What's Wrong with the Open Source Community? 751
An anonymous reader writes "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us says a Pogo-quoting James Turner, in trying to pinpoint "What's Wrong with the Open Source Community?" for LinuxWorld this morning. But he doesn't *just* say that it's we developers ourselves, he also has five hard-to-deny reasons, including 'Open source developers often scratch the same itch' and 'Open Source developers love a good feud.' He also suggests we often approach the whole issue of encouraging migration to Linux from Windows entirely wrongly." There's also a decent rebuttal with this story as well - worth reading.
Much to learn. (Score:3, Interesting)
There is nothing inherently wrong with the Open Source movement.
Think back to when Chiang Kai-Shek took over China: before that no one worked, everyone was poor, morale was nonexistent. Under the benevolent dictator, a term used to describe Linus Torvalds, Kai-Shek ensured that everyone worked, and everyone had a purpose.
Within a few short years China was a world power.
With an identical structure, the Open Source leaders ensure a good pool of talent. Millions of identical workers producing code. There's no way the current method of the Cigar-smoking boss standing on the backs of the coders can continue. Chiang Kai-Shek died in 1975 but his methods and teachings continue to this day in China.
Open Source could learn a lot from him.
c39052b261506f846895cac6e0724290
That whole.... (Score:1, Interesting)
What Color Is Your Wheel (Score:3, Interesting)
Users only need one wheel, or they are overwhelmed.. Choice IS a bad thing in some cases..
Until there is more unity we are stuck in a rut.
Re:Much to learn. (Score:2, Interesting)
Wait, that is just like the Open Source community, constantly feuding with each other.
I just submitted feedback on this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, you can't expect to start a reasonable discussion by spouting as many half-assed examples as you can think of, and then not backing any of it up with either facts or history. Although some of your points have a grain of truth in them here and there, your blind assertions do not help your case.
First, let us assume that many developers do "scratch the same itch"... why do they do it? Well, generally it's because there's something about the other solutions that are already out there that doesn't meet their needs. Sometimes it's a licensing issue, sometimes two projects spring up at the same time.
Starting with "sound systems"... the two main ones we have now are OSS and alsa. Originally OSS had two different versions--free and non-free. The free version included in the kernel had iffy support for some cards, and comparatively few people purchased or used the non-free version. Then alsa was born (originally just for better Gravis Ultrasound support!), and it will be replacing OSS in the kernel. What's this? Consolidation of sound systems? Uh-oh... Well, perhaps you meant to say sound daemons or media players or something... let's move on to another example.
BSD vs. Linux, here's a great one. Why didn't Linus Torvalds just use BSD instead? Well, he couldn't at the time, due to licensing issues. He started writing Linux both to learn about the 386 and because he couldn't afford to buy a workstation from Sun. And by the time the *BSDs were unencumbered, Linux was already a viable Unix system on its own, and certainly more functional than Minix ever was. Oh well, I guess he wasn't writing code just to scratch the same itch... let's move on.
Gnome vs. KDE. This one boiled down to--you guessed it--a licensing issue! In this case, it was the licensing of Qt, the toolkit used in KDE, that was the issue. Some of this has since been resolved, but there are licensing issues surrounding Qt even today. That's because Qt was written by TrollTech and is sold as a commercial product, whereas GTK was written for The GIMP, "to scratch an itch". Interestingly enough, The GIMP doesn't have a lot of competition--maybe that's because of its quality, its licensing, and its extensible nature.
Debian vs. Red Hat. Yet again, two different products with two different ideologies, one of which is backed by commercial interests, yadda yadda yadda. Interestingly enough, Red Hat's successor, Fedora, is using Debian's package manager now. So maybe they aren't such bitter rivals as you may have thought?
As for the rest of your generalizations, I resent being painted with such a broad brush. Sure, there are zealots in the open source community; they're present in any and every community. If those are the only people you talk to, then you might get some odd impressions of how that community works. For example, most of the people in the US are Christian, but the few people who come up to you on the street and shout about Christianity are inevitably zealots, crazy people who can't be reasoned with. Does this imply that most of the US consists of crazy zealots who can't be reasoned with? No, it doesn't, the sample size is simply too small.
