Category: Open source

Photo © copyright Adam Loeffler.
I don’t understand why someone hasn’t patented the patent process and shut down the whole racket. There’s nothing that inspires more fear, has created more anger and resentment and held back innovation in the POMO world (thanks Dave!) more than the US Intellectual Property system — and most notoriously copyright and patents.

Now, I’m not an intellectual property communist — far from it. In fact, I’m very much about people getting credit for their work, for their inventions, their ideas and in due time, compensation — both economic and social.

But the system is effed. And as there are alternatives to copyright and trademark, there similarly needs to be an open source alternative to patents, that allows the creative and ingenious to receive credit and kudos without creating a chilling effect on future and subsequent derivative innovation — innovation that has historically been built on borrowed and hacked ideas. Innovation necessary for human progress to continue at the pace it’s at today.

It’s bad enough that sentient creatures will look back centuries — if not decades — from now and laugh at how us humans smogged ourselves to death. Oh no, they’ll also barrel over in hysterics at how we held back our creatives by denying them the freedom to dabble freely and openly without the both fear of being blatantly ripped off as well as slapped with a law suit for violating someone else’s property rights. “What a bunch of cheap trust they had back then”, they’ll quip. “it’s a wonder that the little guys continued to play along even after the whole balance had shifted away from protecting them to protecting the overbloated incumbents!”

I mean, how else can you explain this quote from Christopher Lunt, formerly Friendster’s senior director of engineering (recently made refamous for their social networking patent)?

“My approach was defensive,” he said. “We were not looking to stifle creativity by competitors, nor to make money by licensing. We were making sure that things material to our business were protected, so someone else couldn’t claim the idea.”

“I dislike the current patent process,” Lunt added. “I feel it’s a little too permissive in terms of what is granted as a patent. But that doesn’t mean I can ignore it.”

Gah!! What a waste! Of money! Of talent! Of time! To have to register defensive patents is bullshit. The answer, quite simply, is something more proactive… more positive… duh! It’s open patent licensing! And why our legal system hasn’t codified this yet, well, that’s because you don’t make money off of open systems — you make money because of openness. And that’s something that our legal system, at least the purveyors of the modern legal system, could give a rat’s patootie about. It’s far too subtle. Kind of like that boiling frog in Al’s movie… or the dinosaurs paying no heed as the weather was getting colder… before the Ice Age. Or as the black ground started rising above their shins… drowning in the refuse of their own ancestor’s remains.

It’s fun to speculate (i.e. Will gBrowser 2.0 be built on WebKit?) on what the cozying up between Apple and Google means. Is it really about search box revenue? Or is it a more insidious and calculated move, intended to push other folks to “show their cards” (so-to-speak) as to which major player(s) (or team) you want to side with?

Om’s media guess is as good as any, but I’m more interested in what this means for both search-as-platform and the future of browsers.

As we know, it’s long been speculated that Google is developing its own browser, yet the primary manifestations of this seem to be Mozilla Corp’s physical proximity to Google “All Your Base” HQ and the loving partnership on the Google Toolbar and the I’ll-pay-you-a-dollar-to-stop-searching-with-the-search-box campaign (because it’s costing us more than us giving every Firefox user a dollar!).

Could it be Mozilla’s resistance to pledge allegiance to Teh GOOG that’s causing them to look for another browser partner similarly predicated on open source roots (and thereby easily swayed with the right amount of “bought” — ahem! — I mean employed developers)?

Could it be that Apple’s iTunes Evil DRMpire is too attractive for Google to ignore and that, in wanting to gussy up before an all out Microsoft MediaCenter assault, is stacking its actors accordingly, aiming to not only deliver all the world’s information to you in a single click, but all its DRM’d content as well? Are ya feelin’ lucky?

Well do ya? Punk?

I do see some potentially significant ramifications for the browser space as more and more it’s become a search space, with very little to do with software whatsoever. While the relationship between Google and Mozilla is likely to remain strong, there may be chinks in the armor still, with Google and Apple being more 2.0 strict companies and Microsoft and Mozilla trending towards the heavier 1.5 transitional model.

Think of it this way: Mozilla and Microsoft do not have the same kind of content leverage that Google and Apple have. In fact, Mozilla has no content to sell and Microsoft, well, they’re situated squarely atop and albatross OS that promises to be a media panacea… that requires hardware most of the world doesn’t have. In the other court, Google content is already available cross platform and Apple music files have been downloaded a bazillion times into their proprietary iPod players. Would it not make sense for Google and Apple to control the entire distribution mechanism, soup-to-nuts, across all platforms? Isn’t that what Boot Camp is all about? Is that what open sourcing Darwin is all about?

Well, in all seriousness, I have no idea. But as I said, it sure is fun to conjecture! Y’know, this whole arrangement probably is just a good-natured relationship where two companies who value user experience and simplicity and are pioneers in their fields are getting together to form a union of trust and mutual support. It’s all about the users, y’know? — and doin’ what’s right for them. (If only I had a John Edwards drawl!)