Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law
Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law
Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law
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GNU General Public Licence (GPL), code is distributed in amanner that is open and free (not free as in beer but free as inspeech), allowing s<strong>of</strong>tware developers further down the line tomodify and improve upon the initial s<strong>of</strong>tware product. The initialdistributor <strong>of</strong> the code controls its presentation and furtherdissemination through copyright and contract law (contractuals<strong>of</strong>tware license). In general, subsequent users and modifiers arerequired to further distribute the code they received and to makecode <strong>of</strong> any derivative work available to the public. In thisprocess, copyright law is used to create a “copyleft” effect asopposed to a “copyright” effect by mandating that code should beopen and free for all to use in the innovation and development <strong>of</strong>s<strong>of</strong>tware. In doing so, copyright law is used to structure thepractices <strong>of</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware developers into a community <strong>of</strong> effort, whilein a broader sense ensuring diversity and social innovation <strong>of</strong> thedigital environment and, thereby, social existence. In short, frees<strong>of</strong>tware and open code projects have the potential to useintellectual property law (copyright) to enrich and to betterstructure cultural existence. <strong>No</strong>t every developer or all projectsunder these banners will be minded to act in a culturallybenevolent manner—some will do it for the purpose <strong>of</strong> building areputation that can later be exploited for monetary rewards andothers will increasingly use open code to augment already thrivingproprietary business models.33Two difficult issues remain to be considered in relation to theculture theory. Firstly, how does it relate to the first theoryconsidered, which is primarily focused on public welfare in aneconomic sense? There can be little doubt that both theory oneand four are concerned with public welfare, but in different ways.process for technological development and innovation); David McGowan, LegalImplications <strong>of</strong> Open-Source S<strong>of</strong>tware, 2001 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1, (2001); Stephen M.McJohn, The Paradoxes <strong>of</strong> Free S<strong>of</strong>tware, 9 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 25 (2000) (concludingthat open source s<strong>of</strong>tware may have a greater effect on the law <strong>of</strong> developingtechnologies than the law will have on s<strong>of</strong>tware practices); David Bollier, The Power <strong>of</strong>Openness: Why Citizens, Education, Government and Business Should Care About theComing Revolution in Open Source Code S<strong>of</strong>tware, available athttp://eon.law.harvard.edu/opencode/h2o/#intro (last visited Oct. 27, 2001) (illustratingthe broad effect <strong>of</strong> changes in open code s<strong>of</strong>tware); www.gnu.org; www.opensource.org(last visited Oct. 27, 2001).33. See generally Eric S. Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, available athttp://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/index.html(last visited Oct. 27, 2001) (discussing the evolution <strong>of</strong> Linux in the commercial world).
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