Similarly, I won't just read this one article and conclude that the people at Linux World are totally clueless about the Open Source Community and its history, that they're all too lazy to do research, and enjoy making grossly inaccurate generalizations instead. That would be unfair of me. Nevertheless, I hope this article is just an isolated incident, and not the start of a disturbing trend. I recognize that this is an opinion piece, but that's no excuse for FUD, or sloppiness.
Read the article - he has some points (Score:5, Interesting)
About 18 months ago, I got a Powerbook, and while I still like Linux on the server end, man oh man, do I like OS X - for exactly the reasons that Mr. Turner brings up.
Simply put: it works.
I plug in a device - and it works. No compiling, no fiddling with conf files - works. I put in a game, and without once having to find Mesa drivers for X Windows and figure out why I can get video in Quake III but no sound - wait, not I get sound but no video, let me try another sound card and figure out of the chipset is the right kind - AGGGHHH!
The greatest strength of Open Source is its ability to evolve and grow and fill in gaps. It's truly software evolution - species of software fill in evolutionary needs, and the ones that work best (or are the luckiest in support/notice) get to grow.
The problem with Open Source, as Mr. Turner observes, is in some ways that same community. How many truly clear, concise, "idiot proof" manuals are written when we need to understand why some piece of Open Source (OS) software isn't acting the way you want? A cry for help will often be answered - all too often by "RTFM", though there are times when a more useful answer is given.
Probably the best thing that can happen for OS is the continued interest by businesses who want things for thier clients - like easier to use desktop operating systems (like OS X), or better office suites that can be used by secretaries (like Open Office) or administrative tools that can help configure the multitude of options easily and quickly (like what I hope Novell will do with their Suse merger).
I think that there will always be the dynamic Mr. Turner talks about - which isn't always a bad thing, but I hope the dialectic of Open Source and Business Needs helps to create a better hybrid software animal more suited to survive the wilds of the computer world.
Just my opinion, of course - I might be wrong.
Re:Much to learn. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
So, err, remind me - how many closed-source word processors can I go out and by? How many web design packages? How many commercial IDEs? How many instance messenging networks can I join? Wouldn't they be scratching the same itch too?
'They', whoever the amorphous they actually are, probably do. So do the closed source lot as well. The particular feuds they have tend to be called 'lawsuits', and they leave even the most bitter open source feud looking like a kindergarten spat.
Cheers,
Ian
A very funny example (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll probably like this:
A shed, any color will do [freebsd.org]
It summarises the observations of a FreeBSD hacker, on feature disputes. Also from the FreeBSD pages, is pretty ontopic:
How many FreeBSD developers does it take to change a lightbulb? [freebsd.org]
(these articles made me consider giving FreeBSD a try, but I haven't gotten around to it yet..)
He has the wrong idea of what OS aims for (Score:4, Interesting)
This whole article is just coming from the wrong direction. It assumes that the final goal of OS is to make usable software, that has features for everyone, to have an OS that can run all the binary drivers out there, to unseat Windows!...
What OS actually is for is, precisely, scratching an itch. Fixing what the developer wants to see fixed. Providing the features the developer wants. Having fun making something that a hundred other people made already. Many Linux developers (for example) couldn't care less about Windows, or converting Windows users to Linux.
And yes, they like bitching about Microsoft. Because it's so easy to do, I guess.
These things are only "things that are wrong with open source" if you have the idea that OS is trying to be something that it's not.
Some points yes, some points dumb. (Score:4, Interesting)
What is truly missing from the overall product creation standpoint is a universal bounty system. If someone were to create a universal bounty system for the application of new software ideas (that benefited the donor, and also gave incentive to the developers) there would be a drastic change in OSS development. Now all of a sudden your target audience is no longer yourself, but an ethereal goal list and a real cash dollar amount to buy some more raman and coffee.
