intertwingly

There are all sorts of interesting responses to Ken's inner thoughts on openness. My point of view seems to be closest to Sterling's. In fact, my thoughts on the subject are very much related to, and again quite distinct from, Ken's thoughts on rights. And indirectly related to what lead to my parody of the Creative Commons licenses.

Since code costs essentially zero to distribute, my first thoughts are not on what rights I want to assert, but what obligations I wish to assume. If you look at software licenses, both commercial and open, this is something that they are careful to enumerate. In most cases, it essentially comes down to: "if it breaks, you get to keep both halves". This is harder to get away with if you are a commercial vendor, but most try anyway.

If I choose to keep source to myself and I know and accept that others are depending on it, I feel that I have an implicit obligation - even if I received no recompense for their depending on me.

If somebody copies something that I have done, then generally I am quite flattered. If they chose to give me attribution, I am OK with that as long the recipient takes responsibility for making the copy.

If somebody makes a change to code that I wrote, my first thoughts aren't "what right does he/she have!", but instead, "tag, you're it!".