Tearing down those knowledge walls

Knowledge is open source. It cannot be curtailed and has to be freely available.
The concept of open source is not new. It is a subversive ideology that has been surfacing every now and then, setting it's mark on the pages of history.
For example, history testifies of Martin Luther's valiant efforts to translate the Bible into the common man's language, which started a tumult amongst the church hierarchy and marked the beginning of the protestant revolution. Until then, it was largely available in Latin Vulgate - restricting its use to only those who had the intellect to understand & interpret Latin. The Roman Catholic church's efforts in keeping biblical knowledge a closely guarded secret amongst church clergy and papal bureaucracy met a final end when the Bible was 'open sourced' to the common man in the 1380's.
Despite the execution penalty imposed on all those found with translated versions, it is noteworthy that this particular 'open source' movement could not be curtailed by proprietary protagonists. Today, the Bible is the world's best-selling and most widely distributed book, with more than 2.5 billion copies sold since 1815, and translations in over 2,233 languages and dialects.
Ayurveda is another example of the success of open source. All across the world, millions of documents have been written on the subject of Ayurveda, allowing people to benefit from the secrets of natural healing. Thousands of practitioners today have mastered the knowledge of Ayurveda, benefiting from the unlimited resources available in the open world.
This brings us to the logical question, "What if the originator of Ayurveda had decided to protect his knowledge with a license or an IPR?" Considering that this 'knowledge' is approximately 5000 years old, there's no doubt that he would be a serious contender for the position of the world's richest man today.
In stark contrast to Ayurveda, we have a closely guarded industry formed around life saving drugs today. The composition of these drugs is never disclosed and their labs follow strict codes of secrecy like military facilities. This means that a certain set of people are making billions of dollars at the expense of our community. Despite having the most amazing minds in this country, we sadly cannot afford to provide low cost, life saving drugs to our citizens on our own, all because somebody invented it first and doesn't want to open source their knowledge.
The big question on everyone's mind is, "Why would someone open source an idea that they obviously struggled to work so hard for?" open sourcing your innovation to the community doesn't imply bankruptcy. In fact, open sourcing an idea invites "immediate" attention and sparks community interest. And when this interest reaches the brim, the services and support opportunities that exist around that knowledge just explode, allowing the innovator to not just make money - but give birth to a whole new economy.
Take Accountancy or Law for example. These two represent different streams of knowledge, both of which are in the open source realm. Even though this knowledge is freely available to anyone and everyone, businesses and professionals still continue to thrive on it. You prefer to hire the services of a lawyer or a Chartered Accountant because you value their services. That's the beauty of open source. Knowledge that is essential to the community should be free, but the services that surround it should be commercial in nature to allow business interests to thrive.
I am of the firm belief that money should never be made at the expense of restricting knowledge and innovation. Money can always be made by forming a services driven model around your knowledge. In the same way, the Roman Catholic Church could have continued to made billions of dollars if they had managed to keep the Bible 'licensed' from the people (which they did succeed to do, for about 1000 years!) The authors of the Quran, Mahabharata, Ramayan, Bhagwad Gita and hundreds of literary works of epic proportion could have taken the same route. But they have taught us an important lesson by giving and sharing their knowledge with the community.
Software, like knowledge is becoming essential to everyone simply because it is the basic building block of the digital age. Because it is increasingly being walled off and restricted by proprietary software companies, costs associated with software development are sky rocketing, innovation is extremely limited and there always litigation threats floating around waiting to bring promising ventures down.
Similarly (but not identically), commercial software developers still want to keep their software a closely guarded secret from end-users. This "knowledge wall" makes it impossible for end users to fix problems themselves, or even know if there are serious flaws in the software, which they use.
The very success of science in the last 2500 years has been due to the open publication and peer review of scientific results. Many community driven entities today, like the extremely active Science Commons, are working towards creating an open, accessible commons for knowledge.
With India rapidly absorbing the principles of open source, it is only a matter of time that these "knowledge walls" will be broken. And when they all come crashing down, we shall witness a revolutionary intellectual movement, a rapid fire spread of innovation that will put India on the global map forever.
The author is Head, learning services, Red Hat India Pvt. Ltd.