Yeah sure, these things are "supposed" to be in existence already (sans the bounty) but I don't know how many projects I've seen on freshmeat with an empty
So I'm no professional developer, if I knew there was a series of progressively increasing bounties available for me to freely distribute my ideas to the ether I would be more inclined to spend time doing so seriously. Not all of us are driven by the solution at the end of the problem tunnel, some of us have monetary requirements to fulfil.
Re:blah blah (Score:1, Interesting)
It doesn't happen all the time, no. But it's far far more common than in the Windows, BeOS and Mac communities I've been a part of. Why doesn't Linux get the uptake on the desktop? It's because people who're ready to make the switch and may have almost all they need in the way of open source software get the cold shoulder from the community side. That's sad. Still, I persisted and am using Linux now DESPITE that.
The same reactions come when I mention I'd like to see feature X. Now I'm not a demanding person, I don't go about saying "If Linux doesn't fucking have Feature X then it sucks", but I comment that I'd like to see that. Whether it's a comfortable iPhoto clone, or a feature an Amiga shell had, or being able to use a device my old Mac could, I'm more often than not shouted down as wanting meaningless shit, and "besides nobody else would want that". (Yes I could learn to write software/drivers myself, but believe me, my coding skills would be a detriment to the code quality in almost anything. Windows included.) A few months of that from enough people in various parts of the open source community and I end up getting the feeling that unless I already know the software inside out and already match what the software wants, then I'm not the kind of person who should be using OSS.
When it comes to who can benefit from OSS though, there's more like Me than there are who do know linux etc inside out.
The kind of troll who offends the most people.... (Score:2, Interesting)
There are still plenty of problems with linux, including a print system that sucks, and plenty of problems that need fixing. It took us until last year to get fonts that looked good without having to add more. Whats worse is our tendency to mimic features in windows instead of trying to surpass windows. Instead of yet another lecture about how everyone should do everything with a CLI, lets get a GUI that is BETTER than mac or windows. A package system that works automatically (even RPM isnt automatic) and having dependent files included with applications.
Self-honesty is your best weapon.
Re:But I thought... (Score:2, Interesting)
A spreadsheet is a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet. A browser is a browser is a browser (that's why product placement played the final role in the browser wars), a word processor is a word processor (he forgot the fued over VI and Emacs) etc.
Cloning software usually denotes heisting something, or just flat out copying. Microsoft 'clones' their own product line on a regular bi-yearly basis. Open source people build better standards like PHP, Apache, Perl etc.
Re:Too negative... (Score:2, Interesting)
I just switched to Suse, from RedHat, mostly because I heard of how good the device support was, and how I'm tired of acting as a support tech for my wife when she's forgotten how to mount the camera. Not only was I impressed by the installation (I had to install XP for one of her school projects, and it went right alongside it without a hitch), but the finished product as well.
Aside from all the nice things that I wasn't used to, coming from RedHat (auto-mounting camera and placing icon on the desktop, auto-mounting the Windows NTFS drive, etc.), K3b is easily the most elegant CD/DVD burning package I've ever used in Linux. Kopete is easily the smoothest chat client I've ever used in Linux, and in my opinion, blows gAIM to bits.
These applications, as I see them, are not only the best available for Linux, but better than their Windows counterparts (at least in my opinion), and were a snap for my wife to click on and start using. XCD-Roast is by no means intuitive, so she's never been able to get a CD burn started in under 1 minute before. I can't express how pleased we both were when she clicked on K3B, grabbed a bunch of MP3 files, and then burned them onto a CD that played in our CD player... all with just a few, intuitive clicks.
I'm impressed at how good things are now, and we're definitely on the upstroke (or downstroke, whichever is better) of things to come.
