smoothed algorithmically as a starting point. If nothing else, you can re-use the look without plagiarism if it's Open. > It would be interesting to see if we could design licensing mechanisms > that would facilitate open content for markets with these > characteristics. One poster to the Slashdot discussion mentioned that ID (authors of Quake) factor the licensing revenue from the game engines that they write into the budget for the games that they create the game engines for. The poster argued that they would be committing financial suicide by giving away the game engine for free (sic). Which is a funny way of saying that if they wrote the game engine as Open Source their financial risks on each project would be reduced. :-) One interesting thing for licensing with computer games is that there is a clean conceptual and programmatic split between the core system (the "game engine" that loads and runs the resources and gameplay for the game, written in a compiled language such as C) and the support materials (art, models and the 'scripts' that drive the gameplay). So one could, in theory, keep the engine closed whilst licensing the art and scripts liberally for community-driven modding. This would return value to the authors of the game engine by maintaining interest in their product, extending shelf-life and increasing sales. Or the engine could be opened, reducing the risk of relying on licensing revenue, and the game materials kept closed as proprietary added value over the closed engine. It is an interesting area for Open Content, in many ways there is already an Open culture there with the Modding scene that could be formalised. - Rob. From marshall at MIT.EDU Wed Sep 1 17:56:05 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 17:56:05 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Open Source & Games In-Reply-To: References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040901150114.025d5dd8@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040901174746.03be1908@po10.mit.edu> At 04:02 PM 9/1/2004, Rob Myers wrote: >On 1 Sep 2004, at 20:11, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote: > >>The author argues that the main reasons are (attempted summary): >> (1) long development cycles with very short consumption cycles, that >> limit useful feedback. > >Successful games have long consumption cycles, and rely on new materials >to extend their lifespan. Role-playing games (like the Dungeons and >Dragons 3e computer games) rely on player-created modules for gameplay. >Single-player games, like "The Sims", have expansion packs of new >materials released to supplement those shipped with the game. > >"Modding", producing new characters, maps, challenges and stories for >existing games, building on the materials shipped with the game, is a >major ingredient in building communities of consumers for games from the >more successful companies. This is Open Source in all but license. This sounds to me as if there could be a lot of leverage in setting up the licenses exactly as Creative Commons intends in ways that could stimulate mods. A buddy of mine showed me a port of a Myth style game to a Civil War game that looked like it added immense value. >>(2) reuse of characters & graphics is difficult >> >>Now imagine that the developers for our open source Doom 3 can take the >>art from Doom 2 to use as a base for Doom 3. But this isn't very useful. >>The artist can't load the art for an Imp monster circa 1993 into The >>GIMP, apply a filter, and suddenly have an amazing 3-d model with bump >>mapping. In fact, the only area of game development where reuse is a >>major advantage is the ability to use an existing game engine. But most >>closed source developers already do this. > >This is a hacker's argument regarding art... :-) Those low-polygon models >for the monster may have been reduced from high-poly models. Those >low-resolution textures likewise will have been reduced from hi-res >textures. So if the source materials were available, this would be useful >And even if they were lo-poly/lo-res to start with they can be smoothed >algorithmically as a starting point. > >If nothing else, you can re-use the look without plagiarism if it's Open. > >>It would be interesting to see if we could design licensing mechanisms >>that would facilitate open content for markets with these characteristics. >... >One interesting thing for licensing with computer games is that there is a >clean conceptual and programmatic split between the core system (the >"game engine" that loads and runs the resources and gameplay for the game, >written in a compiled language such as C) and the support materials (art, >models and the 'scripts' that drive the gameplay). > >So one could, in theory, keep the engine closed whilst licensing the art >and scripts liberally for community-driven modding. This would return >value to the authors of the game engine by maintaining interest in their >product, extending shelf-life and increasing sales. > >Or the engine could be opened, reducing the risk of relying on licensing >revenue, and the game materials kept closed as proprietary added value >over the closed engine. > >It is an interesting area for Open Content, in many ways there is already >an Open culture there with the Modding scene that could be formalised. Excellent point! This is a feature I think we need to model as a complementarity between Free/Open Content and proprietary content. The nature of this complementarity and community building seems like one aspect of openness that is badly managed by strictly proprietary business models, worth further systematic exploration. MVA From robmyers at mac.com Thu Sep 2 04:51:12 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 09:51:12 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Two From Groklaw In-Reply-To: References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040901150114.025d5dd8@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: <8614036.1094115072966.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Two articles of interest from Groklaw. Free Software may have less to fear from software patents than Proprietary Software: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040901004705872 Various historical uses of the word "Open" and what they really mean for consumers: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040821124727901 - Rob. From robmyers at mac.com Thu Sep 2 13:44:21 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 18:44:21 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] The Open Gaming License Message-ID: Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a division of Hasbro, were responsible for the Pokemon card game craze. They used some of the money from this to buy the ailing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) Role-Playing Game (RPG) from its bankrupt owners. RPGs, of which D&D is the first and most successful, are a global multi-million-dollar market. But by the end of the 1990s this market was shrinking fast. WotC had to have a sound business plan to justify aquiring D&D. As well as reworking the game brand and rules systems (renamed the "d20" system), WotC set out to rebuild the community and market for RPGs by releasing the game's rules under a modular copyleft license and releasing the rule brand under a license that required licensees to release some content under that license. The modular copyleft license is the Open Gaming License ("OGL"). It is similar in principle to the LGPL. It can be applied to some of a work without affecting the parts identified as "Product Identity" by the contributor. So a game based on (for example) "The Matrix" could Open its rules and other materials without having to Open any of the core IP of the "The Matrix" brand, which would be marked as Product Identity. The OGL is not a Free license, and that places a limit on not only how much brand value can be lost, but also on how much can be created and returned. It is not a Free license because of its modularity and its termination clauses based on mis-use of Product Identity. But it is still the oldest and most successful example of a *hybrid* Open Content license. The brand license is the d20 License. The d20 license allows any company to use the "d20" logo on their role playing games and supplements that use the d20 rules system if they meet various conditions, including: - They have to release some of the work as OGL content. - The have to advertise the PHB on the cover of the work. - They cannot include the startup rules for the d20 system (so you need the PHB to get these). The d20 license is not any sort of Free or Copyright license. It is a value exchange or barter license: you give WotC some advertising, you give the community some content, and you get to use WotC's brand in return. The d20 and OGL licenses have created an explosion in third-party content and driven WotC's sales. The (now ex-)WotC exec responsible for the OGL, Ryan Dancey, claims it was written in part to protect D&D for the community from events like its previous owners bankruptcy. But it was also written to boost WotC's profits, working with the d20 license to make as much of the Role Playing Game industry as possible a network driving sales of the core D&D rulebook, the Player's handbook (PHB). The OGL has succeeded admirably in both its community and commercial aims. It is possibly a useful model for computer game modding or for opening other systems where brand and content want to co-exist and drive each others value. Dancey on the OGL: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e OGL and d20 site: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/welcome D&D OGL Rules site: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35 - Rob. From robmyers at mac.com Fri Sep 3 17:26:20 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 22:26:20 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Open Source and IP: Challenges and Opportunities Message-ID: http://dot.kde.org/1094179086/ "There will be a fundamental reshaping of the market, which can only come from the bottom up, i.e. from the free software community and from small companies". - Rob. From robmyers at mac.com Mon Sep 6 14:10:58 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 19:10:58 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Regarding My Comments About Mineral Water... Message-ID: <1A3575FF-0030-11D9-91EE-00306590A6B6@mac.com> http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/sterling/index.blog?entry_id=434246 :-) - Rob. From marshall at MIT.EDU Wed Sep 8 10:18:27 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 10:18:27 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] The Open Gaming License In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040908091658.033e4558@po10.mit.edu> At 01:44 PM 9/2/2004, Rob Myers wrote: >Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a division of Hasbro, were responsible for >the Pokemon card game craze. They used some of the money from this to buy >the ailing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) Role-Playing Game (RPG) from its >bankrupt owners. RPGs, of which D&D is the first and most successful, are >a global multi-million-dollar market. But by the end of the 1990s this >market was shrinking fast. WotC had to have a sound business plan to >justify aquiring D&D. ... >The modular copyleft license is the Open Gaming License ("OGL"). It is >similar in principle to the LGPL. It can be applied to some of a work >without affecting the parts identified as "Product Identity" by the >contributor. So a game based on (for example) "The Matrix" could Open its >rules and other materials without having to Open any of the core IP of the >"The Matrix" brand, which would be marked as Product Identity. The OGL is >not a Free license, and that places a limit on not only how much brand >value can be lost, but also on how much can be created and returned. It is >not a Free license because of its modularity and its termination clauses >based on mis-use of Product Identity. But it is still the oldest and most >successful example of a *hybrid* Open Content license. This is very interesting. I found a list of compatible gaming licenses from Wizards of the Coast at http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/licenses.html Then, there is also a useful FAQ on the license at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123f >The brand license is the d20 License. The d20 license allows any company >to use the "d20" logo on their role playing games and supplements that use >the d20 rules system if they meet various conditions ... >The d20 license is not any sort of Free or Copyright license. It is a >value exchange or barter license: you give WotC some advertising, you give >the community some content, and you get to use WotC's brand in return. Very intriguing example of quid pro quo. I suspect that this can be leveraged in other ways. The interview with Dancy (VP of WoTC) also points out that it's possible to sell your own product based on the D20, without paying royalties to WoTC. They really rely on network effects to boost sales of their core products. >The d20 and OGL licenses have created an explosion in third-party content >and driven WotC's sales. The (now ex-)WotC exec responsible for the OGL, >Ryan Dancey, claims it was written in part to protect D&D for the >community from events like its previous owners bankruptcy. But it was also >written to boost WotC's profits, working with the d20 license to make as >much of the Role Playing Game industry as possible a network driving sales >of the core D&D rulebook, the Player's handbook (PHB). > >The OGL has succeeded admirably in both its community and commercial aims. >It is possibly a useful model for computer game modding or for opening >other systems where brand and content want to co-exist and drive each >others value. Rob, this is the best example of a hybrid license I've seen. Let me pull out two additional points from Dancey's interview and from the FAQ useful for modeling and also for fairness. 