Are we Open Source? posted by Martin

This is to clarify—or at least talk about—the idea that we are open source. Are we?

The open source movement started in an effort to develop free software, at a time when commercial software, with proprietary code, was becoming commonplace. The commonly heard refrain is that the software should be free-as-in-speech, not free-as-in-free-beer. That is, the code itself should always be open, even if the software is commercial in nature.

An impressive infrastructure has been grown to promote, grow and release free software. The concept is usually that somebody gets an idea, does some coding and then puts the code into a repository where others can download it and work on it, if they’re interested. Those other coders can submit their code back to the originators, and if the originators like the work done by the submitters, they’ll commit it to the code base.

I’ve often thought that writers could learn a lot about organization from software developers—especially using version control, but that said, we’re not really open source. We’re not writing a screenplay for you to work on and contribute scenes to, which will get added if we like them.

Most free software is released under a number of licenses (GNU, Berkely, etc) with the intention that the creators are retaining the copyright to the works, but that you are free to take that work and modify it for your needs, or to modify it and submit it back to the community.

So, how are we different?

We’re releasing our work into the Public Domain. That means that NOBODY owns it. At all. Zip. You don’t even have to credit us if you take it and use it.

Why? Why do this instead of license it open source, with a more restrictive license? Simple: screenplays are potentially worth a lot of money. If we just went with an open source model, you wouldn’t get the benefit of “using” (i.e. selling) the screenplay if it was really fantastic. This is unlike a coder who adds to an open source project, and gets to use the software she helped write. Unless we had an infrastructure in place of filmmakers ready to produce open-source projects, the incentive for the contributer is low. Besides, would you ever shake the feeling that you’re just helping these two guys on a website with a funny name? Wouldn’t you be suspicious that your good work might be the thing that made the deal for these two guys? Heck, what if it was the bit that really made the screenplay amazing. And then we sold it. And you got nothing.

Instead, we’re stripping away the financial incentive for us, and for you, but making the work public domain. This means it belongs to everybody (at least in the U.S., I’m not sure about other countries—and actually, here’s a disclaimer that I’m not a lawyer, etc, etc), so essentially nobody can sell it. Or, everybody can sell it. Maybe you can sell it. You can take the final work that you hated, and insert your bits of magic and then sell that. You can re-incorporate our dialogue or plot points into your work, just like artists and painters have done for the thousands of years, without worrying about us suing you.

In a best case scenario, we have people who are interested and writing, uploading bits and pieces to add to a screenplay that we started, but that everybody refines and owns. We’ll control our version of the “trunk” (as the main software development line is called), and you can control any “branch” you want. We sincerely hope that you’ll be interested in the community aspect, and hang out on our forums to talk about these things.

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