-9mm-
Don't even bother giving the man the time of day. (Score:3, Interesting)
He had his damn "points" wrong for various reasons that he obviously didn't think about in the previous article that precipitated this stupid "response" (One, I might add, it was strongly suggested that he re-think the idea from the get-go over on LinuxToday's comment section...)- and most everyone on the feedback forum and on LinuxToday pointed out where he'd gone wrong (Myself included on BOTH forums) and most of them were fairly respectful but also strongly questioned is credibility and credentials, likening him to Enderle (Right or wrong, it felt a lot like Enderle's stuff...).
He then comes in with a chip on HIS shoulder claiming that we were all about with a chip on our collective shoulder and accusing us of ad-homninem attacks.
Never mind that the man failed to address the points LEGITIMATELY raised with regards to HIS points. And he still fails to do so now. He won't admit he might have been "wrong" about part or all of his premise and points. He may be right, there may still be things that we have that can impede desktop adoption of Linux, but what he came up with isn't the problem- really it isn't.
Re:The worst thing about the open source community (Score:2, Interesting)
I beleive the team learned a lot from that and even after the Columbia accident, slashdot endured better (although,I think there was less hits as well)
I have to agree with everything (Score:2, Interesting)
Allow me to add a big one to the list.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it is because it is a "community" and nobody rules it, maybe it is because it is passionate about what it does and feels the need to defend it when attacked. There are some things that might need some improving, but the Open Source Community has done quite well the way it has been operating since it started. It will improve when it needs to improve, that is how it works.
Conflict (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Name-calling doesn't help (Score:2, Interesting)
Then along came the standardization process, and they became much more alike, using mostly the best features / behaviors from each. ANSI C / ISO C made inroads specifically because there had been competing products to prove the worth of the features. Otherwise, C would still be K&R C.
GCC came along and was able to become so successful because the standard had been worked out. UnitedLinux, Carrier Grade Linux, and other working groups / associations are building on the work of differing entities and incorporating the solutions which have been shown to work the best. There's little difference in how this is done, except that since the source is available among the entire group, the solutions can be integrated more easily with one another.
Duplication of effort is not always a bad idea. Cooperation has its place. So does competition, even within the Free Software and Open Source worlds. If we didn't scrat5ch the same itch once in a while and only had one solution for every problem, then we'd never know if there's a better way to do things. One of the reasons that OSS / FS is so successful is that multiple paths are taken, things get reevaluated, and the course is corrected. Sometimes this means that projects converge and use the best from each part, and sometimes it means that yet another project starts in the same area.
Linux isn't the only Free Software OS, and there are plenty of Open Source OSes on top of those. Off the top of my head, there are at least somewhat working prototypes up to completely working OSes for GNU/Linux, MINIX, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, PicoBSD, PaulOS, Plan 9, ReactOS, OpenVMS, FreeVMS, FreeDOS, Darwin (BSD kernel), GNU/Horde, VisOpSys, MMURTL, B-Free, V2, eCOS, UZIX, and Contiki. A few of these might not have OSI approved licenses, but I'm certain that almost all do.
I'm sure there are others that do which I can't list from memory. Do all these being around negatively affect one another? Since many ideas and much code is shared back and forth among many of these projects, do they help one another? Heck, having three different free BSD systems seems to have helped BSD as a whole in some ways and hurt it in others.
Those with a philosophical difference with one maintaining group starting a new distribution is not necessarily a bad thing. There's proof enough that FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD are all three necessary in that each of the three have proponents who evangelize the benefits over the other two. The similar debates of BSD vs. Linux or of Suse vs. RedHat are no better or worse.
How many here remember Yggdrasil or Soft Landing System? They were Linux distros before RedHat or Suse. They're gone because they were no longer relevant. As long as people have a preference for Debian, RedHat, Suse, Gentoo, Slackware, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc., then all of these projects will exist. When there are no users who prefer RedHat, RedHat will be gone. When there are no users who prefer NetBSD, it will be gone. I don't see either of these coming to pass anytime soon, if at all. The BSD license and the GPL at least make sure they don't just disappear if they are no longer developed. The source will be picked over for possible inclusion of tasty pieces in other projects long after individual distros die.
