Bob Lorenzini wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:
> BN> COPYRIGHT 1992,93,94,95: The APRS formats are provided to all
> BN> radio amateurs for use in the amateur radio service. Anyone is
> BN> encouraged to apply the APRS formats in the TRANSMISSION of
> BN> position, weather, and status packets. However, the author
> BN> reserves the ownership of these protocols for exclusive
* * *
BL> This makes me very angry even after my first cup of coffee. I
BL> have played with APRS free versions in the past but I had no
BL> idea the copyrite was so restrictive. I just cannot believe
BL> this is legally enforceable. This strikes me as using amateur
BL> freq's for monetary gain with a propriatary mode, in other
BL> words you can't use amateur freqs set aside for APRS unless you
BL> pay me money. I have no problem with someone charging for code
BL> they have written, but this crosses way over the line IMHO.
BL> Trying very hard not to be profane.
Well, I don't think a copyright claim on a protocol is legally enforceable, but
someone is either going to have to sue Bob or be sued by him to find out.
There's nothing wrong with making money from ham radio: Icom and Kenwood do it
all the time. I also don't have a problem with licensing genuine intellectual
property on different terms for commercial and amateur use. However, people
seem to have an intuitive sense that software and hardware are different, and
the same people who would think it foolish for Icom and Kenwood to give away
their radios have no problem criticizing as unfair vendors who sell software.
My issues here are motivated somewhat less by outrage than practical concern.
First, I don't think you can copyright a protocol per se any more than you can
collect rent on land you don't own. Although one can patent a protocol, the
standards for getting and then enforcing a patent claim are quite a lot higher
than for a copyright claim, and most protocols probably do not meet the high
burden of novelty and utility demanded. In fact, I can think of fairly few
protocols which have been afforded patent protection, although some, such as
the "three-wire handshake" of IEEE-488, do come to mind. One might even hold
that something like APRS is "obvious" in the terminology of patent law.
However, the fact that you can patent something does not necessarily mean that
it is a good idea to do so. Experience has shown that protocols are primarily
valuable because they are adopted by consensus, and that open protocols are far
more likely to achieve consensus than proprietary ones, even where the
proprietary ones were technically superior. Recent history is littered with
endless examples of this phenomon, such as the IBM Microchannel Architecture or
Sony Betamax. On the contrary, the protocols which have succeeded in the free
marketplace are those which are in the public domain, such as TCP/IP.
Furthermore, where major new industries have been developed from scratch, it
has often been necessary for some sort of consortium to be created for the
explicit purpose of cross-administering the various intellectual property
claims. In the case of the invention of radio, lawsuits became the main focus
of research activity and threatened to destroy the whole industry until the
U.S. Navy forced the creation of the Radio Corporation of America. The Navy,
as a matter of national security, wanted working radios rather than lawsuits.
The lesson of history is that open protocols always win unless there is some
overwhelming perturbation of the market, such as a monopoly player. In
addition, the consensus builds more quickly around an open protocol, so that
significant proprietary protocols only slow the development of this eventual
consensus. Often, as with the 56 kbps modem protocol war between U.S.
Robotics' "X2" and Rockwell's "K56flex," everybody loses because the market
reaction was to stop buying modems until the consensus was chosen, creating an
enormous incentive for both parties to settle quickly on V.90.
And now you've had today's economics lesson. :)
-- Mike