1 - Dancy offers a first rate example of the network effects issue that we should seek to model. Quoting Skaff Elias, a sharp guy inside WoTC: "All marketing and sales activity in a hobby gaming genre eventually contributes to the overall success of the market share leader in that genre." In other words, the more money other companies spend on their games, the more D&D sales are eventually made. Now, there are clearly issues of efficiency -- not every dollar input to the market results in a dollar output in D&D sales; and there is a substantial time lag between input and output; and a certain amount of people are diverted from D&D to other games never to return. However, we believe very strongly that the net effect of the competition in the RPG genre is positive for D&D. To parameterize this, we can examine (i) the level of network effects that grow a market versus (ii) the lag times after which complementary investments have an effect and (iii) the extent to which competition complements or substitutes for existing sales. 2 - The next section is a direct quote from the Open Gaming FAQ put out by WoTC. It notes that in practice WoTC could sell 3rd party open content and remarks on the fairness of this effect. Actually, there should be an economic way to achieve the right result. Begin quote: ------------------ Q: Does this mean that someone could take Open Game Content I wrote and distributed for free, and then put it in a product and sell that product to someone else? A: Yes. Q: To be clear: Does this mean that Wizards of the Coast could take Open Game Content I wrote and distributed for free, put it into a Dungeons & Dragons product and make money off it? A: Yes. Q: And they wouldn't have to ask my permission or pay me a royalty? A: No, they would not. Q: Isn't that pretty unfair? A: If you don't like the terms of the Open Game License, don't publish Open Game Content. Since the terms of the License are public knowledge, and they apply to everyone equally, including commercial publishers like Wizards of the Coast, your decision to use the Open Game License means that you consent to abide by its terms freely and without coercion. That's about as fair as anything ever gets. End quote: ------------------ WoTC may have a stronger argument than they actually make. With the right licensing terms, it should be possible to achieve fairness as well. If the licensing terms commit (i) the standards or platform author (i.e. the 1st developer of Open Game Content) to leave that code as Open Content into perpetuity and (ii) users can gain access to both original and subsequent open content from numerous alternative sources, then in economic terms, WoTC can't really charge for the value of 3rd party contributions. This means a user has a choice not to pay for that specific content simply by going elsewhere. What WoTC can charge for is convenience of bundling disparate parts together and for compatibility assurance. They can also charge for indispensable parts of a program that are required to run the entire program. Despite the fact that the original owner could potentially the copyright later, OGL actually does give a perpetual right to use Open Content in clause 4 and the right to use the existing license if it's later changed (in clause 9). So WoTC has actually gone a long way toward undercutting their own ability to charge for 3rd party open content, which of course is fair. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-bizcom/attachments/20040908/10cf65f9/attachment.html From robmyers at mac.com Wed Sep 8 11:08:45 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 16:08:45 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] The Open Gaming License In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040908091658.033e4558@po10.mit.edu> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040908091658.033e4558@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: <1788233.1094656125193.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> On Wednesday, September 08, 2004, at 03:20PM, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote: >The interview with Dancy (VP of WoTC) also points out that it's possible to sell your own product based on the D20, without paying royalties to WoTC. They really rely on network effects to boost sales of their core products. Yes you don't have to pay for d20, you just have to follow the terms of the license. Politically within the industry there's been some concern at the license termination clauses and at recent d20 license changes that exclude obscene (etc.) content. Some publishers now publish just "OGL" content or avoid the OGL and d20 altogether. But on balance it's created a boom (a bubble, according to some). >2 - The next section is a direct quote from the Open Gaming FAQ put out by WoTC. It notes that in practice WoTC could sell 3rd party open content and remarks on the fairness of this effect. Actually, there should be an economic way to achieve the right result. The license isn't like CC-NC, so you can sell or give away content as you see fit. WoTC have released some books using content that was OGL but that they have re-licensed from the author for closed use. Again some controversy in the community over this, but it's something you can do with CC or GPL just as easily. >A: If you don't like the terms of the Open Game License, don't publish Open Game Content. Since the terms of the License are public knowledge, and they apply to everyone equally, including commercial publishers like Wizards of the Coast, your decision to use the Open Game License means that you consent to abide by its terms freely and without coercion. That's about as fair as anything ever gets. That is disingenious on WoTC's part: this is just how Free licenses work. They should explain the flipside: yes, they can use your web article for free, but you can use their entire game system and brand for free (excluding "character creation" under d20). >WoTC may have a stronger argument than they actually make. With the right licensing terms, it should be possible to achieve fairness as well. If the licensing terms commit (i) the standards or platform author (i.e. the 1st developer of Open Game Content) to leave that code as Open Content into perpetuity and (ii) users can gain access to both original and subsequent open content from numerous alternative sources, then in economic terms, WoTC can't really charge for the value of 3rd party contributions. Apart from not allowing character creation, d20 is largely fair. I do wonder who required that clause. OGL is pretty much fair IMHO. As you mention, you can't close OGL content, although WoTC have effectively got dual licensing from some authors. I agree that WoTC can't really charge for the value of 3rd party content per se, but they can charge for the (physical) book they print. Nice glossy hardbacks with colorful art and full-on graphic design. :-) >This means a user has a choice not to pay for that specific content simply by going elsewhere. One publisher (Mongoose Publishing) has printed the entire SRD (the D&D rules sans the D&D brand) as a "quick reference" book, under the OGL rather than d20 so they can include character creation. The door swings both ways. >What WoTC can charge for is convenience of bundling disparate parts together and for compatibility assurance. They can also charge for indispensable parts of a program that are required to run the entire program. Yes, absolutely (the program being the written rules in this case...). This is like the "editorial" value mentioned in the Sun interview, although with an added impediment to competition if you want to use the d20 brand (no character creation). - Rob. From marshall at MIT.EDU Sat Sep 11 22:19:38 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall W Van Alstyne) Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 22:19:38 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] RMS on SW patents Message-ID: <1094955578.4143b23a22373@webmail.mit.edu> There's a newsworthy post from Slashdot on Stallman's suggestions for dealing with SW patents: Posted by timothy on Saturday September 11, @07:11PM from the by-virtue-of-virtue dept. rimberg writes "Richard M. Stallman has a article on NewsForge talking about ways to fight software patents. It mentions the Public Patent Foundation (and why it's a good idea), but argues that fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria." (Newsforge, like Slashdot, is part of OSTG.) The article is here: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/09/09/1612239 From robmyers at mac.com Mon Sep 13 06:39:58 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 11:39:58 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Oekonux In-Reply-To: <1094955578.4143b23a22373@webmail.mit.edu> References: <1094955578.4143b23a22373@webmail.mit.edu> Message-ID: <6191203.1095071998558.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Possibly of interest: http://www.oekonux.org/ "In Project Oekonux different people with different opinions and different methods study the economic and political forms of Free Software. An important question is, whether the principles of the development of Free Software may be the foundation of a new economy which may be the base for a new society." Most of the site ist im Deutsch, but some English translations are there. - Rob. From marshall at MIT.EDU Mon Sep 13 10:14:33 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 10:14:33 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] comments from Zack Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> Based on discussion here, I contacted Zack Urlocker, VP of MySQL and got the following back with permission to post: Begin quote --------- I'm always interested in ways that licensing could be more effective. I think the GPL is a very good license (that's why we use it) but of course it was written for a specific purpose at a point in time and I think things have changed a bit over the years. Our philosophy or approach is different from the FSF in that we recognize that there is a case where a non-open source license makes sense. We have some customers, like Cisco, SAS etc, who like our product but don't want to abide by the GPL, and so that's why we offer the dual license approach. We summarize our philosophy as "Quid Pro Quo" to mean that if you're free, we're free, and if you're closed source, we have a commercial license. As has been noted on your discussion boards, there are challenges with the dual license approach. I wonder if it would be possible to have a single license that meets the needs of a commercially sustained open source development effort, like MySQL. There are other companies that also use the dual license approach, like Sleepycat, Trolltech, OSAF etc. End quote --------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-bizcom/attachments/20040913/9310d174/attachment.html From robmyers at mac.com Tue Sep 14 06:11:28 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:11:28 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Is Intellectual Property Property? In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Article: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=582602 Discussion: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/09/1640255 http://www.acsblog.org/ip-and-tech-law-192-lemley-intellectual-property-should-not-be-treated-like-property.html - Rob. From robmyers at mac.com Tue Sep 14 06:30:29 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:30:29 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] comments from Zack In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: <2715810.1095157829435.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> On Monday, September 13, 2004, at 03:22PM, Marshall Van Alstyne quoted: >We summarize our philosophy as "Quid Pro Quo" to mean that if you're free, we're free, and if you're closed source, we have a commercial license. > >As has been noted on your discussion boards, there are challenges with the dual license approach. I wonder if it would be possible to have a single license that meets the needs of a commercially sustained open source development effort, like MySQL. There are other companies that also use the dual license approach, like Sleepycat, Trolltech, OSAF etc. Possibly a "polymorphic license", a license with terms that apply depending on how you are using the licensed material. So, to paraphrase MySQL; if you're free it's free, if you're commercial it's commercial? (Clauses 1-3 apply if you are using this product commercially as defined in paragraph 7, clauses 4-5 apply if you are using this product as part of a Free Software project as defined in paragraph 6). But then this doesn't allow free contribution of code to the project, so it reduces the effectiveness of Open Source by roadblocking the growth of value. Unless there's a micropayment scheme attached somehow. ;-) The problem is companies trying to "own" Free codebases when the whole point, and the driver of value, is that you can't. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is how Open Source made MySQL commercially viable. I certainly wouldn't have started selling a new database at the moment when Oracle and Microsoft were consolidating their stranglehold on the market in the late-1990s. Without Open Source, MySQL would not have got the mindshare, exposure and community of users required to make it commercially successful. It may be that the GPL is better for starting projects than for maintaining them, or that it is better for companies whose primary (or only) product isn't software, but it may be that mature software isn't the best primary (or only) product for companies. See how much trouble Microsoft are having increasing their revenue with ageing codebases and a market starting to wise up to forced upgrade cycles. - Rob. From ryand at organizedplay.com Tue Sep 14 12:18:13 2004 From: ryand at organizedplay.com (Ryan S. Dancey) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:18:13 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Message-ID: <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> Hello! My name is Ryan Dancey. I wrote the Open Gaming License for Wizards of the Coast, and I host the Open Gaming Foundation web site & email lists. I heard there was a discussion of the OGL here and dropped by to offer any information that might be helpful. Ryan From ml at creativecommons.org Tue Sep 14 13:04:51 2004 From: ml at creativecommons.org (Mike Linksvayer) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 10:04:51 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] comments from Zack In-Reply-To: <2715810.1095157829435.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <2715810.1095157829435.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Message-ID: <414724B3.8010802@creativecommons.org> Rob Myers wrote: > One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is how Open Source made MySQL > commercially viable. I certainly wouldn't have started selling a new > database at the moment when Oracle and Microsoft were consolidating > their stranglehold on the market in the late-1990s. Without Open > Source, MySQL would not have got the mindshare, exposure and community > of users required to make it commercially successful. In this case there's even a counterfactual: in the mid-90's mSQL (free as in beer for most purposes, source available) was popular for low-end web apps on unix. Hughes Consulting of Australia (the mSQL vendor, IIRC, I'm offline at the moment) didn't want to open source mSQL, and over a very brief time (~1996) saw their share killed by MySQL. Now MySQL is a thriving business. I like PostgreSQL better, and it appears to have corporate-financed development with a non-copyleft (BSD-like) license, but that's another story that I don't know much about. -- Mike Linksvayer http://creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people#21 From robmyers at mac.com Tue Sep 14 18:15:13 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 23:15:13 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> Message-ID: <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> On 14 Sep 2004, at 17:18, Ryan S. Dancey wrote: > Hello! My name is Ryan Dancey. I wrote the Open Gaming License for > Wizards of the Coast, and I host the Open Gaming Foundation web site & > email lists. Hello Ryan. > I heard there was a discussion of the OGL here and dropped > by to offer any information that might be helpful. Cool. Regarding clause 5a, representation of authority to contribute. Creative Commons didn't put such a clause in the 2.0 CC licenses, which I thought was a shame. I've seen it in some other licenses and I've seen it waved at people who start fan projects to "OGL" a game based on someone else's IP a couple times. Does it that have a specific legal effect or is it just to remind people? One thing that has struck me about OGL stuff is how little seems to get re-used. Is that just my perception, or if it's the case why do you think that is? There's so many RPGs, with so many similar rules systems, that it seems silly to re-invent the wheel each time. It's almost as if people enjoy doing it, but that can't be the case for commercial projects, surely. Regarding the d20 license, I'm curious about the clause that means that d20 license publications can't include character creation rules. Some games that might otherwise be d20 have decided to be just OGL because of this, and I'm wondering if it would have been better to have a weaker requirement for d20 work and to rely on network effects from people getting to know d20 from these projects. Thanks. - Rob. From joehall at gmail.com Tue Sep 14 19:51:32 2004 From: joehall at gmail.com (Joseph Lorenzo Hall) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 16:51:32 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] comments from Zack In-Reply-To: <414724B3.8010802@creativecommons.org> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <2715810.1095157829435.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <414724B3.8010802@creativecommons.org> Message-ID: <928946aa040914165115aeba6b@mail.gmail.com> I wonder why MySQL hasn't transitioned to a more subscription-based model like RedHat... that seems to have done wonders for them (I don't entirely know what I'm talking about so take this with a grain of salt... just to get some discussion going on OS biz models). -Joe On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 10:04:51 -0700, Mike Linksvayer wrote: > Rob Myers wrote: > > One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is how Open Source made MySQL > > commercially viable. I certainly wouldn't have started selling a new > > database at the moment when Oracle and Microsoft were consolidating > > their stranglehold on the market in the late-1990s. Without Open > > Source, MySQL would not have got the mindshare, exposure and community > > of users required to make it commercially successful. > > In this case there's even a counterfactual: in the mid-90's mSQL (free > as in beer for most purposes, source available) was popular for low-end > web apps on unix. Hughes Consulting of Australia (the mSQL vendor, > IIRC, I'm offline at the moment) didn't want to open source mSQL, and > over a very brief time (~1996) saw their share killed by MySQL. Now > MySQL is a thriving business. > > I like PostgreSQL better, and it appears to have corporate-financed > development with a non-copyleft (BSD-like) license, but that's another > story that I don't know much about. > > -- > Mike Linksvayer > http://creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people#21 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Cc-bizcom mailing list > Cc-bizcom at lists.ibiblio.org > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-bizcom > -- Joseph Lorenzo Hall UC Berkeley, SIMS PhD Student http://pobox.com/~joehall/ blog: http://pobox.com/~joehall/nqb2/ From ryand at organizedplay.com Tue Sep 14 20:42:16 2004 From: ryand at organizedplay.com (Ryan S. Dancey) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 17:42:16 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> Message-ID: <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> On Tue, 2004-09-14 at 23:15 +0100, Rob Myers wrote: > Regarding clause 5a [...] Does it that have a specific legal > effect or is it just to remind people? One of the objectives of the OGL was to make it somewhat "idiot proof", that is, we started with the assumption that people would try to take as great a liberty with the material they found in the world around them as possible, and assume that "asking forgiveness was easier than asking permission". 5a pretty much exists to help enforce the idea that someone (not you) owns the stuff you like, and you can't make it "open" just because you want to do so. It also provides specific legal hooks in the event of an enforcement action. Proving that a person did not have authority to contribute could break the OGL's protections, and allow normal copyright law to come back into play, avoiding the issue of pursuing an infringer simply on contractual grounds. > One thing that has struck me about OGL stuff is how little seems to get > re-used. I think you'd be surprised at the level of re-use, but it is subtle. Unlike the OSS world, where large projects are often built from many small sub-parts, and the work to construct those sub-parts is time consuming, error-prone, and often uninteresting, for games, the work of creating content is usually the "fun part". There's a creative dis- incentive to re-using someone else's wheel, when creating "wheels" is so much fun. We're in an entertainment business - "fun" drives a whole lot of decisions. However, under the hood, there's an increasing body of material that is getting re-used. Over time, I expect that trend will continue. After 30+ years of the RPG era, we've only had 3 years to learn how to operate in an environment where copying someone else's work is not only ok, but expected and appreciated. Consumers will drive this shift over time. They'll reward designers who use popular sub-systems (popular meaning many people know how to use them in a game) by buying those works, and not buying works from designers who continuously try to make people learn new rules for stuff they have already spent the time learning in the past. > Regarding the d20 license, I'm curious about the clause that means that > d20 license publications can't include character creation rules. Some > games that might otherwise be d20 have decided to be just OGL because > of this, and I'm wondering if it would have been better to have a > weaker requirement for d20 work and to rely on network effects from > people getting to know d20 from these projects. In a perfect world, with unblemished spheres and frictionless surfaces, I'd have dumped all the limitations from the d20 System Trademark License and competed on quality and the value of the D&D brand name. However, in the real world, I had to convince management that we could erect a bulwark against someone taking the OGL'd text of D&D, leveraging the brand (d20) I was proposing to spend gobs of money to create and make identifiable to consumers, and then selling stuff right back at us at a discounted price. WotC has now elected to use the d20 Trademark License to begin enforcing standards of behavior on publishers, which is a stance I disagree with strongly (in large part because I am worried it will come back and bite WotC in the ass at a later date - my distaste with censorship being a personal, not a business-driven position). As a result we're seeing more and more publishers considering dropping support for the d20 trademark and going it "naked" with just OGL compliance. In fact, these actions have created a Catch-22 - now people are using "OGL" as a trademark to mean "just like d20, but without the licensing limits", so perhaps the whole process will be self-healing in the long run. Ryan From robmyers at mac.com Wed Sep 15 04:58:02 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 09:58:02 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> Message-ID: <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> On Wednesday, September 15, 2004, at 01:46AM, Ryan S. Dancey wrote: >It also provides specific legal hooks in the event of an enforcement >action. Proving that a person did not have authority to contribute >could break the OGL's protections, and allow normal copyright law to >come back into play, avoiding the issue of pursuing an infringer simply >on contractual grounds. That makes sense. The scenario I used when discussing the C-2.0 licenses was "some kid sticks 'Star Wars' on their website under a Creative Commons License...". I thought that a 5a-style requriement (no stronger) would be good for managing this sort of thing. >Consumers will drive this shift over time. They'll reward designers who >use popular sub-systems (popular meaning many people know how to use >them in a game) by buying those works, and not buying works from >designers who continuously try to make people learn new rules for stuff >they have already spent the time learning in the past. I suppose one of the interesting things with roleplaying games is that they do have this functional component (the rules) and they also have a data component (the statistics and descriptions for game objects). So the Free Software model maps onto this fairly clearly. The parts of game products that is most Open Content-like are possibly the flavor text, written descriptions and more general text and illustrations. Now again this may just be my perception but there doesn't seem to be much of that content being marked as Open, it tends to all be marked Product Identity. Is this the case, is this how you expected PI to be used and if not do you think there's anything the license could do about this? >In a perfect world, with unblemished spheres and frictionless surfaces, >I'd have dumped all the limitations from the d20 System Trademark >License and competed on quality and the value of the D&D brand name. >However, in the real world, I had to convince management that we could >erect a bulwark against someone taking the OGL'd text of D&D, leveraging >the brand (d20) I was proposing to spend gobs of money to create and >make identifiable to consumers, and then selling stuff right back at us >at a discounted price. Yes, how did you convince them? ;-) >In fact, these >actions have created a Catch-22 - now people are using "OGL" as a >trademark to mean "just like d20, but without the licensing limits", so >perhaps the whole process will be self-healing in the long run. But possibly not so much for WotC if they sometimes avoid direct association with the OGL, for example by re-licensing monster descriptions so they don't have to have OGL content in monster books as they did the other year IIRC. - Rob. From ryand at organizedplay.com Wed Sep 15 15:02:13 2004 From: ryand at organizedplay.com (Ryan S. Dancey) Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:02:13 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Message-ID: <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> On Wed, 2004-09-15 at 09:58 +0100, Rob Myers wrote: > The parts of game products that is most Open Content-like > are possibly the flavor text, written descriptions and more > general text and illustrations. Now again this may just be > my perception but there doesn't seem to be much of that > content being marked as Open, it tends to all be marked > Product Identity. Is this the case, is this how you > expected PI to be used and if not do you think there's > anything the license could do about this? My concept of the split was like a word processor and the book you write on it. If the code for the word processor is open, everyone can make it work better, and positive change will create a momentum for overall improvement. But my book is my personal work, from which I expect to extract value in the form of compensation. I don't want the output of the word processor to be open, otherwise I'll kill the value proposition. So in the OGL, we tried to encourage people to make the rules of the game open content, and allowed them to limit the re-use of their "intellectual property". The downside, as you noted, is the tendency for publishers to try to use PI ("Product Identity" is a defined term in the OGL that allows a publisher to clearly identify material that is not Open Game Content) to limit the re-use utility of their game mechanics. The classic case is the publisher who makes open game mechanics, then puts a PI'd name on them. If a 3rd party wants to re-use the mechanic, they can, but they have to come up with a new name for that mechanic, which limits the ability of consumers to identify the mechanic as something they've already mastered. There is actually less and less of this kind of behavior because the publishers as a group are becoming more aware of the concept of shared utility. There's an economic incentive for them to collaborate - they all want to use each other's work. This is a social impetus, not a license-driven trend, and if someone proves a business model that shows disregarding the value of the "cathedral" makes money, it could be lost. But so far, the trend has been in a positive direction. > Yes, how did you convince them? ;-) I had the advantage of total crisis. The D&D brand was nearly dead when I got my hands on it, and the company had spent tens of millions of dollars to acquire it. In such extreme circumstances, management is often willing to cast caution to the winds on a "hail Mary" type play. It didn't hurt that the CEO, Peter Adkison, could see the long term value to himself personally of being able to use D&D in commercial products regardless of his relationship to the company that owned it. In fact, Wizards of the Coast's first product (written by Peter) was a book that endeavored to create a unified system for many RPGs and which was battered by real and threatened litigation as a result. Ryan From robmyers at mac.com Thu Sep 16 04:50:46 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 09:50:46 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] ThinkCycle In-Reply-To: <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> Message-ID: <97794.1095324646736.