The same will be true of mail clients, mail servers, web servers, web browsers, desktop environments, text formatters, and every other project. The same principals work no matter the market, and no matter the nature of the licenses. Even car manufacturers borrow ideas from one another. The Open Source world makes this process easier (and in some cases more legal).
Sure, there are downsides to duplicated effort. There are upsides, too. If a problem is important enough that twenty groups attack it differently, then it's important enough that all those avenues are tried and the weaker ones be sifted out.
windows to linux (Score:3, Interesting)
For what it's worth, every Linux zealot I've talked to can't remember the last time they used Windows, and wouldn't want to. Even if they do, they think it sucks.
It seems to me that the people who want Linux to overtake Windows on the desktop are those (like me) who are so used to MS DOS / Windows after using it for 20 years, and are finding it hard to do an instant migration. Instantly my difficulties in transitioning become "what's wrong with Linux."
I'm not a low-level C coder or anything spectacular, but I do enjoy fumbling my way through Gentoo and IceWM, trying to find the grail of replacing Windows, while still having fun with my OS and learning as much as I can.
I think that the people who want things to be "their way" are generally out of touch with what the underlying Linux community's goals always have been.
I could be wrong though. And as more people want to jump ship from Windows to Linux, I imagine that the sides will even out a bit, with a greater influx of novice Linux programmers.
I think something like _that_ would begin to influence the general direction of some projects. The fact alone that so many people want to ditch Windows anyway shows that some distros are trying very hard to make them very user-friendly.
But I find it hard to believe that was the goal of most long-term users/developers all along, or that it even is now.
Re:What's Wrong with the Open Source Community? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pointless contrarianism (Score:2, Interesting)
There's shitloads of products for both platforms. Unless you want to talk companies, then even in the linux world, it's a one to one relation, one to two for some some projects if you want to count Open Source and Proprietary offerings.
Yes, but I think the point was that although there may be MULTIPLE products in the closed source arena, they are all by DIFFERENT companies and compete. OpenSource is supposed to be a place where this shouldnt happen, everyone should work together to make one single product better. In essance, if OpenSource really really worked, there would only be one Browser that really kicked ass rather than 6 or seven that all basically do the same and yet somehow feel unfinished. Unfortunately, it only "works" right atm, and this is why we end up with 500 versions of the same old crap.
Itch Egos (Score:2, Interesting)
I am co-leader of an open-source project that has been going for about two years. Just after the code was released someone else started a very similar parallel effort. Our project had a more robust, extendable architecture while the other project supported more "devices". I even wrote a "bridge" to allow service providers from the other project to be plugged into ours. Then I sent an email to the other project leader suggesting we merge our efforts. Best of both worlds. While we remain on friendly terms, he wasn't interested, and I think it was fear of losing his role as sole lead developer/architect/leader. Of course, the "space" has suffered since developers have to choose between two frameworks each with strengths and weaknesses and often get confused. And it also dilutes the talent pool available to both projects.
But the real question is, what can you do? To be fair, the problem space is one that no commercial entity has decided it is worth entering, so in that regard you have to chalk one up for open-source.
Rampant marginal Asperger's Syndrome? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Name-calling doesn't help (Score:3, Interesting)
Some background. Tech-Ed is a conference (mostly) for developers using Microsoft products. Balmer was doing the keynote. If you've ever been to one of these things, keynotes are always HYPE, and are usually only worth seeing because they tell you what the conference sponsor is pushing that year. At that point, there was some internal friction going on in the Micorsoft developer world. Some of the language products and features were being driven by the "Office" community - aka, VB becoming more like VBScript. There was quite a bit of unhappiness. This was Microsoft's way of saying that Developers would be driving the development platform again, not the "Office" team. He was saying that he kept having to beat one idea into the Microsoft Development team "Developers, Developers, Developers....." (aka, who the customer was)
It was an interesting Tech-Ed - about 1/3rd of the people there got food posioning on either the first or 2nd day - something at lunch did it.
