the value of software does not reside in the source code

[Mike Coleman]

Marvin Bellamy <Marvin.Bellamy at innovision.com> writes:
> I disagree with you, here...then I'm not totally sold on the open source
> movement.  I work for a small company with a niche market.  If our code was
> open source, it'd be damned easy for others to encroach on our turf. I don't
> think you can assume honesty on the part of other companies. Look at M$.  If
> they have the opportunity, they'll steal code and attrit the little guy with
> litigation.

Though I mention Open Source in my post, that wouldn't be my first choice in
most situations.  Consider a few options short of OS, more or less in order of
decreasing restrictiveness:

1.  Release source with license only allowing users to read it.  No
    compilation, alteration, redistribution.  I think most vendors would have
    a fit about even this sort of disclosure, but in reality source code
    encumbered this way would be very unlikely to result in customers not
    buying your product or competitors somehow capitalizing.  What's your
    customer going to do?  Copy it and start supporting it themselves?  Dumb,
    very dumb.

    What's your competitor going to do?  Illegally include it in their code?
    Anyone that's been programming for a while has run into situations where
    some customer or manager has dropped a huge hairy undocumented ball of
    code on them gotten from elsewhere (meaning that the original authors are
    gone, dead, incompetent or otherwise unhelpful).  As a programmer, just
    reading that should make you cringe--the last thing you want to do is
    start development on that codebase.  You might be able to reverse engineer
    a few bits of useful info about some API or hardware interface, but beyond
    that, send it to the dumpster.

    In some ways it's worse than useless.  If you read such code, you risk
    being sued in the future, whether you copy from it or not.

2.  Release source under the GPL.  Some of the above applies to this
    alternative as well.  It's one thing to have the source; it's another
    entirely to command the attention of talented programmers that designed
    and implemented it.  The GPL does give customers the alternative to choose
    other support, but if you're treating them at all reasonably, they'd be
    fools to do so.

    And as for your competitors?  Sure, they could develop with your codebase,
    but that's arguably good for you.  First, you get to sell the results of
    their efforts.  And second, their customers see that the product they're
    selling was originally developed by *you*.  Most competitors are unlikely
    to choose this path even if it would be a net benefit for them, and
    rapacious, monopolistic competitors never will.

    (Generally speaking I'd stop here.  I think Open Source licenses are
    mostly useful for specific tactical situations.)

That's all just opinion, but I'm not aware of any real-world counterexamples.

Mike