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> http://thinkcycle.org/ "ThinkCycle seeks to create a culture of open source design innovation, with ongoing collaboration among individuals, communities and organizations around the world." - Rob. From robmyers at mac.com Thu Sep 16 05:30:14 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 10:30:14 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> Message-ID: <6130871.1095327014122.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> On Wednesday, September 15, 2004, at 08:05PM, Ryan S. Dancey wrote: >My concept of the split was like a word processor and the book you write >on it. If the code for the word processor is open, everyone can make it >work better, and positive change will create a momentum for overall >improvement. But my book is my personal work, from which I expect to >extract value in the form of compensation. I don't want the output of >the word processor to be open, otherwise I'll kill the value >proposition. Various people involved with Creative Commons have released their books under Open licenses (notably Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture" and Cory Doctorow's novels). They seem to sell well, with the exposure the Open version gives driving sales. The fact that "Free Culture" was hardback was the deciding factor in me buying a copy: definitely added value. That's different from the output not being open, it's closer to the frictionless reliance on value proposition you mentioned earlier. I don't know whether those books being Open works as a novelty because they're the first to do it or whether it's like hearing a song on the radio and then buying it. Sun Microsystems have talked about the added value of assembling a software distribution as being "editorial" in nature. I've used that model when talking about Open media. Assembling source, providing the bridges and context and packaging it up nicely is a useful function worth paying for. Mongoose Publishing sortof did this with their OGL PLayer's Handbook clone, although I think that competes more on price and convenience than added editorial value. >There is actually less and less of this kind of behavior because the >publishers as a group are becoming more aware of the concept of shared >utility. There's an economic incentive for them to collaborate - they >all want to use each other's work. This is a social impetus, not a >license-driven trend, and if someone proves a business model that shows >disregarding the value of the "cathedral" makes money, it could be lost. >But so far, the trend has been in a positive direction. One of the stated aims of this list is to come up with an economic model for this sort of thing (I think, I'm not an economist). Do you think it's possible to quantify the effects of the OGL on WotC's revenue stream, or is that the wrong way of looking at the equation? >I had the advantage of total crisis. The D&D brand was nearly dead when >I got my hands on it, and the company had spent tens of millions of >dollars to acquire it. In such extreme circumstances, management is >often willing to cast caution to the winds on a "hail Mary" type play. Hmmm. I wonder if anyone could buy "Star Trek" and Open it? ;-) I think software companies releasing previously closed databases as Open Source are doing this sort of thing now. And I've seen at least one media project that won't have a future without going Open. >It didn't hurt that the CEO, Peter Adkison, could see the long term >value to himself personally of being able to use D&D in commercial >products regardless of his relationship to the company that owned it. >In fact, Wizards of the Coast's first product (written by Peter) was a >book that endeavored to create a unified system for many RPGs and which >was battered by real and threatened litigation as a result. "The Primal Order", yes I remember the Palladium Books lawsuit. Palladium have always been Intellectual Property heavies. I think WotC has done far better financially, and to be honest creatively, by going Open. The recognition that community interest and commercial interest may be aligned and can drive each other seems to be core to successful Open projects, I get this feeling very strongly with the OGL. - Rob. From joehall at gmail.com Thu Sep 16 16:01:16 2004 From: joehall at gmail.com (Joseph Lorenzo Hall) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 13:01:16 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] ThinkCycle In-Reply-To: <97794.1095324646736.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <97794.1095324646736.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Message-ID: <928946aa04091613017fffdc47@mail.gmail.com> This is a really neat project... I saw a talk by the founder (or one of them?) and he pointed out that IP issues are the most complicating factors. For example, they've designed a set of eyeglasses that can be manufactured with materials that are easily available in third-world countries for about US$3 each. However, a few projects have been bogged down with various IP questions... like, how and where do you patent something that has been designed by people in a dozen different IP regimes? Do you open source it from the start... even if there is high potential for capitalization (like the eyeglasses)? very interesting stuff, Joe On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 09:50:46 +0100, Rob Myers wrote: > http://thinkcycle.org/ > > "ThinkCycle seeks to create a culture of open source design innovation, with ongoing collaboration among individuals, communities and organizations around the world." > > - Rob. > _______________________________________________ > Cc-bizcom mailing list > Cc-bizcom at lists.ibiblio.org > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-bizcom > -- Joseph Lorenzo Hall UC Berkeley, SIMS PhD Student http://pobox.com/~joehall/ blog: http://pobox.com/~joehall/nqb2/ From marshall at MIT.EDU Fri Sep 17 15:30:53 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:30:53 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040917150803.03494858@po10.mit.edu> Ryan thanks for your participation. This RL experience is highly valuable. So on to a few questions :) ... At 03:02 PM 9/15/2004, you wrote: >My concept of the split was like a word processor and the book you write >on it. If the code for the word processor is open, everyone can make it >work better, and positive change will create a momentum for overall >improvement. But my book is my personal work, from which I expect to >extract value in the form of compensation. I don't want the output of >the word processor to be open, otherwise I'll kill the value >proposition. This "feels" right to me. I also note that the same issue comes up even with programs like GCC where the extensions to the compiler itself fall under GPL but programs compiled with GCC do not. But let me play devil's advocate Can anyone provide the word processor/book or compiler/executable intuition with a principled theoretical or economic argument? The reason I ask is that the dividing lines are not always clear. When should this principle bind? At one extreme, a book or compiled executable need not include *any* code or content from the tool used to produce it. In that case, any number of similar tools could have produced it and there seems to be no special debt to terms in using the tool. Suppose, however, that the output itself was only possible with one particular tool (say the very 1st compiler). Suppose further, that the output starts to include bits from the tool (say parts of the executable). When does the new work no longer differ enough from the tool or from some other form of content? >There is actually less and less of this kind of behavior because the >publishers as a group are becoming more aware of the concept of shared >utility. There's an economic incentive for them to collaborate - they >all want to use each other's work. This is a social impetus, not a >license-driven trend, and if someone proves a business model that shows >disregarding the value of the "cathedral" makes money, it could be lost. >But so far, the trend has been in a positive direction. FWIW, a piece of economic modeling we're doing seeks to show why they really *should* collaborate. There's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma in that each wants to share the other's work but not necessarily to share their own. But, the whole system benefits if each does share. >I had the advantage of total crisis. The D&D brand was nearly dead when >I got my hands on it, and the company had spent tens of millions of >dollars to acquire it. In such extreme circumstances, management is >often willing to cast caution to the winds on a "hail Mary" type play. >It didn't hurt that the CEO, Peter Adkison, could see the long term >value to himself personally of being able to use D&D in commercial >products regardless of his relationship to the company that owned it. >In fact, Wizards of the Coast's first product (written by Peter) was a >book that endeavored to create a unified system for many RPGs and which >was battered by real and threatened litigation as a result. Again, very cool RL experience. I just hope this isn't what it takes to get mgmt attn. MVA From marshall at MIT.EDU Fri Sep 17 15:45:25 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:45:25 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <6130871.1095327014122.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <6130871.1095327014122.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040917154314.034563b8@po10.mit.edu> At 05:30 AM 9/16/2004, Rob Myers wrote: > >There is actually less and less of this kind of behavior because the > >publishers as a group are becoming more aware of the concept of shared > >utility. There's an economic incentive for them to collaborate - they > >all want to use each other's work. This is a social impetus, not a > >license-driven trend, and if someone proves a business model that shows > >disregarding the value of the "cathedral" makes money, it could be lost. > >But so far, the trend has been in a positive direction. > >One of the stated aims of this list is to come up with an economic model >for this sort of thing (I think, I'm not an economist). Do you think it's >possible to quantify the effects of the OGL on WotC's revenue stream, or >is that the wrong way of looking at the equation? Let me echo Rob's observation here. We're definitely interested in quantifying/modeling dimensions of this. From marshall at MIT.EDU Fri Sep 17 15:52:47 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:52:47 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] ThinkCycle In-Reply-To: <928946aa04091613017fffdc47@mail.gmail.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <97794.1095324646736.