Technology licensing lawyer Heather Meeker argues that software copyright is losing its commercial value and that open source businesses will compete on brand and product rather than IP enforcement, using the commercial open source company Puter as her example. She writes that Puter released 50 applications, including replacements for the Microsoft Office suite and an AI app builder, all under the MIT license, shortly after a company called ArtCraft released reimplementations of Adobe’s most popular products. Meeker contends that buyers pay for solutions rather than intellectual property, that AI ‘clean room’ reimplementation is making application development cheaper while deployment remains the hard part, and that the market will sustain only a few strong brands. She criticizes companies that build businesses around extracting more money from existing customers without adding value, and discloses that she is an investor in Puter and considers its cloud platform the future of software.
Puter’s “Everything” Project Changes Everything
Technology licensing lawyer Heather Meeker argues that software copyright is losing its commercial value and that open source businesses will compete on brand and product rather than IP enforcement, using the commercial open source company Puter as her example. She writes that Puter released 50 applications, including replacements for the Microsoft Office suite and an AI app builder, all under the MIT license, shortly after a company called ArtCraft released reimplementations of Adobe's most popular products. Meeker contends that buyers pay for solutions rather than intellectual property, that AI 'clean room' reimplementation is making application development cheaper while deployment remains the hard part, and that the market will sustain only a few strong brands. She criticizes companies that build businesses around extracting more money from existing customers without adding value, and discloses that she is an investor in Puter and considers its cloud platform the future of software.
Source: Heathermeeker