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I think the notion of value creation is probably the greatest benefit of open source designs (don't confuse this with profit creation). Carl Shapiro refers to the notion of network externalities in his book Information Rules. This refers to the value that is added to each participant in a network as more people become involved. In other words, the more people that join open source networks, the greater a value that network is to everyone that uses it.

http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Economy/dp/087584863X

I hear a lot of people, including economists, energy experts, sustainability activists, refer to the need for an abundance culture, rather than a culture of scarcity. We need to focus on how we can increase the propagation of information rather than focus on how we control it. This is the very essence of creative commons licenses in which the right to distribute is guaranteed, rather than the restriction of access as is created by traditional copyright (see copyleft vs. copyright). Eisenstein and his book Sacred Economics (its free: http://sacred-economics.com/read-online/) is probably the most informative resource I have found on the topic of the economics of abundance.

Neither of these books is directly related to open source, but I think they can help provide a context for how open source networks could work. Just so you get some directly related information from me, I have been reading the book "The Success of Open Source" by Steven Weber, and it is an excellent source for learning about the general nature of open source designs.

http://www.amazon.com/Success-Open-Source-Steven-Weber/dp/0674018583

So far, in my own research I have found that information about general open source designs is still sparse. The research that does exist typically refers to software design, so the ability to apply the benefits the software world receives from open source communities to the real world is necessary.

P.S. these are both common books, so check your library first.

> There has been pretty wide spread reporting on the kid hacking and getting 90 GB of private data

What I saw reported was:

• kid "hacked" Apple
  
• kid downloaded 90GB data
  
  Nothing said what he hacked or downloaded, just that he hacked something and downloaded "data". That could very well be a honeypot.
  
  > In China Apple has the China government keep the data instead of Google and not sure how good they are at security but I am sure a lot better then Apple at least.
  
  Again, source? With Apple being worth ~$1T, I'm sure they can hire a competent sysadmin.
  
  > Google has several of those people including Ken Thompson, Rob Pike and a bunch of other ones
  
  And they stopped working on Plan9 when they got hired, that was my point.
  
  > Here is why they get all the best engineers.
  >
  > https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/12/23000-millennial-and-gen-z-workers-listed-their-dream-employers.html
  
  People want to work there because they pay really well. I wanted to work there when I was doing my undergrad, but that that faded and now I wouldn't take a job from them even if offered. I've read too many horror stories from people who worked there that it's just not worth my time.
  
  I do not trust Google, though I use their tech when it makes sense. I develop in Go, use Angular for some projects, and build stuff on Kubernetes. I also use competitor tech, like Rust and React.
  
  > We had AirPort extremes for example and replaced with Google WiFi.
  
  Why not something more mainstream like Linksys or Trendnet?
  
  > Google owns all the IP others use
  
  That's just not true.
  
  Oh, and they have retaliated with their own set of patents when challenged. They don't seem to want the publicity of being a patent troll. I think of this more as a business decision and less of a "we're the good guys" decision.
  
  > Waymo did with Uber.
  
  There are plenty of companies worse than Google, like Oracle (sued Google and a ton of others). I'm not saying that Google is "bad" (yet), just that they're not "good".
  
  > Only GOOGL gets voting and that means Brin and Page control, completely. They can NEVER be fired.
  
  What happens when they leave?
  
  > completely broken patent system in the US
  
  Agreed, we desperately need to fix (or completely eliminate) our patent system. Patents on software and designs are ridiculous.
  
  > Now what I find fascinating is that Google gave away majority of their IP. Poor business but good for everyone.
  
  No, it's a good business move. Their business is user data and mindshare, and that's how you get tech fanboys. It's a brilliant business move IMO.
  
  > BTW, my previous generation OS idle is David Cutler. But obviously before NT.
  
  I'm a fan of Kirk McKusick, if for nothing else than The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System.
  
  I'm pretty hyped about Redox though.

I am an actual lawyer.

In the USA a license is revocable absent an interest.
An interest generally means you paid for the license, are in a contract with the grantor (paid good consideration for the license) etc.
You can "retroactively" rescind the GPL from a non-paying licensee. They use your property at your /pleasure/. ("Retroactively" is used colloquially here: their past non-infringing actions are not suddenly infringing, their future actions using the same code would be since you have rescinded their license)

Your "understanding" is wishful thinking and is wrong.
Your /game plan/ is to throw yourself on the mercy of the court and beg them not to enforce the owners legal rights under an equitable defense (Basically "It's not fair!"). You can do this in virtually any licensor-licensee case, and it IS attempted in virtually every such case where the licensee doesn't have a leg to stand on legally.