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <928946aa04091613017fffdc47@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040917154750.0347f3d0@po10.mit.edu> At 04:01 PM 9/16/2004, Joseph Lorenzo Hall wrote: >However, a few projects have been bogged down with various IP >questions... like, how and where do you patent something that has been >designed by people in a dozen different IP regimes? Do you open >source it from the start... even if there is high potential for >capitalization (like the eyeglasses)? > >On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 09:50:46 +0100, Rob Myers wrote: > > http://thinkcycle.org/ > > > > "ThinkCycle seeks to create a culture of open source design innovation, > with ongoing collaboration among individuals, communities and > organizations around the world." There's actually an interesting mechanism from cooperative game theory called the Shapley Value (pronounced Shaa' -plee) that tries to get at the marginal values brought to the table by collections of resources. It tries to address the question of how much does each individual resource contribute to the whole project. I can try to provide a bit of a writeup if anyone's interested. A not too terrible description is here: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Shapley%20value MVA From marshall at MIT.EDU Fri Sep 17 15:11:19 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 15:11:19 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Re: Comments on "Flexible Copyright Licensing - A Precis" Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040917150100.0344ec18@po10.mit.edu> A very bright fellow from Sun Microsystems asked several additional questions about the precis so with his permission, I'm forwarding those questions with answers below. ---------------------------------------------------- Hi Onno, I just got back from working on research at Tulane and had the fun of evacuating from New Orleans -- fortunately, it seems to have missed the city but it was an odd experience. So, to reply to your input... At 07:54 PM 9/8/2004, you wrote: >Hi Marshall, >here are some comments and thoughts on this paper (finally...). > >In the 3rd paragraph ie says "... and cannot adapt code". Did you mean >"... and cannot adopt code" ? For this part, we did mean 'adapt' since denying access to source means it can't be changed (although executables could be used). >Issue - Information asymmetry >------------- >I want to check how to interpret the proposed solution. The permission to >enhance is that meant in the context of the copy of the source code that >the developer downloaded, or in the context of being able to make >modifications to the main source tree? I am assuming that it is the former >because anonymous check-ins seem quite risky if only from a IPR perspective. Here, you're right that we meant permission to enhance a copy. As to check-in, you're input is at a more detailed level than we wrote about. We don't actually discuss things like anonymous check-in and focus just on the risk to a new developer with a great idea (could he or she lose this idea to the 'owner' of the code?). As a practical matter, however, your point about IPR is well taken and one we definitely intend to deal with in any realized license. >With regards to APIs, just a remark that the usefulness of a disclosed API >to a developer is not only the knowledge of the existence of that API but >also correct expectations on the behavior of these subroutines. Perhaps >off-topic... Interesting; thx. >Issue - Code Forking >--------------- >The proposed solution seems to describe Sun's SCSL in general terms? In a way yes. Actually, however, Stallman recently pointed out to us that the GPL also has the effect of discouraging (but not preventing) forking since follow-on work is also accessible not just the first generation. We need to clarify out language in that we'd actually expect subsequent innovations to not only be "licensed back" but really "freely available" in which case the platform author could use it anyway as could others who depended on it. >The proposed solution for this issue seems at odds with the previous >issue: requirement to disclose, to license to the author? Our bad in terms of language. What we really mean is "freely available" (as in previous point). One subtlety, however, is that we feel the platform author should get an immediate option to offer a new innovation as part of their own work such that (i) the price is no higher than that charged by the 3rd party developer and (ii) the proceeds on that piece go to the 3rd party developer. This encourages users to come to the platform author as the main supplier of all new pieces and it doesn't harm the innovation incentives because the developer gets the money anyway. >With regards to the third paragraph, the economic value to the forker does >not necessary need to come directly from the forking action. The forker >may have indirect economic motives: to disrupt a competitor, for example. Agreed. In fact, one of our previous papers makes a similar point albeit as a reason to give a good away for free rather than to fork it. I'd argue that the issue is probably not to contractually *forbid* forking of any kind since this also has the potential to retard true innovation. Rather it should be economically unattractive. A truly innovative radical innovation may still offer enough value to make forking worthwhile, but then this is precisely when forks should occur. >Issue - Competition & Hold-up >---------------- >The JCP has its own flavor of this issue, especially in the J2ME space. >There, much more so than in the JSE and J2EE space, various JSRs are led >by various companies: multiple JSRs from multiple sources are needed to >build a Java-enabled phone which also leads to multiparty bargaining. Very interesting. Can I quote you on this? :) We really would like to be able to solve this problem and we think copyflex can help. >There seems to be additional competition between the innovator and the >integrator in that the integrator will also be attempting to higher the >bar of what the integrated product or system offers. For example, there >are no TCP/IP stack suppliers anymore, and hardly any standalone spelling >checkers. Another example would be browsers and operating systems. In >other words, the innovator must keep innovating ahead of the integrator to >survive but eventually the integrator will take away economic incentive >for innovation in certain areas. This is a great intuition. Still, I think the tradeoff is more nuanced. We agree that survival means continuous innovation. In fact, one of our strongest arguments for copyflex is that this should make the entire business network more competitive against other business networks. If Java, for example, is competing against .NET then you really really want this property. This is also why any fees that the integrator earns on the innovation must go to the innovator, at least through the entire proprietary period. If this happens, the innovator should not feel threatened by competition from the integrator during the proprietary period. It's only after this period has expired. As an aside, we also think that there should be slightly different proprietary periods and that innovators can, within reason, buy slightly longer times with larger royalties. This ties the interests of the integrator and innovator together. Interestingly, the growth in the business network fueled by expiration of the proprietary period is also what should make joining this particular network attractive for the innovator. We just finished an analytic model that shows how the whole class of 3rd party innovators can earn more in future periods if they're willing to "cross-license" each other at the end of the proprietary period. The advantage of copyflex is that this cross-licensing occurs with no negotiation costs because the business network gains access to each innovation in due time. >I am wondering about the proposed solution whether it requires "must >do"-behavior for all participants. How I assume the solution to work is >that the author through its license on its source code offers the ability >of the proprietary period to its licensees (eg you can make and >redistribute modifications if you promise to release under open source >license after 2 years). It seems that this only works if this would be a >requirement not a choice, ie if a licensee could choose to forego the >proprietary period then s/he can basically undercut everybody else. I'm not sure I fully understand "must do" so let me reply to 2 diff interpretations: If the "must do" issue is to promise to release under a free license after say 2 years, then yes. This is a hard requirement. If the "must do" behavior is for the licensee to charge for an innovation, then no. I'd always want to give an innovator the option to freely distribute their new work if that's his or her choice. Then presumably no one gets to charge for the intrinsic value (users get this value) beyond the value of integration and conformance testing (which any other party could also offer). >You would also have to work out how it relates to the previous issue. If >the author has a "license back"-requirement for innovations and also >offers this proprietary period to its licensees then should the author >also commit to not fold back the innovation back into the common code base >until after the proprietary period? We envision this as allowing the integrator to offer an ? la carte option to users of including the innovation at whatever price the innovator chooses. As noted above, the integrator gets to charge the same price as the innovator with the money going to the innovator. This simply represents a 'pass through' with the integrator having permission to collect fees and pass them through to the innovator. Of course, the innovator can also make the new code available but he's not worrying about competition because he sets the price and he gets the revenues on his piece. For similar reasons, this 'pass through' also reduces the integrator's fear of forking since he can always offer a fully functional version. But, the integrator does not get to make money on the 3rd party innovation. He didn't create it. Rather, the integrator benefits from having a more valuable business network as a whole. But, we're *completely* open to alternative suggestions. >Issue - Free Riding >---------------- >The opening paragraph seems to talk about forking and not contributing the >fork to the community. The proposed solution seems to talk about creating >incentives that favor derivative works over clean rooms. Aren't these >different things? Here, rather, we're talking about "incentive" compatibility not "code" compatibility so it's not quite forking. The idea here is to give someone making a derivative work enough reason to make a *derivative* work, and so be bound by the license. One can imagine that a business network becomes so valuable that some firms prefer to attach to the network but not ever give up their innovation. As in the case of the Phoenix bios, it's possible to put a chinese wall between developers and the competing source code and so create a whole new system that is not bound by the license. ( This would be a fork but in property rights only and not technology since the code should be compatible, else it won't attach to the network ) Firms will be less motivated to choose the clean room if they perceive that they get enough value from the licensing terms that behaving honorably is also economically rational. >What is "the tragedy of the commons"? It's econ-speak for a public goods problem. Imagine a public commons or park where everyone has the right to graze their cattle. Then you tend to get over grazing since each person can fatten his cows as much as he wants. If you do this, the externality is the cost to other farmers more than the cost to yourself. This is less of a problem for truly nonrival goods since each person can 'consume' a free zero cost copy. >Issue - Strategic Misuse >----------------- >"Prices on author enhancements will be proportional ..." >I fear I don't understand this sentence (a long time since my Economics >101 class...). Good question. I admit to having originally written this note for myself as a way to record ideas rather than convey them so apologies for lack of clarity. There are 2 ideas here: (1) after-market product competition (2) total value versus marginal value. So, here comes a bunch of econ... The first idea comes from durable goods like books, cars, and washing machines but it applies especially well in markets where you can make perfect copies (e.g. information). In a durable goods market, you can re-sell a product after you've grown tired of it (assuming it still works). So, for example Amazon can offer used books for sale on its website to compete with the new ones. This "after market" in fact raised a huge stink among publishers who feared that it might lower prices on new books. One very interesting phenomenon due to aftermarkets is that they can lead to prices like those in competitive markets even for goods where the original manufacturer holds a monopoly. With a few caveats, aftermarkets limit price gouging because they create an effective alternative source even when there is only one original manufacturer. The way we make use of this in copyflex is to address the problem of an indispensable complement -- some piece of code that you must buy in order for the whole system to work. A clever integrator could try to keep a few indispensable complements proprietary in order to raise prices later on. If total value of the system is the sum of all the indispensable complements and all the subsequently free innovations, then an integrator might be tempted to set the price of the indispensable complements at the value of the whole system. That would be wrong. It would also discourage 3rd party innovators. So we should require the platform author or integrator to either (i) contractually commit to no price hikes on the key pieces or (ii) allow an aftermarket alternative source at no more than the original price. Then there will not be future price gouging and there will be greater willingness to contribute innovations. Interestingly, GPL actually has this property more than most licenses because every user can become a supplier in the aftermarket. FWIW, I think this is one of the main flaws with the current SCSL in that it does not commit Sun in future periods, and this limits contributions in the current period. But, solving this commitment to not raise prices can introduce another problem in that the integrator should also be encouraged to innovate. The value of each incremental innovation, whether by a 3rd party or the integrator, *should* be rewarded. This is the marginal value of one piece as distinct from the total value sum of all contributions. The integrator (as well as any innovator) should be free to set a price, however briefly, on any new innovation they create. So the aftermarket clause that creates future alternative sources should only bind on the stock of existing code, not the new marginal value contributions. It is after a proprietary period elapses that new innovations later become part of the code stock as distinct from the new marginal value. >I wonder whether there's a different angle to the last paragraph. Aren't >many open source projects created just so to stave off modifications or >innovation by others? The proliferation of *my* code base vs somebody else's? Honest answer is that I don't know. You may have more real data on this one. I'm sure this happens but I'm skeptical that it staves off 3rd party innovation. It would crowd out other code but if code becomes truly free then although you may have supplied it, anyone else can mod it. Then the question is how do your mods compete with those of others. This just brings us back to the innovation, pricing, and adoption issues, which is what we're trying to manage with the copyflex style license! :) So, thoughts and critiques are welcome. MVA From ryand at organizedplay.com Tue Sep 21 14:48:32 2004 From: ryand at organizedplay.com (Ryan S. Dancey) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:48:32 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040917154314.034563b8@po10.mit.edu> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <6130871.1095327014122.