This article compares the battle of software development and licensing ideologies to the cold war. It actually raises some interesting ideas about the future of software development.
The author suggests "Companies may charge for their software, and still provide the source code for inspection." and "In the next five or 10 years, disclosing source code and offering permissive licenses for reuse will be seen as making the best economic sense." Which sounds a lot like the culture in Borland (esp. Delphi) software development. You pay money to get the source code and specific rights to modify and reuse it.
In conclusion the author suggests: "So now would be a good time to start thinking about how we persuade governments that market in software may eventually need to be regulated, just as the market in electricity, water and food is, and that regulation may well include a statutory duty to disclose source code and allow it to be used elsewhere."
Regulation appears to be on the horizon. I personally don't think that is a good thing. How inevitable is this?
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