Open source is software in which the code is open and available to see and use, in order that others participate, contribute, fix or build off of the project.  Most open source software is also free software, and is distributed through different licenses, the most common being the GPL.  These licenses operate on a different model than traditional copyright, as they opperate on an inheriant right to distribute, as opposed to copyright's default right to exclude.

(Anyone have a good open source quote from the readings?  I can't think of any from this set, but I do have some from other readings.  -Ian)

(posted by elliot)>

Week Nine | October 30 reading

James Boyles The Second Enclosure Movment and the Construction of the Public Domain

Larry Lessig’s definition of a commons cited by Boyle on page 31

'Open source, or free software, is a commons: the source code of Linux, for example, lies available for anyone to take, to use, to improve, to advance. No permission is necessary; no

authorization may be required. These are commons because they are within the reach

of members of the relevant community without the permission of anyone else. They

are resources that are protected by a liability rule rather than a property rule. Profes-

sor Reichman, for example, has suggested that some innovation be protected by a

liability rule rather than a property rule. The point is not that no control is present;

but rather that the kind of control is different from the control we grant to property.'

~Lessig