As a software developer who has utilized, created and contributed to open source software projects I tend to have mixed feelings when it comes to the issue of intellectual property rights and software. Knowledge and skill are far scarcer commodities than other more tangible forms of property, and so in my opinion when knowledgeable and skilled individuals create a useful piece of software they should have the freedom to sell the works of their mind at whatever price they see fit. Software by its very nature is non-rivalrous and non-excludable; without artificial systems of control the consumption of the software by one individual does not reduce the amount of the software available for consumption by others; and no one can be effectively excluded from using that software. In current computing age this presents challenges to a software publisher who is trying to exercise their freedom to sell their digital works, and so we often see intellectual property rights utilized to protect this freedom.

The creation of a new piece of software is a pure public good; the cost of generating new software is independent of how many people eventually utilize it. People have the freedom to create new software as an act of self-expression or to fulfill a desire to contribute back to development community, and I tend to see this as the motivating force behind many open source software projects. While they may not expect or receive monetary forms of compensation they may gain the respect of their peers or take pride in making the lives of other developers easier. However most participants in the business of software creation expect compensation, as they will not produce new software products unless the amount of compensation is sufficient to justify spending time/resources. While the results of our work may indeed be non-rivalrous and non-excludable, the world we live in is not and so some sort of solution to the free-rider problem needs to be found if one wants to have the freedom to sell software.

Intellectual property rights can provide a solution to the trade-off between fostering incentives to create new software and diffusing its benefits throughout society. Intellectual property both grants and, simultaneously, limits the rights of the publishers of new software in order to articulate how this trade-off will be made. At its heart, the system of intellectual property rights relies upon financial incentives to induce the rights holder to allow dissemination of the information, usually through some sort of a financial arrangement. I tend to be an advocate of intellectual property rights, but find the copyright system more compatible as a means of ensuring the freedom of software developers as opposed to software patents, which I believe stifles the proliferation of software innovation instead of adding to consumer choices as intellectual property rights via copyright encourages. Private solutions to public goods problems are usually the most efficient solution. I still believe there needs to major reforms in the existing copyright system; software publishers should have the right to gain compensation for the software they create but there needs to be some sort of reasonable time limit on these rights so as to not stifle derivative works.

I am a believer in a supply and demand/free market economy and see a heterogeneous landscape of proprietary, open source, shared source, and free software as providing the most choices to consumers. I choose to put my faith in the consumer, and believe they will choose the software that best serves their needs. Too often the conversation around intellectual property as applied to software is tied to moral/ethical ideals. In many ways the idea that there can be a philosophy of software makes as much sense to me as creating a philosophy around the best way to go about manufacturing and distributing wrenches. This is the seductive trap of software development, where we forget that software is just a tool and instead it becomes a statement of our ethical, political, and societal views.