[UFO Chicago] Intellectual property

[Ian Bicking]

On Wed, 2002-03-20 at 10:27, Neil R. Ormos wrote:
> Of course, that assumes that there's an "exchange" of two
> ideas, as opposed to the usual case in which you have an
> idea and I steal the idea without giving you something in
> return.  You still have your idea, but if you didn't give it
> to me voluntarily, I've been unjustly enriched.

I think it's confusing to say "unjustly enriched" because I think unjust
things relate to deprivation, not enrichment.  In the isolated context
of the quote -- and in most situations in life -- there is no
significant deprivation involved in exchanging ideas.

However, there are zero-sum situations (or an approximation thereof)
where one person's enrichment is naturally another's deprivation.  For
instance, in reputation -- your reputation is not based simply on what
you've done, but on what you've done relative to a standard.  By
enriching others, you've in some ways raised the standard.  Raising the
standard warrants reputation advancement itself, but only if you get
credit.

In a capitalist system there are lots of very zero-sum sorts of
markets.  You're probably involved in one -- there's a lot of business,
but all the players are big so you will each suffer very directly by
another's success.  In much of my work as an independent consultant I am
not in a zero-sum situation -- yes, I compete with other people, but not
that directly and the information I give away is lost in the overall
noise of the system.

But I must admit, I feel my moral conviction being compromised when I am
not in such a situation... right now I'm making a product for a very
niche market.  I could give away the ideas, but a lot of the ideas only
relate to competing directly with me.  I try to partition it up, so I
can give away some general ideas with wide application, and not specific
ideas with very specific application.  But it's a compromise.

The GPL is also based on this -- it can't make someone give away all
their ideas, but it can create an environment where that is required. 
This creates something of a level playing field.  However, it doesn't
work for ASPs (version 3 maybe?) so I'm still stuck.

  Ian