Open source means surrendering your monopoly over commercial exploitation (2021)
Open source means surrendering your monopoly over commercial exploitation

  
    Participation in open source requires you to surrender your monopoly over
commercial exploitation. This is a profound point about free and open source
software which seems to be causing a lot of companies to struggle with their
understanding of the philosophy of FOSS, and it’s worth addressing on its own.
It has been apparent for some years now that FOSS is eating the software world,
and corporations are trying to figure out their relationship with it. One fact
that you will have to confront in this position is that you cannot monopolize
the commercial potential of free and open source software.
The term “open source” is broadly accepted as being defined by the Open Source
Definition, and its very first requirement is the following:

[The distribution terms of open-source software] shall not restrict any party
from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate
software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The
license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

That covers the “OSS” in “FOSS”. The “F” refers to “free software”, and is
covered by this Free Software Foundation resource:

[A program is free software if the program’s users have] the freedom to run
the program as they wish, for any purpose, [… and to …] redistribute
copies.

It further clarifies the commercial aspect of this freedom explicitly:

“Free software” does not mean “noncommercial”. A free program must be
available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial
distribution. […] Regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the
freedom to copy and change the software, [and] to sell copies.

This is an essential, non-negotiable requirement of free and open-source
software, and a reality you must face if you want to reap the benefits of the
FOSS ecosystem. Anyone can monetize your code. That includes you, and me, all
of your contributors, your competitors, Amazon and Google, and everyone else.
This is a rejection of how intellectual property typically works —
copyright laws exist for the express purpose of creating an artificial monopoly
for your business, and FOSS licenses exist for the express purpose of breaking
it. If you’re new to FOSS, it is going to be totally alien to your understanding
of IP ownership.
It’s quite common for people other than you to make money from your free and
open source software works. Some will incorporate them into their own products
to sell, some will develop an expertise with it and sell their skills as a
consultant, some will re-package it in an easy-to-use fashion and charge people
for the service. Others might come up with even more creative ways to monetize
the software, like writing books about it. It will create wealth for everyone,
not just the original authors. And if you want it to create wealth for you,
you are responsible for figuring out how. Building a business requires more work
than just writing the software.
This makes sense in terms of karmic justice, as it were. One of the most
important advantages of making your software FOSS is that the global community
can contribute improvements back to it. The software becomes more than your
organization can make it alone, both through direct contributions to your code,
and through the community which blossoms around it. If the sum of its value is
no longer entirely accountable to your organization, is it not fair that the
commercial exploitation of that value shouldn’t be entirely captured by your
organization, either? This is the deal that you make when you choose FOSS.
There are ways that you can influence how others use your FOSS software, mainly
having to do with making sure that everyone else keeps this same promise. You
cannot stop someone from making money from your software, but you can obligate
them to share their improvements with everyone else, which you can incorporate
back into the original product to make it more compelling for everyone. The GPL
family of licenses is designed for this purpose.1
Furthermore, if your business is a consumer of free and open source software,
rather than a producer, you need to be aware that you may be subject to those
obligations. It’s not a free lunch: you may be required to return your
improvements to the community. FOSS licenses are important, and you should make
it your business to understand them, both as a user, contributor, and author of
free and open source software.
FOSS is eating the world, and it’s a very attractive choice for businesses for a
good reason. This is the reason. It increases wealth for everyone. Capitalism
concerns itself with making monopolies — FOSS instead concerns itself with
the socialized creation of software wealth.


  
