Microsoft and Novell – Exacerbating an Ideological Divide?

It’s been over a week now and it’s interesting to meter the reaction to the Microsoft and Novell deal. Popular, mainstream reaction has been generally positive–this could create a win/win for the companies, and consumers will benefit form the partnership. But for those more steeped in the open source community, there have been charged responses that indicate a chasm. Some see the agreement as legitimizing open source, at least in the eyes of the broader (Windows-dominated) marketplace. Others view this as a deal with the devil that will ultimately hurt open source and the GPL. The recent Samba team response is clear: the GPL is a zero-sum game–you exploit open source software for your gain to the detriment of others (ie. the "community"). Under Samba’s view, the Microsoft & Novell deal doesn’t enlarge the pie, but only unfairly redistributes it.

Is this the same sort of broad ideological split that separates money-making capitalists from share and share-alike Marxist communists? Or is the split more indicative of a narrow divide about what is better for software innovation, closed (or patented) or open software? Or even narrower still, are we only talking about whether the Microsoft/Novell arrangement violates the specifics of the GPL? I don’t really know–and perhaps a complete response incorporates answers to all three questions.

Tim points to the threat of a split in his post last week. He states:

Microsoft is laying the groundwork for splitting the open source community in two. On the one hand, you’ll have a handful of "open source" companies that sell products like Linux under the umbrella of cross-licensing agreements with Microsoft and other big patent holders. On the other hand, you’d have the rest of the open source community. This would give Microsoft cover to sue medium-sized open source firms and say "all we’re asking is for company X to go legit like Novell." Once they’ve collected a few scalps, they might be able to scare the business community away from buying open source software from vendors that haven’t joined the protection racket.

As I said in my post on this, I welcome these patent agreements. The Microsoft/Novell covenant not to sue is an example of market participants contracting around or within the patent and copyright legal system to reduce the transaction costs of negotiating, monitoring and enforcing licenses. Far from creating a legal cloud, unilateral or bilateral IP agreements work to create a workable opening for innovative developments in an already existing cloud of assertible (if not all enforceable) IP rights.

But I can’t agree with Tim on the following, when he describes the MS / Novell agreement:

The really scary thing about this, from a libertarian point of view, is that this could be an entering wedge for wider government regulation of the software industry. Right now, regulating the software industry is difficult because there’s no clear line between professional programmers and hobbyists. You can’t impose burdensome regulations on some guy who’s writing code in his basement on the weekends. But once there’s a clear line between "legit" software companies (those that have paid protection money) and grey-market volunteer efforts, it would become feasible to impose new regulatory requirements on the former.

Yikes, stop giving regulators crazy ideas, Tim! Seriously though, I don’t see how the MS/Novell agreement creates an environment that will invite government regulation beyond the already applicable antitrust and FTC consumer protection laws.

Instead, here’s what I think libertarians should really care about–a divide between the free market community.

Tim refers to the open source community as the "good guys." Impliedly, then, proprietary software creators and distributors are the bad guys. This "us versus them" conflict is part of a larger societal trend du jour against corporations specifically and the concentration of private wealth generally. As communitarians, open source and GPL promoters are the beneficiaries of such a movement – and open source’s most prominent leader actively promotes such anti-capitalist ideology.

Libertarians (often respectfully) disagree about the appropriate policies for patent and copyright law. But those that influence or make policy and play
favorites between open source and proprietary software will only worsen
the free market divide on IP to the benefit of our ideological opponents. Broadly promoting open source software development and distribution over its proprietary brethren plays too easily into the hands of the anti-capitalist mentality that–like it or not–has a strong following among open source’s most vocal proponents.

Good programmers write good code, regardless of ideology.

SHARE: 54 comments