WAY back when, Microsoft treated developers like Gods. They realized the way to drive the acceptance of their PLATFORM (aka Windows, and therefore Office, and....) was to enable developers to write applications easily for that platform - it's the old "Killer App" problem that a lot of platforms faced. No one will develop for platform "X" because no one uses platform "X". No one uses platform "X" because no one develops for it. Microsoft practically GAVE away their development "stuff" - yeah, the list prices might be high, but they made it easy to get discount/free copies. This let people develop for windows (particularly in the F500), so the F500 adopted Windows. The thing is, once the F500 adopted windows, the Office team came up with "VB everywhere", and then VB Script - Nice idea, but they actually crippled VB (and other parts of the platform - parts of the DDE/OLE model if I remember right) to make it "easy for folks writing macros"
This was the announcement that they were moving back to a developer centric model. They never moved all the way back, but they have moved some. Of course, the small developer that doesn't have a multi thousand dollar budget is SOL - I think THIS is what will kill Microsoft in the long run - forgetting about the "One man shop" - all those small consultants who can now do a better, more cost effective job providing a *nix solution. Remember, the average end user doesn't care what platform he is on. He just wants to get his job done. If I can give my end users a solution on *nix cheaper and more effectively, I'll do so, and the client will thank me. Then he'll use the "shink wrap" (or in the *nix world - downloadable) mass solutions for the rest - Star Office, or whatever
I really believe, what drove the adoption of Windows (way back when) was the follow factors
1)DOS compatability - you could move over slowly
2)Multitasking (even if NON preemptive)
3)Terminal Emulators!!! The fact that companies could actually get rid of a terminal on a workers desk, and use a PC that cost about the same price
4)And then the ability for developers to write custom software that could take data from that "terminal", and do business work.
Item 4) was at first done by "screen scraping" - you litterally read the data fields off the mainframe screen, and wrote it back to the mainframe screen behind the scenes! This is why ODBC was such a BIG thing when it came out - we could actually talk to existing data without screen scraping
This is why I held such high hopes for Delphi, - but I forgot one VERY important thing - those terminals. Remember, putting a PC on the end users desk actually saved money. You didn't have to buy a terminal for that user, and terminals cost about as much as a PC! Once the PC was there, companies started SMALL projects writing SMALL projects doing windows development. N
Re:Much to learn. (Score:4, Interesting)
RMS pounces on anyone who does not both kiss his ass (his demand is that his contribution be acknowledged, see the GNU/Linux vs Linux/GNU vs Linux arguments) *and* sponsor his own personal choice method for open source (ie, use the license he prefers)."
I think the rebuttal article did a fairly good job of countering the 5 issues, but an argument already having been made has never stopped me before...
I get particularly tired of people's need to compare open source with some sort of political movement, ANY of them. RMS may have socialist views personally, but there are many capitalists in the open source movement as well. There are also large numbers of Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians, meat eaters, vegetarians, doctors and Christian Scientists.
Open source probably would not exist in a tightly control economy. The government would eventually choose an "official" operating system and demand that everyone use it or have their computers confiscated.
And finally I like to remind people that open source existed before it had a name. Computers used in universities and research environments for as long as there has been computing were largely programmed and tinkered with by people at those institutions. Even IBM computers where I went to school had modified operating systems. Source code was readily available from IBM and there were publications used for exchanging those modifications as well as the likelihood that some of them would show up in future versions of the OS. Until Microsoft came along in fact operating systems were secondary to the hardware that they supported. While IBM wasn't thrilled if you ran a non-IBM OS on their equipment they would much rather have that happen than to have you run non-IBM hardware.
Given all of that, it is really not the Open Source movement that is odd, it is in fact Microsoft that is worthy of study for it produces almost no physical products and has continued to charge premium prices for software that has long ago left the R&D stage. I don't think that historians will marvel at the emergence of Open Source in our time, I think they will marvel that a single company was able to so effectively suppress that which comes fairly naturally to people: the desire to explore and understand for such a long period of time. I think that period is nearing its end however. For those who grew up in the "Microsoft age" its ending must surely seem odd.
