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My Open Source 'Leech' Is Your Open Source User

By my own tally I count at least two articles in the past week on the subject of "open source freeloading": those who use open source to build new IP but don't give back to the community. Hot subject, and by no means cut-and-dried.

So what's an open source freeloader, or "leech", as some particularly vehement folks put it? By most accounts it's anyone who a) uses open source software to create something new with it and b) doesn't give back their additions to the community. The problem revolves around definitions, of course: what counts as "something new", and what counts as "giving back".

A sample conundrum: Is it giving back if Amazon creates the EC2 infrastructure (a for-pay item, but used by open source apps) with the aid of open source? You could find plenty of people who argue in both directions. I'd be inclined to think it's an indirect form of giving back -- not on the same level as releasing code into the wild, but it's still something.

What also matters is the tone of the discussion, and to castigate people for "not giving back" (when, by their own rights, they have no obligation to do so that isn't actually in the licensing) just puts everyone that much further apart. The software licenses that are worded in such a way as to enforce as high a degree of giving back as possible -- the GPLv3 being the biggest example -- also attract a relatively small pool of developers, because not everyone wants to put what they have out there with those kinds of strings attached. What people want is the option to give back, not an ironclad stipulation.

The way I see it, arguments about "leeches" and "freeloaders" are of the same polarizing stripe as those who adopt Linux specifically to spit in Microsoft's eye (and not because Linux has advantages over Windows they want to reap). It's a point of view that persists amongst those who see open source as part of a larger social strategy of information freedom -- along with copyright and IP reform, open accountability in government and commerce, and so on. None of these things by themselves are bad ideas, and even as a package they're pretty smart -- but when delivered together as an immutable Truth, they turn sour in the mouth.

If the majority of open source users are not "giving back", that's probably because the vast majority of people who use software and computers are not "giving back". They're getting work done. They're only getting involved with open source inasmuch as they need to solve a specific problem that might not be soluble in another fashion.

Open source freeloading is as much a part of the game as software piracy is with closed source. It's something you find a way to live with. The smart ones admit it and move on, and concentrate on making something good enough that freeloading (or piracy) become almost irrelevant. Getting hung up on it as such is a mistake.

InformationWeek Analytics has published an independent analysis of the current state of open source adoption. Download the report here (registration required).

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