Open Source

Open Source

Abstract

The emergence of Open Source Software (OSS) and an entire movement advocating free sharing of knowledge has stirred several political, financial and ethical considerations in the area of software development. Stallman (1999) advocated the belief that individuals should have freedom to obtain a program's source code and read it, add to it, or change it. This wave of commercialization in the software development industry inevitably led to Stallman's GNU Project. The principal objective of this project was to, as Stallman (1999) proposed, develop a “new software sharing community”. This basically implied that the source code, which is what software developers keep confidential to maintain their intellectual property rights, would be available freely for use and modification by anyone willing to contribute to its development (Spinello & Tavani, 2004). There are a number of perspectives in ethics philosophy which refute the claim that open source is “a matter of liberty, not price”. Utilitarian, Rights, Fairness, Common Good, and Virtue perspectives all question the extent to which this claim raises ethical considerations for Open Source sharing. Following this is the question of the tangible and intangible. Can we treat intangible products in the same manner as tangible products while discussing property rights? Naturally, all of these questions further complicate the ethical dimension of open source as a free distributor of individual property and intellectual rights.

Proposal

Introduction

Open Source is both a philosophy and a methodology for the free distribution and access to a product on the web. With increased internet usage, software evolved to incorporate a source code which enables production and distribution of a software on the web. The open source movement gained momentum rapidly, introducing a new copyright and licensing domain. The reason I chose this topic is simple. We live in an age of the internet, where most processes are computerized. These include academic endeavors to company and financial analyses. The open source phenomenon has witnessed a rise in its use across the globe. It is an issue most relevant to the 21st century. This paper presents the view that Open Source Software (OSS) development endeavors incorporate elements of both market economies and free gifts, and thus cannot be categorized as either of the two holistically. Implications for this statement include a review of ethical considerations of treating OSS development as a “free gift” since it violates intellectual property rights.

Literature Review

The Open Source Software (OSS) debate primarily vacillates between perspectives of two opposing schools of thought. The first is based on self-interest and market based school of thought, evident in the works of Iannacci (2002) and Lerner and Tirole (2006). The economic analysis focuses on analyzing OSS in the context of neoclassical economics and the model of private reputation development. As Spence (1974) proposed, individuals who contribute to the development of a project gain financial gains from their participation, signaling market signals such as increased potential income in that area of development. The opposing view is advocated by the social and anthropological school of thought who focuses largely ...