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How is Licensing Changing the Open Source Landscape?

By Michelle Amodio, TMCnet Contributor

About 30 experts in the legal aspects of open source technology recently began a discussion about how the precedents that apply to open source software are not as applicable, nor do they help to draw analogies in the nascent fields of open source hardware and open databases.  While some similarities apply, especially in terms of utility and uniformity, there are many differences that are easily dealt with in open source software but pose more difficult problems in the cases of open source hardware and open databases.

It’s true that in all these fields, the increasing ability for technology to be compiled and computed to derive meaning a well as to communicate and share data amongst hobbyists, professionals, and like-minded individuals from all walks of life is definitely contributing to the development and distribution of these open source technologies.  The difference between open source software and open source hardware is that some types of open source are so easy that they have become disruptive innovations, such as 3D printing. 

In other fields where hardware is difficult to manufacture or requires many specialized tools, most developers still go to one of a handful of basic suppliers who have invested in enough equipment to manufacture the hardware, even though it is open source.  When this happens, is it still truly open source? Questions similar to those that patent lawyers traditionally wrestle with become even muddier when permission is granted to all but a select few are the only ones who can fabricate these items that are treated like public domain.

When comparing open source software to open databases, it becomes apparent that there is already many different sets of laws worldwide concerning the use of databases that predates even the Internet, and many of those are contradictory. 

If databases are open to be edited, ethical questions arise whether or not politics or ego might supersede the desire to keep information accurate and freely accessible to all and whether they will be altered to further political causes rather than to keep an accurate record for everyone. 

We see this to some degree with Wikipedia and especially wikidata, but there are other still possibilities to regulate these in a fair manner that still allows for collaboration.