From closed to open, and beyond
From closed to open, and beyond
Openness exists on a spectrum.
Software developers have a clear distinction between ‘open source’ and ‘closed source’ software.
Open = source code is available and altering it is allowed.
Closed = source code is unavailable and can’t be altered.
Distinguishing closed from open
Imagine yourself buying a beautiful compass, so you may traverse the world with greater ease.
If you are sold just a compass, you have received a closed source product. It works, but it is sealed shut and you do not know what goes on inside.
All you’ve got is this compass-gadget that will eventually break. And when it breaks, you’ve got two options:
1. Find the compass-maker and hope they’ll agree to fix it or give you a new one.
2. Make peace with no longer having a functional compass.
When the compass-maker is nowhere to be found, or a mutually fair trade could not be established, you’re left with the 2nd choice.
If the compass was merely used as a toy, you’ll get by fine. But if the compass was enabling you to do great things, and even more greatness would happen if more of your peers also had a compasses of their own? Well, then a big opportunity is missed by not having access to the product’s source code.
If the compass-maker gives you an unsealed compass and the instructions on how to make one yourself, you have received an open source product.
As it turns out, the compass-maker’s main innovation was making the compass look, feel and function more beautifully.
How to make a compass is already common knowledge. Anyone can make their own compass, for example with the following items:
Sewing needle about 1-2 inches long
Small bar magnet or refrigerator magnet
A small piece of cork (a flat piece from a wine bottle works but make sure it is cork and not plastic)
A shallow bowl
Pliers
With those items plus the linked instructions you can make your own compass. The extent to which you can re-make a compass that looks and functions exactly like the one you’ve bought comes down to how open that compass-product is.
Degrees of Openness
Continuing the compass story:
Example 1: Minimally open
Let’s say the compass-maker – henceforth known as the ‘artisan’ – tells you the following:
“Along with this fully functional compass, I have included the instructions on how to make your own compass. Your self-made compass will function according to the same exact fundamental principles as the compass I’ve sold you.
However! you do not get the instructions on how to make a compass that looks, feels and functions quite as well as the compass being sold.”
The artisan does this – as a perfectly rational actor – so that they won’t be without a job. The artisan spent a great deal of time learning and figuring out how to make the compass look, feel and function more beautifully. If they give away all the secrets of their craft without delay, these beautiful compasses will be so easy to re-make by anyone that there would quickly be no demand for the artisan’s wares.
Besides, the compass can still be opened up and taken apart to learn how exactly it works, i.e. by reverse engineering it.
Example 2: Very open
A somewhat more open version of this would be that the artisan says:
“Along with this compass I’ll give you the instructions on how to re-make the entire thing, down to the last notch.
However! Do me this courtesy: Only share these instructions peer-to-peer, one individual to another.”
Example 3: Maximally open
A fully open version of this would have the artisan saying:
“Along with this compass I’ll give you the instructions on how to re-make the entire thing, down to the last notch.
No strings attached. Please share this knowledge as widely as possible. You need not worry about me, because (...).”
Some product-makers can fill in the end of that sentence, others can’t. The constraint is usually not ingenuity, but quite simply the reality of current conditions. Not every product can be fully open upon initial sale whilst also sustaining its original invention and continued development.
At what point does a house that you supposedly “own” go from being ‘closed source’ to ‘open source’?
What does open source baking look like?
What does open source schooling look like?
…let that ball roll as far as it’ll go.