We debated today!

If you weren't there, then you are not the small group of people who was present. Anyway, that's a terrible sentence. So is that. (Also really this whole paragraph, especially including the paranthetical part.)

Ok. So first debate was about Google pulling out of China, and was pretty standard stuff. Basically if you do that, don't define net benefits solely to Google which is a publicly traded corporation with a legally required profit incentive. However, something that came up is open source. Namely, I think it might be good to dwell a little bit on how Intellectual Property may well be damaging to the human condition.

Now open source generally refers to the practice of making source code for programs available so that anyone can modify them, but in terms of the human condition it brings up a vague concept called "the right to fork." It sounds kind of dirty, but basically it goes like this:

Microsoft word is in development. Along the way, an issue comes up. Should it be programmed to maximize compatibility or focus on a proprietary file format that allows for more rich text type features? Whoever owns the intellectual property, in this case Microsoft, will decide which way development takes. Either way, the end state will develop in only one way. There is an opportunity cost associated with this management choice, and due to intellectual property there will only be one version.

However, if the "right to fork" was present, no one would own the program, and both developers could take it in their own way. For an example of this concept in action, we can look at say Linux. There's Red Hat (if that's still around), Ubuntu, Lindows, whatever. Everyone is free to take it their own way, which encourages a high amount of creativity.

This isn't to say that this approach is to be lauded over all others or something, but its another take on the concept of intellectual property. It's what I thought about during the google debate when the concept of "open source" came up, because as far as I know Google's stuff is all propitiatory. Apparently Android isn't, but it's not like you'll find out how their ads work.

Onto space!