(Things are different in non-US jurisdictions, so the second option of "defense" is that violators host outside of the US: where hosts simply do not care about US law)

But don't take my word for it. Take the word of some lawyers who attach their actual name:

( https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/dp/0131487876 )
>p46 "As long as the project continues to honor the terms of the licenses under which it recieved contributions, the licenses continue in effect. There is one important caveat: Even a perpetual license can be revoked. See the discussion of bare licenses and contracts in Chapter 4"
--Lawrence Rosen

>p56 "A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable by the licensor. Specifically, /a license not coupled with an interest may be revoked./ The term /interest/ in this context usually means the payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration-a contract law term not found in copyright or patent law-in order to avoid revocation. Or a licensee may claim that he or she relied on the software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent upon that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests. (The concepts of /consideration/ and /promissory estoppel/ are explained more fully in the next section.) Unless the courts allow us to apply these contract law principles to a license, we are faced with a bare license that is revocable.
--Lawrence Rosen

>p278 "Notice that in a copyright dispute over a bare license, the plaintiff will almost certainly be the copyright owner. If a licensee were foolish enough to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of the license, the licensor can simply revoke the bare license, thus ending the dispute. Remeber that a bare license in the absence of an interest is revocable."
--Lawrence Rosen

Lawrence Rosen - Open Source Licensing - Sofware Freedom and Intellectual property Law



>p65 "Of all the licenses descibed in this book, only the GPL makes the explicity point that it wants nothing of /acceptance/ of /consideration/:
>...
>The GPL authors intend that it not be treated as a contract. I will say much more about this license and these two provisions in Chapter 6. For now, I simply point out that the GPL licensors are in essentially the same situation as other open source licensors who cannot prove offer, acceptance, or consideration. There is no contract."
--Lawrence Rosen

----
>David McGowan, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School:

>"Termination of rights

>[...] The most plausible assumption is that a developer who releases code under the GPL may terminate GPL rights, probably at will.

>[...] My point is not that termination is a great risk, it is that it is not recognized as a risk even though it is probably relevant to commercial end-users, accustomed to having contractual rights they can enforce themselves.

> Patents are not supposed to be for things that are trivial to implement once you get told a basic summary.

I disagree. Patents are supposed to be for inventions. Look at what the rest of the world uses patents for:

• Drugs. Once you know what the drug is, it's trivial to make a generic. That's why they need the patent in the first place!
  
• The electric guitar. It's not exactly more difficult to make than a regular guitar.
  
• I mentioned Apple's magnetic power plug. How, exactly, is this more difficult to make than a regular plug?
  
• The safety razor. It's a sharp piece of metal between two pieces of plastic with a handle attached.
  
• The light bulb. It's a piece of wire in a glass bulb filled with an inert gas. The hard part was figuring out (mostly through trial and error) exactly what sort of wire to use for the filament. Edison got a patent for improving this design.
  
• The crescent wrench. It has exactly three parts, so that's got to be trivial to put together, even if they're usually metal.
  
• The electric motor. I had one of these as a kid. It's basically two pieces of metal with holes in them, a chunk of plastic to hold them in place, a piece of wire (you coil it, and strip the insulation off one side of it), a magnet, and a battery.
  
• The QWERTY keyboard. This is just an arrangement of keys. If you already know how to build a typewriter, changing which keys go where isn't a huge deal.
  
  It's never been a question of how hard it is to implement a thing. It's a question of how inventive it is. I think the key idea is how hard it would be to come up with the idea, including a plan for how it could be practically implemented -- not how hard it is to replicate it after the fact, or how obvious it is in hindsight.
  
  > You can tell almost any software engineer the basic ideas behind GC (automatic free() of initialised memory/pointers)
  
  My point is that the idea of GC is not necessarily obvious. I can tell any software engineer how to malloc/free. Eventually, some of them would get fed up with all the manual malloc-ing and free-ing, and if they had C++ available, reference counting might be an obvious next step. I wonder how many of them would immediately jump to "This should all be automatic."
  
  And even once you've got that, there's the additional requirement that you have to be using a language which has a strong concept of a reference, rather than just an int pointer -- basically, that this won't work terribly well for arbitrary C, where any int might be a pointer in disguise, and pointer arithmetic is fair game.
  
  Actually, that's oversimplifying. In arbitrary C, any data might be a pointer in disguise, and void pointers are frequently used.
  
  If you start today and work backwards, it's much easier. I know the JVM exists, and I know it does GC for anything it runs, but I also know it imposes some restrictions on the code it runs. Knowing this, if someone asked me to come up with a way to automatically free(), I think I'd end up with the right set of requirements.
  
