Ask HN: Can you argue public/open-source code is publically funded/subsidized? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can you argue public/open-source code is publically funded/subsidized?

4 pointsthrwawy744 comments

I have a tenuous argument in my head. Several years ago "The Social Contract" was talked about in political circles. The basic idea being that if you're a successful business you owe some portion of your success to the city you're based out of being clean, devoid of crime, regulated, etc. If you want to operate a business in this space, you must adhere to its rules and you may prosper because of its protections.

So here's what would be a very flawed argument: Can you say those contributing code to the public domain with open licenses were publically funded works? That the society which allowed them to create and contribute freely essentially funded or subsidized that development?

The objective would be to protect free and open-source software as publically funded works, whether the author has the resources to defend the work from other companies are not. Could you protect it as a third-party?

If this were true, you could compel companies to open software they've created derived from public works. The hideous other side of the coin is that countries could establish ownership rights over software created within their "borders". I know many go online and try to escape the society they live in because there are no borders online.

I'm not sure what you want. Oversimplifying, there are three types of free licenses:

* MIT/BSD: Everyone can use the code in any project, even in proprietary software. [1]

* GPL: You can use the code only in other GPL projects.

* AGPL: You can use the code only in other AGPL projects. If you use it in a server with real users, the code must be published.

What do you want:

1) If someone uses MIT/BSD code, then the new code must be MIT/BSD?

2) If someone uses MIT/BSD code, then the new code must be published?

3) If someone uses GPL code, then the new code must be published?

4) Now only the author can sue someone that is not following the license rules [2]. Do you want the government to be able to sue? Do you want anyone to be able to sue?

[1] Most of them have an attribution requisite, but let's ignore that.

[2] It's more complicated due to CLA and other legal stuff.

I want to make the far-reaching conclusion that even if something is MIT-licensed, because it was able to be developed and openly licensed and released to the public, at minimum the derived work must also be open (not MIT).

Note that no every MIT-licensed project was developed by a big community or used public funds.

Some are a minor project of a profesor in a private university, some are the code of an undergraduate thesis, some are just a weekend side project. In many cases people don't care too much about what other people does with the code and release it with a permissive license.

If someone want their code to be used only in open source project, just use GPL or AGPL.

> protect free and open-source software as publicly funded works

> The hideous other side of the coin is that countries could establish ownership rights

The first does not lead automatically to the second. The state can help better protect the open-source arrangement (as in the government being able to sue). But it does not mean the States will necessary "own" it.

States fund a lot of research papers. They do not "own" that research, but this does not mean they won't disallow greedy publishers from cashing in on it.

All the above does not answer your question: Can you argue OSS is publicly funded ? Definity Yes.

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