Open Source Software (OSS) embodies a spectrum of evolutionary forces enabling market creation and change that can reward investment in sometimes surprising ways. Furthermore, Open Source’s model of collaborative technology development can be applied to other information fields such as biological sciences, manufacturing and knowledge creation.

Open Source is not a process, just as it is not a catalog of products, nor a collection of projects. It is not even, as some might wish, a way of life.

It is life!

Perhaps more correctly stated, Open Source ‘has’ life. Open Source embodies a spectrum of evolutionary forces that is resonating through every niche and corner of the modern information world. It has a rich life of its own.

Think breadth and depth — where Open Source spreads out in a formidable spectrum of software and economic activities. Its manifestations evolve through time and this rapid increase in range and complexity in turn enables market creation and change that can reward investment in sometimes surprising ways.

“Open Source is resonating through every niche and corner of the modern information world.”

One key to appreciating the impact of Open Source is in understanding this ever-widening spectrum of activities and conditions. There is a dizzying variety and number of Open Source Software projects. There is an equally dizzying variety of Open Source licenses, which serve to channel how code can be shared. The unfettered number and variety of projects virtually guarantees that Open Source methodology will continue to produce a percentage of well adapted and highly successful software examples. What’s more, the extraordinary variety and range of activity at the meta-layers above the production of code, such as project type and licensing, guarantees that successful economic models also will continue to evolve.

Variety enables specialization which, in turn, promotes success

Consider projects. Open Source projects vary widely in form and type as well as in sophistication, maturity and health. Frequently, they interact in loosely coupled ways with other Open Source projects and activities. This can lead to symbiotic successes like Apache along with PHP.

In other circumstances, where preservation of IPR is important, tighter control of open source projects is possible. The complementary, but complex, mix of Open Source and proprietary strategies has resulted in some killer applications like Berkeley DB, QT and MySQL.

The balance between free and proprietary is constantly mutating, resulting in an ever wider spectrum of experiments utilizing both multiple licensing as well as various aggregation schemes. For example, the original dual license pioneer, SleepyCat Software, whose bold strategy of GPL and commercial licensing served as an early model for tightly coupled free and proprietary IPR, has transformed into an even more complex organism through its recent purchase by Oracle. If not smothered, SleepyCat will continue to widen the available spectrum of Open Source commercial examples. Its refinement of business models may challenge and even change the nature of the proprietary Oracle ecosystem from within.

Open Source licensing is one of the most important areas benefiting from a wide spectrum of choice. Within the legal continuum of ‘public domain,’ ‘attribution’ and ‘reciprocal’ approaches, Open Source licensing meets a variety of business needs. One size clearly does not fit all. Despite the downside of resource fragmentation engendered by different licenses, the benefit of different economic models is made possible by fine-tuning the combinatorics of collaboration. The wide spectrum of choice leads to a healthy ecosystem capable of exploiting niche advantages together with capturing global benefits.

Resonating in the social spectrum

Open Source is as much about the spectrum of social factors enabling collaborative exchanges and experiments, as it is about the technical processes, products and projects themselves. Social factors include humanitarian values in addition to market goals and software development methodologies. Proactive humanitarian values of user inclusion and knowledge sharing encourage collaboration and facilitate choice and flexibility.

The widest spectrum of choice and openness is critical for the continued success of Open Source Software. Choice and openness is important for other fields of knowledge as well. As recognized with increasing frequency, the underlying principles driving the success of Open Source can be used to benefit other information fields such as biological sciences, manufacturing and knowledge creation. Resonating sharing and choice, at wavelengths beyond the spectrum of Open Source Software, can energize all fields of human endeavor.

BitTorrent, one of the Internet’s most popular peer-to-peer file sharing and downloading services, has long been called a pirate’s dream protocol. Today, BitTorrent traffic constitutes about a third of all Internet traffic. Big content distributors are waking up to the potential of this peer-casting model. NTL, a UK cable company just announced a deal with BitTorrent and CacheLogic to develop a fast and inexpensive commercial downloading service for movies and music videos, using BitTorrent’s open source file sharing protocol and CacheLogic’s network based content caching.

“The content distribution industry is in for a re-make.”

In 2002, Bram Cohen, creator of BitTorrent, publicly showcased his efficient and fast P2P protocol as an inexpensive, open source way to swap Linux software online. Since then, BitTorrent file sharing has grown, well, torrentially. BitTorrent downloads are expected to hit 40 million this year. Cohen founded BitTorrent Inc last year with $8.75 million in VC funding from DCM-Doll Capital Management. Ashwin Navin, who co-founded BitTorrent with Bram, wants to distribute paid and ad-supported content using BitTorrent technology. Cohen’s motto of, “Give and ye shall receive,” has become the motto of BitTorrent — the more popular the file is, the faster it downloads.

Content on demand. The next killer application?

NTL’s strategy is to use BitTorrent to promote legal, inexpensive downloading of video content, while discouraging the huge amount of illegal file-sharing on the Internet. NTL will sponsor a technology trial beginning in April 2006 with the mission to test a high speed, legal movie and music video download service in the UK. The next steps for BitTorrent include alliances and deals with content producers, similar to Apple’s iTunes model and making high quality content legally and easily downloadable to consumers across the world. BitTorrent also wants to grow a consumer-friendly P2P based ecosystem for artists and ISPs to interact in. If NTL’s technology trial is successful, it will set a precedent for viable legal content distribution services on the Internet as well as for on-demand, pay as you go content distribution models.

Redefining the content distribution industry

Most movie and music video content producers have been unsuccessful in figuring out how to sell their content online. Online distribution schemes such as Napster have faced the wrath of organizations like Hollywood’s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and RIAA who have lobbied for anti- consumer and protectionist legislation — further stimulating illegal download and piracy. The MPAA could also sue BitTorrent, just like RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) did Napster, but that’s unlikely for now since BitTorrent, Inc has signed up with the MPAA to remove copyrighted material from its search engine. From a MPAA standpoint, technologies such as BitTorrent could provide the right infrastructure for downloading movies by incorporating stronger built-in Digital Rights Management (DRM). In the meantime, the deal with BitTorrent also makes it easier for MPAA to serve DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices to the search engine.

Speaking at a Los Angeles conference in November, Cohen talked about content producers from the movie and recording companies having little understanding that the content distribution industry is in for a re-make. Citing lower costs for Internet access and bandwidth and constant commoditization of hardware such as computer hard disks, Cohen predicted this transformation would drive consumers to store every song and every movie on their personal computer’s hard disk.

The right to freedom of choice

The US market is one of the most protectionist when it comes to music and movie content distribution. Europe and Asia tend to take consumer freedom and free market dynamics more into account. As users from the rest of the world come online, US record and movie producers and distributors face fundamental challenges to their global model of content distribution. Technologies such as BitTorrent, which have been the darlings of online pirates, when used as part of legitimate online distribution services, can help level the playing field by providing legal content accessible to all. Tools such as BitTorrent reinforce the concept that technology is neutral, and when used wisely, can benefit everyone.