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <6.0.0.22.2.20040917154314.034563b8@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: <1095792512.3042.149.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> On Fri, 2004-09-17 at 15:45 -0400, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote: > >One of the stated aims of this list is to come up with an economic model > >for this sort of thing (I think, I'm not an economist). Do you think it's > >possible to quantify the effects of the OGL on WotC's revenue stream, or > >is that the wrong way of looking at the equation? > > Let me echo Rob's observation here. We're definitely interested in > quantifying/modeling dimensions of this. It would be possible to conduct such modeling, if Wizards would release quantifiable information about the unit sales volume of the core D&D books, especially if that data could be combined with unit sales volume data from the half-dozen major distributors to correlate with 3rd party D20 product sales. Unfortunately, neither set of data points is, or is every likely to be, available. :( Ryan From ryand at organizedplay.com Tue Sep 21 14:48:47 2004 From: ryand at organizedplay.com (Ryan S. Dancey) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 11:48:47 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040917150803.03494858@po10.mit.edu> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <6.0.0.22.2.20040917150803.03494858@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: <1095792527.3042.150.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> On Fri, 2004-09-17 at 15:30 -0400, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote: > There's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma in that > each wants to share the other's work but not necessarily to share their > own. But, the whole system benefits if each does share. I think the Prisoner's Dillema is an excellent model of the problem. The trick is to get enough people on the side of the "super-rational" solution fast enough that it becomes dogma, and thus doesn't have to be defended to each new participant as they enter the community. > Again, very cool RL experience. I just hope this isn't what it takes to > get mgmt attn. I used the following business case when explaining the process inside Wizards of the Coast: 1) We believe that the more people who play D&D, the more likely it is that D&D can acquire new players. 2) New players buy the core rulebooks, which have the highest margin of any product in the system. 3) Other people using our game system will tend to both increase the retention of existing players (by providing far more and fare more diverse material to interest them than we could pay for ourselves), and will thus increase the chance that a person who is interested in learning how to play an RPG will be exposed to the phenomenon. 4) Almost any barrier to the licensed use of our game will either significantly impact the number of 3rd parties who would be interested in pursuing such a license, and/or will increase our overhead to monitor compliance with the licensing terms to the point where the effort becomes counter productive. 5) Thus, by allowing a free, unrestricted use of our game system we can avoid the problems of Point #4, induce 3rd parties to engage in the behavior outlined in Point #3, which will have the positive benefits of Point #1, which should generate profits as described in Point #2. This argument proved compelling. Ryan From robmyers at mac.com Tue Sep 21 17:45:29 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 22:45:29 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <1095792527.3042.150.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <6.0.0.22.2.20040917150803.03494858@po10.mit.edu> <1095792527.3042.150.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> Message-ID: <8E424E92-0C17-11D9-8FDA-00306590A6B6@mac.com> On 21 Sep 2004, at 19:48, Ryan S. Dancey wrote: > On Fri, 2004-09-17 at 15:30 -0400, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote: > >> There's a bit of a prisoner's dilemma in that >> each wants to share the other's work but not necessarily to share >> their >> own. But, the whole system benefits if each does share. > > I think the Prisoner's Dillema is an excellent model of the problem. > The trick is to get enough people on the side of the "super-rational" > solution fast enough that it becomes dogma, and thus doesn't have to be > defended to each new participant as they enter the community. The super-rational solution to Prisoner's Dilemma is a good example of "metagaming" (playing a game differently because of the knowledge that one is playing a game). Metagaming seems to be frowned on by as many businesses as by gamers when it comes to Open Source. ;-) > I used the following business case when explaining the process inside > Wizards of the Coast: > [...] > This argument proved compelling. It's a very clear case. Incidentally, are you familiar with the Creative Commons licenses? What do you think of them? Would you have considered using any of them rather than drafting your own license had they existed at the time? If not, what do you think would make them more useful for (gaming) business? Thanks. - Rob. From ryand at organizedplay.com Tue Sep 21 18:03:11 2004 From: ryand at organizedplay.com (Ryan S. Dancey) Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:03:11 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <8E424E92-0C17-11D9-8FDA-00306590A6B6@mac.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <6.0.0.22.2.20040917150803.03494858@po10.mit.edu> <1095792527.3042.150.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8E424E92-0C17-11D9-8FDA-00306590A6B6@mac.com> Message-ID: <1095804191.3042.173.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 22:45 +0100, Rob Myers wrote: > Incidentally, are you familiar with the Creative Commons licenses? What > do you think of them? Would you have considered using any of them > rather than drafting your own license had they existed at the time? If > not, what do you think would make them more useful for (gaming) > business? Yes, I reviewed them in some detail. My primary concerns were twofold at the time: 1) They are very complex. We were already struggling with the fact that a lot of the people we expected to use the OGL would not take the time to read or understand a complex license (which is one of the big reasons we split the copyright license and the trademark license into two documents - although afterwords it was clearly the best solution to a host of other problems.) 2) I did not see a way to provide for the concept of "product identity", that is, non-open material mixed liberally with open content. For example: "Darth Vader" is Product Identity Everything in the following sentence is Open Game Content, except the Product Identity: "Darth Vader: 10th level Fighter/10th level Sorcerer; 82 hp; AC 24; STR 20, DEX 10, INT 14, WIS 18, CON 10, CHA 18; (...) Darth Vader is a loyal servant of the Emperor, who is dispatched throughout the galaxy to do his bidding and enforce the dictates of the Empire. Armored from head to foot in a black metallic outfit fitted with life support equipment to keep his ravaged body alive, his raspy, mechanical breathing is often the first indication that he has arrived. Vader is feared by both Rebels and Imperial loyalists alike, and his methods often include summary execution for those who fail him or his Master." Most of the open content licenses I reviewed treated material as if it would be assembled into separate units: modules in the form of source code, or chapters/appendices in the form of written material. Nothing I found took a technology and presentation neutral stance to how open and non-open content could be combined and protected under different licensing terms. Ryan From robmyers at mac.com Wed Sep 22 12:01:30 2004 From: robmyers at mac.com (Rob Myers) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:01:30 +0100 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <1095804191.3042.173.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <6.0.0.22.2.20040917150803.03494858@po10.mit.edu> <1095792527.3042.150.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8E424E92-0C17-11D9-8FDA-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095804191.3042.173.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> Message-ID: <9434891.1095868890668.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> On Tuesday, September 21, 2004, at 11:07PM, Ryan S. Dancey wrote: [Regarding the CC licenses] >1) They are very complex. The 2.0 licenses are even more complex than the 1.0 licenses, but they are handling all sorts of translation and specific legal issues for music and different media. I think CC would just like people to use the "Human Readable" precis of the licenses, but I don't think that's a very good idea legally speaking. For anyone who hasn't read the OGL, it is a very good example of a license that is both complete (for its domain) and readable: I do recommend people give it a look. >Most of the open content licenses I reviewed treated material as if it >would be assembled into separate units: modules in the form of source >code, or chapters/appendices in the form of written material. Nothing I >found took a technology and presentation neutral stance to how open and >non-open content could be combined and protected under different >licensing terms. I think some CC licenses allow non-viral aggregation, but they certainly don't provide the fine-grained control the OGL does. I think an "atomic" or "modular" clause for the CC licenses might be an interesting way of getting this effect. Looking at the parts of the D&D IP that you Opened, I'm interested that none of the older campaign settings were opened, although IIRC some have been given to specific members of the community now. And also that the fiction lines weren't opened. This strikes me as strange given the potential for fan (community) buy-in and production in both these areas. Was this ever considered or was it outside the area you were concentrating on? - Rob. From ryand at organizedplay.com Wed Sep 22 12:29:24 2004 From: ryand at organizedplay.com (Ryan S. Dancey) Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 09:29:24 -0700 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! In-Reply-To: <9434891.1095868890668.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040913101251.03526660@po10.mit.edu> <1708798.1095156688339.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095178693.28249.1.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8CD3161A-069B-11D9-9C99-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095208937.2978.82.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <219715.1095238682383.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> <1095274933.2855.43.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <6.0.0.22.2.20040917150803.03494858@po10.mit.edu> <1095792527.3042.150.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <8E424E92-0C17-11D9-8FDA-00306590A6B6@mac.com> <1095804191.3042.173.