Support for open source software is based on several misconceptions

5. Open Source would diminish capability

A regime that forced software developers to disclose their valuable source code would selectively harm the best developers and favour commodity firms and outsourcers, since the commodity firms and outsourcers would be able to use the better work of the good developers, without having to pay for their salaries. Eventually, good developers would go out of business, leaving just the commodity firms, who lack the capability to develop good software themselves.

6. It's inconsistent with concern for workers

Traditionally it has been a precept of open source software that programmers contribute to it for free. Economists have never been able to work out why programmers would do this. The answer is that the best programmers generally didn't; most open source programmers are naive young students and others looking for jobs. In economic terms, the creation of Linux was a transfer of wealth from the programmers who created it to the corporations who use it without payment.

In other arenas where employers, government or business attempts to exploit workers, especially naive young people, socially committed people such as the ALP and Democrats generally condemn the employers.

7. Yes, use public data formats

Long-term access to data is an important benefit cited by open source advocates. However open source is irrelevant for this. To use public data formats, government just needs to define the formats and provide facilities for developers to verify their software. If the format is known, government can access its own data any time it likes by having developers write what it needs. This has nothing to do with open source. This is another example of the way parliamentarians and many open source advocates do not understand the software industries.

8. "Many Eyes" means nothing if they're no good

One of the mythologies of open source is that the availability of the source code produces better software, allegedly because many more people can inspect the code. However the fact that source code is open to inspection really means nothing in itself. Designing and fixing software, especially non-trivial applications, requires skilled software engineers with the time to properly analyse the whole design.

Most open source products are amateur projects, with high bug counts, clumsy operation and installation, excessive dependencies and unfinished functionality. Netscape's Mozilla browser project was open sourced, and became one of the biggest disasters in software history, running years behind schedule and leaving Netscape without any competing product just when Microsoft caught up with its Internet Explorer browser.

Promotion of open source as a development methodology usually hinges on a few flagship products, typically Linux and Apache. However a true assessment should compare the quality of the many thousands of other open source products against the tens of thousands of commercial applications.

Also, it's worth bearing in mind that the popular notion in open source that users can make their own fixes arises because open source projects are works in progress rather than finished software.

9. Being able to verify operation of the software is a red herring

Availability of source code also lets government verify the operation of software, according to advocates. However I consider this a red herring, because government routinely extends similar levels of trust to other parties. It trusts Telstra not to intercept phone calls, couriers not to photocopy confidential documents, and accounting, law and PR firms not to divulge confidential information.

10. Protection of source code is the only feasible way to protect copyright in software

Copied movies, books and articles can't be provided in public without their origin being obvious, thus preventing blatant pirating. With software though, once the source code is made available, freeloaders can take that source code and build similar programs without doing all the development work. The source code used to build a product is not visible in the final product, so freeloaders can claim it to be their own work.

Even if expensive legal action is initiated to examine the source code of the new product, and even if that source code was indeed copied from that of the original product, and would not otherwise have been created, it is still not certain that the copying will be provable. The copied source code, while mimicking the important concepts and architectures in the original, might have different names and layout. It is for these reasons that software developers retain their important blue prints, or source code, as a way of protecting their copyright and thus being able to carry on a business.

Summary

Open source does not really provide protections for the best software developers, and thus it destroys valuable business opportunities for Australia. The debate generally fails to acknowledge important distinctions, particularly the difference between deciding to using public software and then mandating open source as a development methodology for all software. Finally, parliamentarians must be much more careful in analysing competing interests in the technology industries.