Tetris Box – No mention of Pejitnov here!

Let us assume that Pajitnov had lived in the United States in 1985 and had submitted his game to a commercial software publisher, such as the Nintendo Corporation. Would Tetris have had the impact it had if this had been the case? I very seriously doubt it, because, Nintendo would have undoubtedly been better able to leverage its “intellectual property rights” to generate more profit for itself at the expense of having the game reaching less players. It is likely that they __ would have taken a fist-of-iron approach to the hundreds of clone makers. Furthermore, the game would only be available for Nintendo’s own platforms (or licensed at exorbitant prices for computer software makers). Finally, if this had been the case, Pajitnov would not now have the rights to his game; those would have been assigned to Nintendo forever at the outset.

It’s really anybody’s guess whether Tetris would be as popular as it is today if Nintendo had been granted monopoly rights to its distribution. Several other NES originals, such as Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda, remain popular today, and Nintendo has made them available for its newer platforms. Still, it’s undeniable that even these games would be more accessible if Nintendo had released them into the public domain or under a public license. Of course, doing so would cost Nintendo some valuable “intellectual property”, but, then again, is that really a concern for the teams that created these games? I doubt most people in the street would be able to name a single person who assisted in their development—and what happens if Nintendo goes bankrupt (and its assets get tied up in a legal morass for decades) or decides not to release these titles on future hardware? Developers with heroic aspirations have to keep these possibilities in mind.

The risks of writing proprietary software are many, and the sole benefit—quick cash—seems to pale in comparison to the many, longer-lasting benefits of writing free software

The situation is even more grim for developers for computer applications. Sure, Microsoft’s Windows enjoys greater market share than GNU/Linux or other competitors. Nevertheless, even Bill Gates seems surprised at times that his corporation has achieved such great success and has held it for so long. Meanwhile, the United States government and plenty of foreign governments have taken Microsoft to court for monopolistic practices, and while Microsoft has endured, these attacks are unlikely to cease or grow less threatening. A developer who chooses to work strictly with Microsoft’s own development software and proprietary tools must consider whether her projects—especially those “paradigm shifting” mentioned earlier—are really worth risking on a closed platform. Indeed, at this stage of the game, a true “killer app” for GNU/Linux would seem more likely to vault a programmer into the annals of history than a comparable application for Windows, where it would likely get lost in the sea of competing commercial applications. It is certainly true that an application, which threatened to significantly alter the way we use computers would seem a dangerous threat to an established corporation whose future depends on maintaining the status quo. Consider briefly how the proprietary software industry has responded to developments like peer-to-peer networking. Where did the majority of “killer apps” for the internet come from? Today, we know Tim Berners-Lee as the “inventor of the World Wide Web”, but we scratch our heads when someone asks us who developed Apple’s HyperCard, a stunningly original application that in many important ways was a progenitor of hypertext.

Bill Atkins must have anticipated this sad fate for his groundbreaking program when he insisted that Apple would release his program for free on all Macs. Apple chose to ignore this agreement when it released the next version of his program. What if Atkins had released HyperCard under a general public license? Or perhaps placed it into the public domain? Tim Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2004. Who’s Bill Atkins, again?

Concluding thoughts

The risks of writing proprietary software are many, and the sole benefit—quick cash—seems to pale in comparison to the many, longer-lasting benefits of writing free software. A truly wonderful program released under a free software license is much more likely to earn a developer prestige, reputation, influence, and fame than a comparable proprietary program. Besides these personal benefits, there are also societal benefits that are impossible to ignore by men and women of integrity. A developer intent on really making a difference ought to consider whether history shows that tyranny is superior to freedom; if feudalism is better than democracy. Surely, the history of the United States offers evidence that it is only when people are allowed to be free that they are also allowed to truly prosper. The same is visibly true of software. Freedom sells, and the future is buying.

Bibliography

Lessig, Larry. The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. New York: Vintage Books, 2002.

Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. Cambridge: O’Reilly, 2001.

Stallman, Richard. “The GNU Manifesto.” Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. Ed. Joshua Gay. Boston: GNU Press, 2002. 31-39.