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> <9434891.1095868890668.JavaMail.robmyers@mac.com> Message-ID: <1095870564.3042.185.camel@ryand.internal.isomedia.com> On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 17:01 +0100, Rob Myers wrote: > Looking at the parts of the D&D IP that you Opened, I'm interested > that none of the older campaign settings were opened, although IIRC > some have been given to specific members of the community now. And > also that the fiction lines weren't opened. This strikes me as > strange given the potential for fan (community) buy-in and production > in both these areas. Was this ever considered or was it outside the > area you were concentrating on? Neither the campaign settings(*), nor the fiction, proved to have any market-testable impact on retention or acquisition. Both are also good reservoirs of value. So Opening them would have not played into our overall strategy (sell more core rulebooks and improve the game through distributed development), and opening them would have reduced the amount of income we could generate by keeping them closed. Ryan (*) In fact, there's a pretty good theory that says campaign settings are bad for retention. That is a genie that is out of the bottle though. Were I still running the business, the only two campaign settings being published would be Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, and I would not have licensed any of the older settings to any 3rd party for further development. My opinion on this matter differs greatly from that of the present management team. From Onno.Kluyt at Sun.COM Thu Sep 23 16:28:06 2004 From: Onno.Kluyt at Sun.COM (Onno Kluyt) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:28:06 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Re: Comments on "Flexible Copyright Licensing - A Precis" Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040923162749.03498150@po10.mit.edu> Couple of follow-ons inserted in the text below. Onno. On Sep 16, 2004, at 2:30 PM, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote: [snip] >>Issue - Code Forking >>--------------- >>The proposed solution seems to describe Sun's SCSL in general terms? > >In a way yes. Actually, however, Stallman recently pointed out to us that >the GPL also has the effect of discouraging (but not preventing) forking >since follow-on work is also accessible not just the first generation. > >We need to clarify out language in that we'd actually expect subsequent >innovations to not only be "licensed back" but really "freely available" >in which case the platform author could use it anyway as could others who >depended on it. > > >>The proposed solution for this issue seems at odds with the previous >>issue: requirement to disclose, to license to the author? > >Our bad in terms of language. What we really mean is "freely available" >(as in previous point). > >One subtlety, however, is that we feel the platform author should get an >immediate option to offer a new innovation as part of their own work such >that (i) the price is no higher than that charged by the 3rd party >developer and (ii) the proceeds on that piece go to the 3rd party >developer. This encourages users to come to the platform author as the >main supplier of all new pieces and it doesn't harm the innovation >incentives because the developer gets the money anyway. I wonder whether this works in practice. For large scale projects, say J2SE or J2EE, doesn't this become quite complex rather quickly? If you'd have one or two contributions from other developers then it may work but does it scale? This is generally addressed in the JCP in different ways but seldom (actually I don't know of a case) via proceeds sharing. The innovation is offered to the original author either for free or for an upfront one-off fee. The developer is then often further rewarded by public recognition for the contribution by the original author. >>With regards to the third paragraph, the economic value to the forker >>does not necessary need to come directly from the forking action. The >>forker may have indirect economic motives: to disrupt a competitor, for >>example. > >Agreed. In fact, one of our previous papers makes a similar point albeit >as a reason to give a good away for free rather than to fork it. > >I'd argue that the issue is probably not to contractually *forbid* forking >of any kind since this also has the potential to retard true >innovation. Rather it should be economically unattractive. A truly >innovative radical innovation may still offer enough value to make forking >worthwhile, but then this is precisely when forks should occur. So, how do you make it economically unattractive? This seems hard to do when there is substantial disparity in financial abilities between the original author and the party that is considering the fork, and the disparity being to the disadvantage of the original author. The GPL does seem to offer a defense strategy in this case because of its viral affect on other products bundled or dependent upon it. Perhaps one needs to consider other strategies in addition to (or in support of) whatever license one puts on the original work: ie fortify the community against such actions via social and moral tools. The unwanted forking activity may then be rejected by the market on other grounds, or at least it could significantly increase the forker's costs in marketing and other activities for it overcome the resistance to its actions. >>Issue - Competition & Hold-up >>---------------- >>The JCP has its own flavor of this issue, especially in the J2ME space. >>There, much more so than in the JSE and J2EE space, various JSRs are led >>by various companies: multiple JSRs from multiple sources are needed to >>build a Java-enabled phone which also leads to multiparty bargaining. > >Very interesting. Can I quote you on this? :) Sure, this is a known issue. >We really would like to be able to solve this problem and we think >copyflex can help. OK. I like that! >>There seems to be additional competition between the innovator and the >>integrator in that the integrator will also be attempting to higher the >>bar of what the integrated product or system offers. For example, there >>are no TCP/IP stack suppliers anymore, and hardly any standalone spelling >>checkers. Another example would be browsers and operating systems. In >>other words, the innovator must keep innovating ahead of the integrator >>to survive but eventually the integrator will take away economic >>incentive for innovation in certain areas. > >This is a great intuition. Still, I think the tradeoff is more nuanced. > >We agree that survival means continuous innovation. In fact, one of our >strongest arguments for copyflex is that this should make the entire >business network more competitive against other business networks. If >Java, for example, is competing against .NET then you really really want >this property. Indeed. I think my point also was that technologies or features go through an other kind of value appreciation as well: from differentiating feature to common to check-off item to a commodity. With the example of TCP/IP, there is no economic value anymore to try to compete on tcp/ip implementations. The companies that had tcp/ip products either found other lines of business or are indeed now out of business. >This is also why any fees that the integrator earns on the innovation must >go to the innovator, at least through the entire proprietary period. If >this happens, the innovator should not feel threatened by competition from >the integrator during the proprietary period. It's only after this period >has expired. > >As an aside, we also think that there should be slightly different >proprietary periods and that innovators can, within reason, buy slightly >longer times with larger royalties. This ties the interests of the >integrator and innovator together. > >Interestingly, the growth in the business network fueled by expiration of >the proprietary period is also what should make joining this particular >network attractive for the innovator. We just finished an analytic model >that shows how the whole class of 3rd party innovators can earn more in >future periods if they're willing to "cross-license" each other at the end >of the proprietary period. The advantage of copyflex is that this >cross-licensing occurs with no negotiation costs because the business >network gains access to each innovation in due time. > > >>I am wondering about the proposed solution whether it requires "must >>do"-behavior for all participants. How I assume the solution to work is >>that the author through its license on its source code offers the ability >>of the proprietary period to its licensees (eg you can make and >>redistribute modifications if you promise to release under open source >>license after 2 years). It seems that this only works if this would be a >>requirement not a choice, ie if a licensee could choose to forego the >>proprietary period then s/he can basically undercut everybody else. > >I'm not sure I fully understand "must do" so let me reply to 2 diff >interpretations: I had to re-read my email to understand myself. I believe I meant the first interpretation :-) >If the "must do" issue is to promise to release under a free license after >say 2 years, then yes. This is a hard requirement. > >If the "must do" behavior is for the licensee to charge for an innovation, >then no. I'd always want to give an innovator the option to freely >distribute their new work if that's his or her choice. Then presumably no >one gets to charge for the intrinsic value (users get this value) beyond >the value of integration and conformance testing (which any other party >could also offer). > > >>You would also have to work out how it relates to the previous issue. If >>the author has a "license back"-requirement for innovations and also >>offers this proprietary period to its licensees then should the author >>also commit to not fold back the innovation back into the common code >>base until after the proprietary period? > >We envision this as allowing the integrator to offer an ? la carte option >to users of including the innovation at whatever price the innovator >chooses. As noted above, the integrator gets to charge the same price as >the innovator with the money going to the innovator. >This simply represents a 'pass through' with the integrator having >permission to collect fees and pass them through to the innovator. Of >course, the innovator can also make the new code available but he's not >worrying about competition because he sets the price and he gets the >revenues on his piece. > >For similar reasons, this 'pass through' also reduces the integrator's >fear of forking since he can always offer a fully functional version. >But, the integrator does not get to make money on the 3rd party >innovation. He didn't create it. Rather, the integrator benefits from >having a more valuable business network as a whole. > >But, we're *completely* open to alternative suggestions. > > >>Issue - Free Riding >>---------------- >>The opening paragraph seems to talk about forking and not contributing >>the fork to the community. The proposed solution seems to talk about >>creating incentives that favor derivative works over clean rooms. Aren't >>these different things? > >Here, rather, we're talking about "incentive" compatibility not "code" >compatibility so it's not quite forking. The idea here is to give someone >making a derivative work enough reason to make a *derivative* work, and so >be bound by the license. > >One can imagine that a business network becomes so valuable that some >firms prefer to attach to the network but not ever give up their >innovation. As in the case of the Phoenix bios, it's possible to put a >chinese wall between developers and the competing source code and so >create a whole new system that is not bound by the license. ( This would >be a fork but in property rights only and not technology since the code >should be compatible, else it won't attach to the network ) > >Firms will be less motivated to choose the clean room if they perceive >that they get enough value from the licensing terms that behaving >honorably is also economically rational. Thank you. Great explanation. I like the last sentence especially. >>What is "the tragedy of the commons"? > >It's econ-speak for a public goods problem. Imagine a public commons or >park where everyone has the right to graze their cattle. Then you tend to >get over grazing since each person can fatten his cows as much as he >wants. If you do this, the externality is the cost to other farmers more >than the cost to yourself. > >This is less of a problem for truly nonrival goods since each person can >'consume' a free zero cost copy. > > >>Issue - Strategic Misuse >>----------------- >>"Prices on author enhancements will be proportional ..." >>I fear I don't understand this sentence (a long time since my Economics >>101 class...). > >Good question. I admit to having originally written this note for myself >as a way to record ideas rather than convey them so apologies for lack of >clarity. > >There are 2 ideas here: (1) after-market product competition (2) total >value versus marginal value. > >So, here comes a bunch of econ... > >The first idea comes from durable goods like books, cars, and washing >machines but it applies especially well in markets where you can make >perfect copies (e.g. information). In a durable goods market, you can >re-sell a product after you've grown tired of it (assuming it still >works). So, for example Amazon can offer used books for sale on its >website to compete with the new ones. This "after market" in fact raised >a huge stink among publishers who feared that it might lower prices on new >books. > >One very interesting phenomenon due to aftermarkets is that they can lead >to prices like those in competitive markets even for goods where the >original manufacturer holds a monopoly. With a few caveats, aftermarkets >limit price gouging because they create an effective alternative source >even when there is only one original manufacturer. > >The way we make use of this in copyflex is to address the problem of an >indispensable complement -- some piece of code that you must buy in order >for the whole system to work. A clever integrator could try to keep a few >indispensable complements proprietary in order to raise prices later on. > >If total value of the system is the sum of all the indispensable >complements and all the subsequently free innovations, then an integrator >might be tempted to set the price of the indispensable complements at the >value of the whole system. That would be wrong. >It would also discourage 3rd party innovators. So we should require the >platform author or integrator to either (i) contractually commit to no >price hikes on the key pieces or (ii) allow an aftermarket alternative >source at no more than the original price. Then there will not be future >price gouging and there will be greater willingness to contribute innovations. > >Interestingly, GPL actually has this property more than most licenses >because every user can become a supplier in the aftermarket. > >FWIW, I think this is one of the main flaws with the current SCSL in that >it does not commit Sun in future periods, and this limits contributions in >the current period. > >But, solving this commitment to not raise prices can introduce another >problem in that the integrator should also be encouraged to innovate. >The value of each incremental innovation, whether by a 3rd party or the >integrator, *should* be rewarded. This is the marginal value of one piece >as distinct from the total value sum of all contributions. > >The integrator (as well as any innovator) should be free to set a price, >however briefly, on any new innovation they create. So the aftermarket >clause that creates future alternative sources should only bind on the >stock of existing code, not the new