  > FWIW I am strongly against any form of software patenting.
  
  I think there's actually a compelling case to be made against any forms of patents, period. I'm not sure where I stand on this -- I would probably be reasonably happy with a five-year limit on patents, and I'd be ecstatic with a two-year limit on patents, but if there are no software patents, great!

Some decisions I have made regarding my GPC-Slots 2 game:


I had chosen, as was my want, to rescind the license I extended from a
few choice individuals. I can do this because GPC-Slots 2 is my
copyrighted work. I built it. I never transferred the copyright over to
anyone.


The individuals are:
"JohnDoe" from 8chan (he knows who he is)
comphacker from here, reddit (if he violates, I'll know who he is after
the subpoenas during discovery)
Leigh Honeywell
Alex "Skud" Bayley
the "Geek feminist" collective (I believe they are identifiable, and a
small group, so no harm using this closed-class identification)


I will continue to rescind the license from anyone who adds a "Code of
Conduct" anywhere near my code (to "fight sexism".). I wholeheartedly
/support/ sexism, as-long as it is not against men. Since men are now
being assaulted as thanks for their ceaseless decades-long work on
opensource by people who did not put in the time, men should /support
sexism/ by revoking license to their gratis licensed copyrighted code
from any project that adds a "Code of Conduct".


--MikeeUSA--
(electronic signature)


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Some notes:
A license without an attached interest is revocable in the US (other
countries have different laws, which is why many OSS repos kept out of
the US in the past, it is also why the FSF is both a 501(c)(3) charity
and also requires copyright assignment to them for any contribution they
accept (otherwise an author who was still the copyright owner of the
code could rescind the license to the code)).


Opensource friends like to bring up the recent district court decision
in california to try to argue the the GPL is a contract. (It's also
interesting that they started adding CoC's right after said decision, to
push out the men who created OpenSource) They are wrong. Acquiescing to
a preexisting duty is insufficient for consideration. They like to quote
this part:


\> "Not so. The GNU GPL, which is attached to the complaint,provides that
\> the
Ghostscript user agrees to its terms if the user does not obtain a
commercial
license" (Artifex v. Hancom, Case No.16-cv-06982-JSC, page 4 line 17)


This is false on its face.


The GNU GPL contains no such language.


The /business agreement writing/ that Artifex wrote up and posted on its
webpage includes such language. The court here is conflating "The GNU
GPL" with the writing Artifex published on it's webpage. It is an error
on the courts case. A typo by whomever who drafted the decision perhaps
(conflating Artifex's contract language with the GPL itself).


The court goes on to allow Artifex to recover on either
breach-of-contract grounds (for the amount a commercial license is
worth) OR to go forward with a statutory copyright infringement action.
If the GPL alone was a contract, there would simply be two different
state-law breach of contract theories to pursue (breach of the "business
offer" writing or breach of the GPL "contract", and the court would
dispose of the case that way).


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David McGowan Esq. made a correct statement of the law:


\> David McGowan, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School:


\> "Termination of rights


\> [...] The most plausible assumption is that a developer who releases
\> code under the GPL may terminate GPL rights, probably at will.


\> [...] My point is not that termination is a great risk, it is that it
\> is not recognized as a risk even though it is probably relevant to
\> commercial end-users, accustomed to having contractual rights they can
\> enforce themselves.


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----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----


Lawrence Rosen Esq. got it right the first time:
(
https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/dp/0131487876
)


\> p46 "As long as the project continues to honor the terms of the
\> licenses under which it recieved contributions, the licenses continue
\> in effect. There is one important caveat: Even a perpetual license can
\> be revoked. See the discussion of bare licenses and contracts in
\> Chapter 4"
--Lawrence Rosen


\> p56 "A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable
\> by the licensor. Specifically, /a license not coupled with an interest
\> may be revoked./ The term /interest/ in this context usually means the
\> payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more
\> complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a
\> licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration-a
\> contract law term not found in copyright or patent law-in order to
\> avoid revocation. Or a licensee may claim that he or she relied on the
\> software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent
\> upon that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory
\> estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests.
\> (The concepts of /consideration/ and /promissory estoppel/ are
\> explained more fully in the next section.) Unless the courts allow us
\> to apply these contract law principles to a license, we are faced with
\> a bare license that is revocable.
--Lawrence Rosen


\> p278 "Notice that in a copyright dispute over a bare license, the
\> plaintiff will almost certainly be the copyright owner. If a licensee
\> were foolish enough to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of the
\> license, the licensor can simply revoke the bare license, thus ending
\> the dispute. Remeber that a bare license in the absence of an interest
\> is revocable."
--Lawrence Rosen


Lawrence Rosen - Open Source Licensing - Sofware Freedom and
Intellectual property Law

​

David McGowan Esq. made a correct statement of the law:

​

\>David McGowan, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School:

​

\>"Termination of rights

​

\>[...] The most plausible assumption is that a developer who releases code under the GPL may terminate GPL rights, probably at will.