Re:Pointless contrarianism (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, you're right. At least for the early stages of any project. There should be several competing products, and as they mature, the size of the user base will determine which product deserves to survive. Note that I'm not saying that the "better" product should survive, merely that the one people want to use should survive. One or more of the failures could be technically better, but less user-friendly, for example. Forks should happen for the same reason - somebody has a different idea about the way the product should mature. Over time, the lesser used forks would naturally expire, or be merged back into the major branch.
So, some dissent is good, provided it makes the products stronger.
Piggyback (Score:3, Interesting)
> There's absolutely no reason for there to be more than two or three distributions.
--Um, right now off the top of my head we have:
o Debian (and
o Red Hat (and rpm-based derivatives such as SuSE, etc)
o Gentoo (and I should add Slackware, after double-checking here [distrowatch.com].)
--Those are the major families that come to my mind immediately.
--The reason for having distros like SuSE is that they took the RH model and did something a little different with it. Personally I preferred Suse 6.4 / 7.3 over RH's offerings at the time, and went with it. However that's NO EXCUSE for having incompatible RPM's.
--The beauty of Debian installs is that
--I agree that we could stand some merging of distros (Mepis could investigate merging with Libranet, for instance) but there are distros such as Suse that cater to a more European audience, and would never merge with RH - although they did get bought by Novell. What they *should* do is make all the RPM packages from here on work with any rpm-based distro, and concentrate on the value-added distro-specific tools (Mepis has it's own System Center, Libranet has it's Admin menu, Suse has Yast, etc.)
Re:Oppositional Logic (Score:3, Interesting)
I was more focused on the fact that James, and yourself, seemed to lump all of the OSS developers together as if they had some sort of common tree they were all growing on. Revealing their source code is the only thing they have in common in my mind. (Not up to Jedi standards I'm sad to report) They may all be working on competing ways to solve the same problem, but that doesn't mean that they are doing eachother harm. Where one succeeds, and the other fails, it would benefit them if a third source would come in and pluck the goodies from both their projects. This way it would further the cause, darwin style. Throwing stones at eachother fuels the fire by making them each add more 'features' to their own programs, allowing still more options for the third guy down the road. I still see it ultimately, not immediately, as healthy competition. True enough though that they are hurting themselves by not cooperating with eachother instead of name calling. But they certainly aren't hurting OSS as a whole.
implicit assumptions causing confusion? (Score:2, Interesting)
smaller groupings of members, whether individuals or organisations have their own goals, often commercial and of course they would benefit from the whole community deciding to commit themselves to that objective. but the community doesn't.
as i write i wonder if the word community isn't itself misplaced if there isn't one overall unifying destination for all its members, but then i think that perhaps the dissimilarities of licences such as the bsd and gpl instances to those of microsoft et al do define an identifiable grouping or community.
back to the article: i couldn't help feeling that the first writer has the goal of 'linux on the desktop for all' or whatever, and the second a goal of 'linux on my desktop the way i like it'; of course they disagree, the first was speaking to the lack of community participation by those currently microsoft bound, perhaps at the bottom of the tech-savvy curve, the second was saying the current members are quite happy as they are thankyou every much!
both potentially true!
'open source', 'free software' use what terms you will, these refer to a development process and/or to an ideological attitude to intellectual activity. abstract concepts such as these do not have goals, merely consequences, or implications. people have goals, and people are different, contrary and sometimes downright irrational.
i like the idea of a community/arena blah blah that encompasses the whole range of human idiosyncracies, it may not appear to be moving in one unified direction but i believe that when something matters enough, and when people have the freedom to act, folk mostly do the right thing, indeed looking at the past decade or so, perhaps folk already have! it's that pesky little 'freedom to act' phrase that matters, i see an allegory between my description here and the wider world of social and polictical engagement (or lack of it), but there my navel beckons so i'll stop.
Re:I'm getting paid (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, there's less that 1000 OSS developers worldwide who are being paid.
The rest of us need to actually work for a living.