Jason is pondering the value of intellectual property rights, postulating that perhaps - just perhaps - IP is good for collaboration. Not collaboration in the "let's work together on this document" sort, but rather in the sense of partnership. He writes:
Do IPRs (intellectual property rights) provide a framework for collaboration? Does it in fact act as a catalyst for collaboration rather than an inhibitor? I am not thinking about collaboration in the free software, or open source context necessarily. I am being broader than that. In any situation where two firms, individuals etc. come together to collaborate, it is critical that there is a trust framework in place. That trust may be built upon the rule of law as much as on the personal relationship.
In open source, the very fact that there is strong copyright protections in place acts as the foundation for why those licensing models work. In VC funding of startups, what protections are in place (e.g. patents) may play a big role in the funding, but the far more important value is in what alliances you have, or in the customers who are paying you - both things greatly supported by the ownership of property that makes your firm or solutions valuable.
I've talked with Jason about this before, and believe he is being genuine in asking this. The odd thing, however, is that the only people I hear talking about this are those with a massive treasure trove of IP rights. You would never hear Startup X talking about how their IP sets a platform of "trust" upon which to work with other companies.
Microsoft has lots of copyrights/patents/etc. So do IBM, Oracle, SAP, etc. These intellectual property rights have very little to do with how valuable and interesting these companies are. Customers are the only thing that really matter. And I don't even buy (pun intended) that these companies wouldn't buy from Microsoft/etc. but for their IP. Customers don't buy IP. They buy solutions to their business problems.
It may be that copyrights and such are necessary for keeping competitors out just long enough for a vendor to establish a lasting relationship with a customer. I can accept that. But the moment in time required to establish that connection is dramatically less than intellectual property law affords. IPRs, to use Jason's parlance, could be shortened to fewer than five years and Microsoft could still make a grundle of money, even after its competitors started to take those rights and use them as their own.
Or, better yet, Microsoft could open source those IPRs under the GPL, which would make it difficult for a competitor to fully profit from them. Others with more benign interest in the IPRs would not have the same repugnance and could use them more freely. Microsoft would not lose, the industry would win, and we'd all be happier.
And probably more trustful, too. I'm not sure that IPRs have anything to do with trust. Probably the opposite, in fact, given that there is no clear way to gauge what IPRs anyone actually has until the lawsuit hits. This is one of the primary problems with Microsoft's
current patent deal with Novell. Steve Ballmer
can threaten that Microsoft's IP is all over Linux, but how would we know?
Transparency is what is needed for trust, Jason. And transparency does not come through IPRs, which are mostly designed to inhibit transparency. Sharing what one has with one partner leaves all other prospective partners in the dark. (And, as in the case of your patent deal with Novell, there was apparently very little information actually shared, since you
sharply disagree with each other as to the value of the patents in question.) Transparency comes through opening things up. Not closing them off.