​

\>[...] My point is not that termination is a great risk, it is that it is not recognized as a risk even though it is probably relevant to commercial end-users, accustomed to having contractual rights they can enforce themselves.

​

​

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

​

Lawrence Rosen Esq. got it right the first time:

( https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/dp/0131487876 )

​

\>p46 "As long as the project continues to honor the terms of the licenses under which it recieved contributions, the licenses continue in effect. There is one important caveat: Even a perpetual license can be revoked. See the discussion of bare licenses and contracts in Chapter 4"

--Lawrence Rosen

​

\>p56 "A third problem with bare licenses is that they may be revocable by the licensor. Specifically, /a license not coupled with an interest may be revoked./ The term /interest/ in this context usually means the payment of some royalty or license fee, but there are other more complicated ways to satisfy the interest requirement. For example, a licensee can demonstrate that he or she has paid some consideration-a contract law term not found in copyright or patent law-in order to avoid revocation. Or a licensee may claim that he or she relied on the software licensed under an open source license and now is dependent upon that software, but this contract law concept, called promissory estoppel, is both difficult to prove and unreliable in court tests. (The concepts of /consideration/ and /promissory estoppel/ are explained more fully in the next section.) Unless the courts allow us to apply these contract law principles to a license, we are faced with a bare license that is revocable.

--Lawrence Rosen

​

\>p278 "Notice that in a copyright dispute over a bare license, the plaintiff will almost certainly be the copyright owner. If a licensee were foolish enough to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of the license, the licensor can simply revoke the bare license, thus ending the dispute. Remeber that a bare license in the absence of an interest is revocable."

--Lawrence Rosen

​

Lawrence Rosen - Open Source Licensing - Sofware Freedom and Intellectual property Law

​

​

​

\>p65 "Of all the licenses descibed in this book, only the GPL makes the explicity point that it wants nothing of /acceptance/ of /consideration/:

\>...

\>The GPL authors intend that it not be treated as a contract. I will say much more about this license and these two provisions in Chapter 6. For now, I simply point out that the GPL licensors are in essentially the same situation as other open source licensors who cannot prove offer, acceptance, or consideration. There is no contract."

--Lawrence Rosen

​

+1 for Coding Freedom-- really great! I also found Two Bits informative.

I'm a licensed attorney, I know what I'm talking about.
Here have a read if you don't believe me:



https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/1857/

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Licensing-Software-Intellectual/dp/0131487876

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=243237



You'll noticed that no licensed attorney is claiming that the GPL is irrevocable from free-takers. The most you'll get, if you pay attention, is highly couched statements. There is a reason they have a non-attorney making the blatant "GPL is irrevocable" statements: those statements are not legally defensible - they can claim the non-lawyer is not an expert in his field however.



Free licenses are revocable. They are not mutually binding agreements: they are simply permission from the copyright owner; permission that can be revocated at the copyright owner's pleasure.



"I agree to... get the thing I'm trying to contract for" is not valid consideration.

Free is not valid consideration.

Nothing is not valid consideration.

"I won't violate your copyright and will instead abide by the limitations in the license text" is not valid consideration.



You do not have a pre-existing Right to violate the copyright owners copyright. You are not giving anything up when you "agree" to these lesser restrictions (down from "you are not allowed to do anything"): you are gaining permissions.

The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber. I found this book at my library and ended up buying it after reading it because it had so much good content.

I really enjoyed this one

Replace it. It's buggy and slow. Seriously, it was the best $14 I ever spent on a computer part. It's even cheaper now:

Intel Wireless-Ac 9260, 2230, 2X2 Ac+Bt, Gigabit, No Vpro https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079QH5KW1/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_mnC4Db2TQE5PV

https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Distributed-Systems-Patterns-Paradigms/dp/1491983647

I suggest reading the Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S Raymond.

This post on the same blog goes into more steps about how to make the project open collaborative http://opencollaboration.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/open-collaboration/ . The book "Open Collaboration Encyclopedia" goes into even more detail http://www.amazon.com/The-Open-Collaboration-Encyclopedia-Alpha/dp/0981831834

You can find some customer reviews at Amazon.

No one got my joke.. or it was so bad
https://www.amazon.com/PoC-GTFO-Manul-Laphroaig/dp/1593278802