In the early days of the PC, the ideal of the Information Society was frequently portrayed as an electronic version of the omniscient butler Jeeves in PG Wodehouse’s famous parodies of English privilege.

Unfortunately, in the real world that has unfolded, the e-Jeeves pretenders are little more than gadgets of convenience that usually require a steep learning curve for the non-technical user. Today’s vision of the Information Society is instead based upon a set of transactional services that automate the process of exchange of value in a society. So banks become fully automated, government services become e-governance, and medical and prescription practices become managed on a large scale by information processing tools.

A primary goal of the Information Society is to build a more intelligent knowledge community that can utilize its human and natural resources optimally and fairly. Gadgets, by comparison, are simple “eye-candy” of the Information Age.

The use of hardware and software is essential for building the Information Society. This means affordable hardware and software for users together with high performance enterprise technologies for services and infrastructure. Proprietary software vendors, including Microsoft, have claimed that their efforts have in fact produced affordable computing for the masses. They have enabled the commoditization of consumer oriented software as well as hardware products. While this may have been true in the initial era of the PC, proprietary software is no longer the driver of further commoditization. Quite the opposite. Except for the monitor, proprietary software forms the single largest cost of the standard PC today.

The apparent battle between Open Source and proprietary software for supremacy in the Information Society is a reflection of the eternal tension between public and private interests. What then is the optimal balance of this tension in the Knowledge Society?

Pragmatically, the optimal balance varies according to the state of development of the economy striving to achieve an Information Society. In advanced economies with substantial knowledge-based infrastructure and discretionary wealth, there is a tolerance for and even encouragement of private interests in the form of costly commercial software. In developing economies, there is every incentive to pirate the software and tools used by the more advanced economies. While appearing to save money, pirated tools do not encourage developing economies to build the skills needed to generate the framework of an Information Age for themselves. Software piracy forms a vicious circle of dependency which leads to an inability to metamorphose the economy into a Knowledge Society.

Even in the global economy, only Open Source software is continuing the pressure of commoditization. In contrast, proprietary software has established a threshold of cost that serves to inhibit the spread of tools needed to cultivate the Information Society in the least advantaged segments of both developed or developing economies.

Nonetheless, given sufficient wealth, proprietary software today can provide demonstrable benefits. But the misuse of proprietary software can wreak havoc upon even the wealthiest of its beneficiaries. Worse still, it can utterly destroy the ability of a developing economy to advance! Such abuse is demonstrated in the frivolous litigation encouraged by software patents and copyright claims and by arbitrary and usurious licensing.

Proprietary interests claim that the failure to protect Intellectual Property is a negative incentive to the creation of valuable products and technology. For some this is undoubtedly true. For others, valuable products may be created incidentally as by-products of larger projects like medical research or space exploration. For still others, protection of public interests provides higher motivation. Despite some polemical rhetoric, a diversity of motivations must find a balance in the healthy workings of society. So the Information Society must be based on checks and balances that prevent the abuse of privilege while encouraging the welfare of all. This is where OSS fits in like an hero born to redress the imbalance of a dissolute age.

OSS helps level the playing field between proprietary solutions and cheaper, collaborative and non-exploitative solutions. It also level sets competing proprietary vendors. Proper checks and balances can accelerate progress toward the Information Age for everyone.

Sun Microsystems and Microsoft announced in April that they have buried the hatchet under a stack of $1.95 billion crisp dollar bills payable to Scott McNealy & Co. They’ll be working closely with each other in a 10-year deal on technology and intellectual property. There’s an additional $450 million for long term patent trading and cross-licensing for Sun. But the same stack of gold that buries the hatchet can topple and crush its new owner.

On the Business Battlefield

Sun says its new partnership will help it compete head-to-head with IBM, Novell, and HP in the enterprise and server markets. Competitors beware! Because Sun may now try to “monetize” its arsenal of software intellectual property (IP). Driven by Microsoft, more litigation appears to be on the horizon for all OSS companies. Already Red Hat is girding to defend itself with its own acquisition of software patents plus a bank balance of more than a billion dollars. Smaller vendors like Sleepycat, Covalent, and ActiveState may have to team together to play in this litigation minefield also.

The Sun-Microsoft deal also changes the hardware playing field. For the past couple of years, Sun has been losing Sparc and Solaris customers to AMD and Intel and not quite knowing what to do about it. Now, while betting on the Microsoft ticket, Sun has at the same time trashed its own hardware product future by canceling its next generation UltraSparc processor. Instead of designing its own gear, Sun has new deals with Fujitsu and AMD. One less competitor equals one more customer for the hardware vendors.

But the deal’s changes to the software landscape will make the biggest headlines – Microsoft vs. Open Source. A nightmare prospect is that Sun can now become another SCO fighting Open Source. Sun has warned that it could use its arsenal of software patents for lucrative royalties. The Open Source community may be an open target for Microsoft’s new sock-puppet.

Sun no longer poses a threat to Microsoft. So what about Java, currently being promoted by IBM and Oracle. If Java becomes Java.Net, what happens to open standards and interoperability. Sun’s very own killer app – the Linux based Java Desktop System (JDS) set to compete against Microsoft Windows may be weakened. Sun’s Open Source investments – OpenOffice.org, JXTA.org, SunSource.net, NetBeans.org, Gnome, KDE, Java components and JDS may now all be threatened.

So has Sun swayed over to the proprietary side to see if it can make it? The idea of giving up an obsolete proprietary business model and going for Open Source was apparently less attractive than going with Microsoft.

During the press conference after the agreement, both Microsoft and Sun’s emphasis on intellectual property and patent rights marked the formation of a proprietary software brigade sounding the war cry against Linux and Open Source. Microsoft CEO, Ballmer said “they were united with Sun in their common interest to protecting IP rights and patents in a new era of software development”. This direct shot against Open Source signaled the beginning of the battle of culture - using intellectual property as a weapon against Open Source as a philosophy and business model.

On the Global Stage

The impact of Sun’s truce with Microsoft soon will be felt globally. The European Union’s (EU) penalty of $613 million against Microsoft may be dropped or seriously knobbled since Sun was one of the major companies who had lobbied the EU against Microsoft’s monopolistic practices.

Worldwide opinions have been mixed. Interestingly, many think this alliance has the potential to be catastrophic for Sun. Some, like Red Hat, have rolled a positive spin that the deal makes Linux and Open Source an even-more viable alternative. Linus Torvalds has remarked that it reflects two hurting vendors licking each other’s wounds, rather than a battle cry against Linux and Open Source.

Battle cry or whimper, the sound is not music to the ear of the Open Source community.