marginal value contributions. It is >after a proprietary period elapses that new innovations later become part >of the code stock as distinct from the new marginal value. Thanks, this helps. >>I wonder whether there's a different angle to the last paragraph. Aren't >>many open source projects created just so to stave off modifications or >>innovation by others? The proliferation of *my* code base vs somebody else's? > >Honest answer is that I don't know. You may have more real data on this one. Yeah, what I guess I meant was that source code is a very valuable good in many ways. One of the motivations to make one's source code available under an oss license is to aim for the center of the universe position. The motivation isn't necessarily the enabling of innovation by others, it is to maximize the number of developers that gravitate around you. This is seen to lead to several competitive and commercial benefits: - opportunities to sell tools, training and other services to that crowd. - being perceived as thought leader, as innovator, which may lead to improved sales opportunities for the companies other products, services. >I'm sure this happens but I'm skeptical that it staves off 3rd party >innovation. It would crowd out other code but if code becomes truly free >then although you may have supplied it, anyone else can mod it. >Then the question is how do your mods compete with those of others. I wasn't thinking so much of "my modifications are better than yours" but more "my system is better than yours" (eg Eclipse vs Netbeans; Apache Geronimo vs JBoss) In the case of Eclipse (probably the same would go for Netbeans) an important part of the play is the grab for developers. How many open source IDEs can the available developer pool bear? Assuming that the answer is "not that many" then you could come to the conclusion that after first Netbeans and then Eclipse there's less ROI for Oracle or Borland in open sourcing their IDEs. Now that I wrote this down I'm thinking that this is a little off-topic from the copyflex license... >This just brings us back to the innovation, pricing, and adoption issues, >which is what we're trying to manage with the copyflex style license! :) Exactly! >So, thoughts and critiques are welcome. > >MVA From marshall at MIT.EDU Mon Sep 27 16:30:19 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall W Van Alstyne) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 16:30:19 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Greetings list! Message-ID: <1096317019.4158785bb0f1e@webmail.mit.edu> Apologies to the newsgroup for the delay. I've been traveling through Michigan and Missouri. A few coarse thoughts on modeling below... At 02:48 PM 9/21/2004, Ryan S. Dancey wrote: On Fri, 2004-09-17 at 15:45 -0400, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote: > >One of the stated aims of this list is to come up with an economic model > >for this sort of thing (I think, I'm not an economist). Do you think it's > >possible to quantify the effects of the OGL on WotC's revenue stream, or > >is that the wrong way of looking at the equation? ... > It would be possible to conduct such modeling, if Wizards would release > quantifiable information about the unit sales volume of the core D&D > books, especially if that data could be combined with unit sales volume > data from the half-dozen major distributors to correlate with 3rd party > D20 product sales. Unfortunately, neither set of data points is, or is > every likely to be, available. :( Let me take a stab at distinguishing between two diff types of models. In one, the type above, we'd need lots of data to give predictive measures of interesting effects. So, for example, we might use data (if it were available) to predict sales volumes based on numbers and sizes of distributors. This would be a regression or econometric model. We'd then fit parameters to point clouds, basically a set of axes would be constructed to span the space of points. With this, we could answer questions about the sensitivity and confidence level of changes in output parameters based on changes in input parameters. The second type of model, is different; it's analytic. Like a color palette, wed use rough systems of equations to sketch spaces where we think various properties hold. Then, functions can sometimes capture our intuitions about how assumptions interact. So, for example, we might specify an equation that says developer output rises in the level of open content but falls in less prestigious tasks. Another equation might specify ability to reuse open content (so for example, software tends to be more "reusable" than paintings). Another equation might specify how network effects boost adoption. Juxtaposing these equations carves up the space into distinct regions. With this, we can ask whether certain properties exist in any region at all. We can ask how big is one region relative to another. Also, at what point does one property become false in moving between spaces? The first model is actually terrible for making predictions at the boundaries. It can also never be used to explore phenomena with no recorded data. And it says very little about the ratios of multiple spaces. Rather, it combines vectors in varying proportions to hit points in space with interpretable levels of accuracy. The second model is terrible for such sensitivity analysis. But that is also its strength. You can warp the entire collection of spaces and the ratios will stay fairly constant. The locations of points will have moved (so predictive value is lousy) but claims about the relative proportions tend to remain true. These models are great for "seeing" into the dark spaces where you've been unable to collect data. Further, the former empirical style models are frequently used to confirm or reject claims of the latter theoretical style models, which are themselves used to guide data gathering for the empirical style. In a sense, each needs the other. So, I'm optimistic that even if we can't get data immediately, then we can use models of one type or another to boldly go where no one has gone before :) MVA From marshall at MIT.EDU Mon Sep 27 16:45:11 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 16:45:11 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Re: Comments on "Flexible Copyright Licensing - A Precis" Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040927164028.027001c0@po10.mit.edu> Hi Onno, a few clarifying thoughts follow: At 08:59 PM 9/17/2004, Onno Kluyt wrote: >Couple of follow-ons inserted in the text below. > >Onno. > >>One subtlety, however, is that we feel the platform author should get an >>immediate option to offer a new innovation as part of their own work such >>that (i) the price is no higher than that charged by the 3rd party >>developer and (ii) the proceeds on that piece go to the 3rd party >>developer. This encourages users to come to the platform author as the >>main supplier of all new pieces and it doesn't harm the innovation >>incentives because the developer gets the money anyway. >I wonder whether this works in practice. For large scale projects, say >J2SE or J2EE, doesn't this become quite complex rather quickly? >If you'd have one or two contributions from other developers then it may >work but does it scale? >This is generally addressed in the JCP in different ways but seldom >(actually I don't know of a case) via proceeds sharing. The innovation is >offered to the original author either for free or for an upfront one-off >fee. The developer is then often further rewarded by public recognition >for the contribution by the original author. Ah, you raise 2 points, one on integrating complexity and the other on proceeds sharing. Actually, I agree that the add-ons become complex rather quickly. This, however, is a key source of value provided by the integrator. Who else is in a better position to achieve the integration? It's also much more efficient to have the integrator (or someone) do this once than have lots of individual users repeat this step for themselves -- and this promotes adoption. As to the proceeds sharing, this addresses the exact same problem that is always faced with a new innovation i.e. a market test of value. There's a reason that governments don't just buy new patents then place the idea in the public domain. No one really knows the value in advance of testing it in the market. So, how do you set the price? Answer: you let the market decide. If the individual innovator sets too high a price, he doesn't make any money. ... >>I'd argue that the issue is probably not to contractually *forbid* >>forking of any kind since this also has the potential to retard true >>innovation. Rather it should be economically unattractive. A truly >>innovative radical innovation may still offer enough value to make >>forking worthwhile, but then this is precisely when forks should occur. >So, how do you make it economically unattractive? >This seems hard to do when there is substantial disparity in financial >abilities between the original author and the party that is considering >the fork, and the disparity being to the disadvantage of the original >author. The GPL does seem to offer a defense strategy in this case because >of its viral affect on other products bundled or dependent upon it. > >Perhaps one needs to consider other strategies in addition to (or in >support of) whatever license one puts on the original work: ie fortify the >community against such actions via social and moral tools. The unwanted >forking activity may then be rejected by the market on other grounds, or >at least it could significantly increase the forker's costs in marketing >and other activities for it overcome the resistance to its actions. You do raise a legit argument in the financial resources of a determined Forker i.e. someone who wants to do this for private reasons, not because it's good either for the technology or the community. But for companies such as MS, this is always a potential problem. Still the economics to prevent it can be quite strong. We can make forking economically unattractive by using properties of bundling (which, BTW, is another reason to take the integration step suggested in the previous answer). There are two good papers on this (one by Bakos & Brynjolfsson, the other by Nalebuff) but here's the key insight. By bundling goods together, you can make it harder for a competitor to market into your installed base. The reason is that your base probably already has your version of the component that your competitor is trying to get them to adopt, i.e. your version already came with the bundle, so they don't need another. Nalebuff points out that when MS office first came on the market as a bundle, it wasn't best of breed in spreadsheet (Lotus was), word processing (honor went to WordPerfect), or presentation (honors to Persuasion)! But you got the whole bundle cheaply. Then if you bought it for the word processor, you didn't need to buy Lotus 'cause you already had Excel. So even though Lotus had a lot of resources, it couldn't promote adoption against any user who got a word processor (and office bundle) or a presentation package (and office bundle). MVA From marshall at MIT.EDU Mon Sep 27 17:14:06 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 17:14:06 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Does the Patent System Need an Overhaul? Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040927171036.0264d7b0@po10.mit.edu> There's an interesting article in today's NYT about reforming the patent system with a few suggestions. These include a new level of internal review, partly to apply differing levels of expertise, moving away from 1-size-fits-all patents, and movement away from jury based trials. Details below... \----------------------------------------------------------/ Does the Patent System Need an Overhaul? September 27, 2004 By SABRA CHARTRAND http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/technology/27patent.html?ex=1097292886&ei=1&en=7719f3eb5001c7f0 From sama at miu-ft.org Thu Sep 30 14:01:40 2004 From: sama at miu-ft.org (Andrea Glorioso) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:01:40 +0200 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Re: Comments on "Flexible Copyright Licensing - A Precis" In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040927164028.027001c0@po10.mit.edu> (Marshall Van Alstyne's message of "Mon, 27 Sep 2004 16:45:11 -0400") References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040927164028.027001c0@po10.mit.edu> Message-ID: <87zn37iqkb.fsf@perchetopi.org> Dear all, >>>>> "Marshall" == Marshall Van Alstyne writes: > There are two good papers on this (one by Bakos & Brynjolfsson, > the other by Nalebuff) but here's the key insight. Do you have the precise references to such papers? Bye, -- Andrea Glorioso sama at miu-ft.org +39 333 820 5723 .:: Media Innovation Unit - Firenze Tecnologia ::. Conquering the world for fun and profit From marshall at MIT.EDU Thu Sep 30 16:19:48 2004 From: marshall at MIT.EDU (Marshall Van Alstyne) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:19:48 -0400 Subject: [Cc-bizcom] Re: Comments on "Flexible Copyright Licensing - A Precis" In-Reply-To: <87zn37iqkb.fsf@perchetopi.org> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040927164028.027001c0@po10.mit.edu> <87zn37iqkb.fsf@perchetopi.org> Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040930161328.02689df0@po10.mit.edu> At 02:01 PM 9/30/2004, Andrea Glorioso wrote: >Dear all, > > >>>>> "Marshall" == Marshall Van Alstyne writes: > > > There are two good papers on this (one by Bakos & Brynjolfsson, > > the other by Nalebuff) but here's the key insight. > >Do you have the precise references to such papers? Sure, Andrea, three related references are: 1) When bundling creates competitive advantage: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=231598 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=185193 2) When unbundling creates competitive advantage: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=249585 Cheers, MVA