Open-source programs will open up knowledge

Intellectual property is now available in a generic brand.

In the last couple weeks Wikipedia.org, the highly frequented,
free online encyclopedia, has been running a major donation
campaign to facilitate expansion. According to founder Jimmy Wales,
a major part of Wikipedia’s eventual goal is to expand its
services beyond the World Wide Web, to countries and people who
still don’t have access to the Internet.

In a “personal appeal” to potential donators, Wales
envisions the “child in Africa who is going to use
(Wikipedia’s) free textbooks and reference works … and find
a solution to the crushing poverty that surrounds him.” If
Wikipedia continues to expand its online content, particularly into
media outside of the Internet, it will mark a huge step in
combating what has become a world culture (an American culture,
especially) dominated by copyright laws, which put high prices and
economic restrictions on access to knowledge.

Copyright tradition maintains that in order to encourage the
development of new knowledge, software, literature, music, etc.,
companies should be ensured exclusive rights to selling their
product so they can recuperate the extensive spending required for
research and development.

Organizations like Wikipedia, however, have applied an
alternative “open-source” philosophy to the development
of intellectual content. Literally, the term “open
source” refers to the source code that powers a piece of
software.

An “open-source” program includes its source code
with the actual program, so that end-users can manipulate the code
in order to fix bugs or adapt the program to their needs. In
theory, a simple open-source program distributed for free will grow
as more members manipulate the source code and re-distribute their
changes to the community for further development.

Wikipedia applies the open-source model to the accumulation of
knowledge instead of programming code, allowing a community of
authors to create, develop and manipulate articles into an unbiased
and accurate source of information. Thus, open source becomes open
content.

Proponents of copyright warn that open-source and open-content
endeavors threaten the future of intellectual property and
copyright laws. They contend that open source and open content will
never reach the innovation of highly funded proprietary
projects.

Without the promise of excessive profit ensured by copyrights,
some say content developers will no longer work to develop
innovative media.

In software particularly, some argue that open-source programs
tend to merely clone successful proprietary software, and are
therefore not inherently innovative and serve only to undermine the
copyright by providing a free alternative.

Certain examples prove otherwise. For one, copyrighted software
can just as easily become stagnant, since only the creators of that
software can make any changes. Recently, Mozilla Firefox, an
open-source, not-for-profit Web browser has taken away a
significant percentage of Microsoft Internet Explorer’s
business. Firefox is generally considered more secure and
compatible than Internet Explorer, which has failed to update
significantly after cornering the market in 1999.

The truth is that open-source and open-content operations have
immense potential for both innovation and stability. Just by making
the source code or content free and open to the public, open-source
and open-content projects ensure that everyone is building on each
other’s efforts, instead of competing in secrecy.

Many proprietary software supporters argue that open-source
programs don’t offer the same reliability as polished,
copyrighted software. It’s no mystery that open-content
projects take time to develop because they rely on the community to
create the content.

But as they get popular, or as a particular use for the program
becomes popular, open-source projects improve exponentially faster,
since more people begin to help author the content. The truth is,
the more people who get involved and support open-source projects,
the better they will be, because they are built to effectively
serve a community need, rather than turn a profit.

We live in an age of potentially great equalization. The
Internet has given us all the potential to be writers, historians
and scholars. The success of Wikipedia proves that soon, knowledge
will no longer be a proprietary privilege reserved for those who
can afford it. This equalization effort should not stop at free
information. Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software
Foundation, leads the frontier to make all software free ““
“free as in free speech, not as in free beer.” Stallman
understands software as the power or access to produce ideas
““ to think and interact in a world that increasingly
communicates through software.

No one denies the importance of free speech. But we know it
takes universal literacy, the ability to communicate with a larger
audience, to truly allow the thinker to speak freely. Thus, we
support taxes to fund free public education and literacy.

Universal, free software rights are as important as universal
literacy. The digital world is increasingly becoming an extension
of our personal thoughts, ideas and expressions.

Copyright laws only keep the impoverished from joining this
modern, digital discourse. Wikipedia and the open-source movement
need our support. In the face of a world defined by copyright and
proprietary privilege, they alone are creating the opportunity to
make the global, inalienable rights of tomorrow prevalent
today.

Ready to learn how to program? E-mail Macdonald at
[email protected]. Send general comments to
[email protected].