FLOW-Based Relationships

Free-Libre-Open Works (FLOW) refers to any data, information or knowledge that is created and distributed under free/libre or open terms (licensing, contracts and other instruments including “public domain” status) that accommodate user freedom to read, copy, distribute, study or change the asset. In the context of computer programs, these relationships are expressed in terms of FLOW freedoms and methods.

RENT-Based Relationships

Restrictive-Exclusive-Negotiated Title (RENT) refers to any data, information or knowledge that is created and distributed under terms (licensing, contracts and other instruments including employment contracts) that impose upon users (end users, developers of derivative works, and solution implementers) any form of "economic rent":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent to fully read, copy, distribute, study or change the asset.

Rationale for this Naming Convention

These semantically meaningful acronyms are inspired by Chris Alexander's "Timeless Way of Building" (p. 267ff)

"The search for a name is a fundamental part of the process or discovering a pattern. ... At this stage, the pattern is clearly sharable. People can discuss it, reuse it themselves, improve it, check the observations out for themselves whether they want to use the pattern in a particular [thing] which they are making. ... And, perhaps even more important, the pattern is open enough to become empirically vulnerable. We can ask ourselves: Is it true that this system of forces actually does occur, within the stated context? Is it true that the actual solution, as formulated, really does resolve this field of forces in all cases? Is it true that the precise formulation of the solution is actually necessary...? We can therefore intensify our empirical observations, and begin a second round of observations, which will fine-tune the first observations."

Martin Fowler has also emphasized that a design pattern must have an "evocative name" http://martinfowler.com/articles/writingPatterns.html#AnEvocativeName

The FLOW acronym originally came about as follows:

"In the course of writing a paper...the acronym FLOW occurred to me, for "Free-Libre-Open Works". The thing is, I've never liked FLOSS, because it's entirely meaningless to people outside the jargon circle, except to evoke the thought of parsley stuck between one's teeth. Also, FLOSS is particular to software, whereas I like to think in terms of intellectual resources, and, I have always preferred to view software as just a certain genre of literary work as it is defined in copyright law. It was in the trivial act of creating a filename for my article that FLO appeared from my ticketytacking, which led my cranium to ask itself what would make a good W word to complete what, I started thinking, could be a deeply metaphorical acronym. That pause quickly led to "Works", which is the generic word used in law and economics for all sorts of creative output. So FLOW can be used for anything under free or open source software licensing, under similar licensing for content, or under public domain status. The metaphor also carries semantic utility, emphasizing that creative works constitute  dynamic streams of meaning, and this idea is quite opposed to treating creative works as fixed property." J. Potvin quoted by D. Lavigne in IT Toolbox (2007) http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/bsd-guru/flow-20489 This also appears as footnote 3 on page 77 of:  Potvin, J. 2012. "Flow Licensing and Contracting: Applied Intellectual Resource Economics in the Canadian Public Sector". In: Mark Perry & Brian Fitzgerald (eds). 2012. Knowledge Policy for the 21st Century: A Legal Perspective. Irwin Law Publishers: http://www.irwinlaw.com/pages/knowledge-policy-for-the-21st-century--a-legal-perspective 

Increased usage has demonstrated FLOW to be convenient a modular acronym with swappable semantics at the 4th character, which seems apropos to the free/libre/open way:

The FLOW Syllabus

A curated collection for learning about the Free/Libre/Open Wealth of ideas
To advance professional competencies relating to Free/Libre/Open Works.
Join us in doing things the Free/Libre/Open Way,
And help spread the Free/Libre/Open Wave,
Throughout the Free/Libre/Open World.
 

The RENT acronym arises from an effort to find an accurate and precise descriptive adjective for licenses that others loosely refer to as proprietary, restrictive, commercial and non-free, each of which terms comes up short in both accuracy and precision. RENT-based licensing is proposed because it precisely maps to and semantically expresses the meaning of "economic rent" in economics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio