The Power of Openness 101
Orca writes "Here is a really well written critique of the Open Source / Free Software movement. It talks about open source code from both a technical and a philosophical / social point of view and proposes the creation of H20, an 'independant not-profit organization to help foster the development and usage of the new software.' "
Another NonProfit Organization? (Score:1)
Problem (Score:1)
I had planned for years to become a software developer, so don't think you are the only one going to lose money (or possibly a job). What we need to do is move on and gain freedom. Which is more valuable? Freedom or money? (just maybe free software can influence more than the computing industry..)
Gift economy rulez - (Score:2)
creation. The gift economy is not in opposition to business
but is the source of its existence. Here are some examples:
In one's own life, have you a family? Childen can be a gift, or
a curse, and are taught responsible behavior based on their
percieved maturity by parents to give what they can and take
what they need. Do parents keep a careful tally of costs
and benefits? No, they give and receive without
giving it a second thought. Likewise children learn to do
the same, unless they live in an emotionally starved home.
Software is like human language. What is required to write
great software today? About what was required to write a
book 100 years ago, relative to our technology. I can write
great software with a consumer brand PC as my notepad
and a modem for collaboration with others. Such software
will run on all kinds of platforms. Multi-billion dollar corporations
can do no better than I can do with a $1000 investment.
You are very wrong if you think that there is much relationship
between creative works of an intellectual nature (books,
music, art, software) and financial reward. Sure, great artists
have to earn a living, but not necessariy from their great
works. Most great artists in the past made a living not
from royalties for their works but by performing in shows,
or doing hack work for patrons that nobody remembers.
It all comes down to what you regard to be the source of
everything. If you regard the source to be limited and ruled
by the laws of scarcity, then you will be inclined to keep careful
tally of dues and debts and apply the same standards to
others. At least you will thereby be a consistently honest
aethiest or worshipper of the golden calf (in Western religions)
or of Maya or illusion (in Eastern religion).
If on the other hand you regard the source of everything to
be infinite and unlimited, and not "owned" any individual or
group or company, you will have a different perspective.
Within the larger context there may be laws of supply and
demand to provide a structure to life, and each subset of
humanity may have its own rules. But, you will be willing to
transcend those limitations somewhat and acknowledge that
everything really is a gift, and if you really feel that way you
will spontaneously give back without even giving it a thought.
Only such a life is worth living.
What is driving "Open Software" is not hatred of Microsoft,
but the inspiration to create and the ongoing evolution of
humanity. Was the internet created by hatred of MS?
"Open Software" is the big leagues and now companies are
wanting to join. They are now in Spring Training but some
won't make the cut.
Most people don't care about tinkering with carburetors, but
the only way there will be competition, including competition
among commercial companies, is if some people do tinker.
This "tinkering" can be done by individuals like myself working
from our homes, or by more organized groups and think tanks
or both. There can really be no competition when software is
not open. Consider a new commercial comany setting out
to develop software and sell it and make money. They never
start from scratch but rely on a rich heritage of knowledge and
technique about how to write programs which is owned by
nobody. We build on that heritage in every endeavour.
The "Open Source" movement today provides a legal framework
and sense of community in which individuals and groups can
continue to add to that knowledge base that is universal,.
This "movement" is only necessary because there is also
a well organized movement afoot to own and control knowledge
itself. We should not need GNU or BSD but do in today's
world because of forces which seek to control which are
anti-God, inhuman and dishonest.
If the gift economy dies, then humanity will die, and the natural
world will die. There would be nothing.
fortunate but unworthy
Problem (Score:3)
If we need an "image" for our movement, I believe it should be something to do with freedom and not source code. We currently have the terms "shareware", "freeware" (not free as in free speech, but free as in free beer), and "commercial" that the main stream recognizes. These are all present in Windows land, but barely touch Unix land. One way to get a new term out there (say we wanted to coin the term "copyleft software" as meaning freedom software) is to write GPL programs for Windows. But, we don't call these programs "freeware", "shareware". Instead we refer to them as "copyleft software". In the "About" boxes you could place things such as "This program is copylefted software. Please refer to the GPL license for more information".
A little about me.. I'm not an extremist as RMS is when it comes to freedom of software. Every computer I have used has had proprietary software. I could rarely find source code. This was okay.. I was no programmer. Anyways, the point is I had lived with proprietary software and I did not know there was an alternative to being proprietary. Hardware, on the other hand, was fairly "open". Every modem I came across for my XT, 386, etc. all worked basically the same. Every CGA/EGA/VGA card worked the same. I could use my modem with any software package I found. The same went for my sound cards, video cards, hard drives, and anything else. Today this has changed. Sure we have common hard drive, floppy drive, etc. interfaces. But, many things are changing. Sound cards have become very proprietary. I can only use my SB Live in Windows. My Riva TNT video card only has 3D acceleration in Windows. These companies will not allow me to get information on my own hardware. I paid them for the hardware--but they only allow me to use it with certain software. It is like buying a TV and later finding out you need a special remote control to operate it (one which costs money and you do not have). I was never around to see the software side of computing like RMS did. But, I believe what I have seen of the hardware side is much like what RMS saw years ago.
And now the fun begins (Score:4)
My point is that H20 is an example of what happens when something tries to play in the big leagues. GNU, OpenSource and all of these folks worked when it was a small focused group. Now that LINUX, GNU, etc is actually getting attention the entire thing is crumbling. People are yelling at each. The old timers are disgusted with what is happening. And RMS is here to save the world.
Folks OpenSource will only work to a degree. It was mentioned that with open source I can tinker and change my own carberator. Sure, but the reason why that economy works is because you had to pay for the carb!!! With open source you pay nothing.
The gift economy will never work because communism never worked. Do not mistake this with Russian or Chinese communism. In the communist manifesto, "People will give all they can and only take what they need". Sounds like the gift economy to me folks.
What is driving OpenSource is peoples hatred of Microsoft. Lets not forget about 10 years ago, people hated Microsoft because of their closed ways. Now the tables have turned.
Opensource will remain, but it will remain a niche. CNN just did an Insight edition on LINUX, the Microsoft alternative. Who did they interview? Mr Young from Redhat. What support of software did they mention for LINUX, ORACLE and Corel. Under the masses of people open source code and tinkering DOES NOT MATTER. Alternatives and competition do!
Christian Gross
"rich latencies"?!?!, "Communitarian Software" (Score:1)
If "free" is a problem, why not "freed software"? (As in "freed from restrictions.")
And now the fun begins (Score:1)
Open source software is critically different in both aspects. There is no governing body. Each project is an institution unto itself; each developer is free to keep his talents where he feels best about using them. The OSI, SPI, FSF, and so forth do not represent governing bodies, since they cannot control the actions of developers. Therefore, their ability to leverage the labor of the community for selfish ends (not that any of them are doing that, nor that I foresee them attempting to). The other major difference is that of scarcity - or the lack thereof. With open source software, the primary labor is in the initial production. It costs nearly as much to make a software product that will be distributed to ten people as a similar product which will be distributed to millions. As the H2O article pointed out, conventional theories of economics are simply inadequate to deal with the realities of free software.
It's an unfair and highly artificial comparison between communistic economies and free software. Don't confuse them; capitalism has more in common with communism than does open source.
Oops, correction (Score:1)
Government and Business should listen.. (Score:1)
"Communitarian Software" (Score:1)
However, for every socialist (such as RMS) in the FS/OSS world there's a libertarian (such as ESR) and an apolitical (such as Linus). It would not do to pass FS/OSS off as a socialist movement, since it isn't.
It's always been free software. Before ESR & Co. invented "Open Source" --- which ESR himself states to be a marketing term for free software --- there was no issue of "free software" being a politicized term. Here on
We don't need no steenkin' bureaucracies. (Score:2)
> One of the main points of the 'Bazaar' is that it's SELF-ORGANIZING.
> People will coalesce around interesting projects/leaders/problems of
> their own free will. When these are no longer interesting, people leave
> and go elsewhere.
How does creating a new standards organization or "leadership" group change that? Nobody says you have to listen to H2O. This is no more of a threat to FS/OSS than is, say, the existence of multiple Linux-based OS distributions.
Nobody is talking about force here. Nobody is saying that all FS/OSS projects must hew to H2O lines, any more than they have to hew to GNU lines or (horrors!) Red Hat lines. This is just another organizing effort, just like a distribution or a standards body. Let it succeed or fail on its merits.
attempt coming from the Harvard Law School (Score:1)
Would be interesting to see how the non-Hacker-origin activitists' attempt turns out.
Hasnt he heard of Debian? (Score:1)
He states that ' Yggdrasil may be the only distribution containing only free software'.
Hello? Debian?
Hmmm... Arsenic under the Sugar (Score:1)
Well, I don't know about you, but if I were going up again Microsoft, Lucent, IBM, Sun, not to mention most of the world's biggest media firms, I'd sure like good legal team. Last time I looked, the GPL was a legal document, what, hey?
A surprising number of public-minded people do, in fact, become lawyers--did you think it was only software engineers who feel a need to contribute to society? I can't currently reach the Berkman Institute (this may be the Slashdot effect in action), but Bollier, at least, has a short resume at the end of his article. He's apparently a media activist of long-standing.
Your fears seem to be unjustified.
!!! (Score:1)
In general, I would say FS/OS will have won if it becomes an acceptable and common mode of software development. It will lose if, for instance, new software ideas are patented as a matter of course. In the longer term, it will lose unless we find a way to reliably fund it.
As to potential failure, I was thinking more of the social determinist streak, where it is assumed (1) that the effects of a new technology is known and (2) that those will be benign. For instance, Alfred Nobel believed that his development of explosives would discourage war by scaring people off. In more recent history, the Pruitt-Igoe low-income housing development was supposed to improve the lives of people, simply by being good design. They had to dynamite it. 20th-century architectural history is littered with utopian schemes that didn't work because the people didn't go along. From which I state a Great Law: design does not control behavior (unless, perhaps, one is designing prisons.)
As for organization, I think a broad-based advocacy organization on the lines of the H2O project would be a good start. Maybe a Free Software Foundation that gives grants for development in a wide range of worthwhile areas. Who knows, maybe we could even get some NSF funding? People tend to disparage Al Gore, but he's been on our side since before we realized we were a we--if elected to the Presidency, he could be a powerful ally.
agreement, but qualified (Score:1)
Well, I don't think they can take us anywhere we don't want to go. And we need people to take the lead on the legal and political side. All due respect to ESR, RMS, and Linus, we really aren't political activists--we're hackers. Which is fine, but we need a social and political framework in which to operate.
Hell no. Dumb idea, and it sucks to boot. (Score:1)
So...who is going to fund you while you "work on what you find interesting?" I mean, you can be a starving hacker if you really want to be with or without this...but maybe with this you won't have to be.
!!! (Score:3)
(People really ought to read Marx, instead of disparaging him from ignorance.)
The reactions to this article bespeak appalling historical and political ignorance. I believe, that without political organization, much of the Open Source or Free Software movement will be co-opted, inasmuch as it supports the current system of the software business, and the remains that do not support that system outlawed.
If the OS/FS movement is to maintain its much-vaunted freedom, we need political and historical sophistication and organization, and this article is a welcome step in that direction.
You will not win against the closed-source types as individual designers, even very talented individual designers. That is a Utopian fantasy of designers and every designer in history who has ever tried to put it into practice has failed. Design cannot create social forms--only social, sometimes political, action can do that. Stallman knows this--that is why he founded the FSF. How people act and believe is important.
You have, in this article, support from some genuinely effective and decent activists. I suggest you treat them decently and with respect, for you will need them and you have a long hard journey ahead of you.
H-two-oh? H-two-zero? H-twenty? (Score:1)
We wouldn't want to confuse the basis of life on Earth with a bad slasher flick (Halloween 20 - H20).;^)
We don't need no steenkin' bureaucracies. (Score:1)
As open source is open there's no danger of one person or organisation taking control if the majority think it's a bad idea and even if the majority think it's a good idea the minority can just take the code and carry on trying to prove the majority wrong.
It's freedom. People are allowed to do with the code what they want.
--
We don't need no steenkin' bureaucracies. (Score:2)
And now the fun begins (Score:1)
"The gift economy will never work because communism never worked. Do not mistake this with Russian or Chinese communism. In the communist manifesto, "People will give all they can and only take what they need". Sounds like the gift economy to me folks."
The key difference as I see it between communism/socialism/everybody-gets-along-ism and the OSS community/gift economy is that the latter is optional.
I don't believe that large-scale communism will ever be successful because it requires that everybody participate, and when people don't want to participate you have problems. That's an oversimplification, but the majority of what went wrong with the so-called "communist" countries can be blamed on the fact that not everybody on the planet wanted to be communist. For instance, the existence of hostile non-communist nations forced the creation of the security forces which were the source of many of the problems with the various implementations of "communism."
The OSS community does not need everybody to contribute to keep from collapsing because of the nature of software. If enough people refuse to work in the fields, then there isn't enough food to go around and somebody dies. If not everybody wants to code free software, then not as much free software gets coded, which in no way lessens the impact or value of the free software that does get coded. The only real problem would be if there were so few people coding free software that nothing ever got done, and that's clearly not the case.
Overall... (Score:2)
The benefits that users reap from open code software - customization, innovation, education, security, efficiency, reliability, cost savings - are actually "symptoms" of their collective empowerment as users. By banding together to assert their common interests, open code software users acquire an entirely new dimension of power
The document combines a lot of ideas about open source, and a lot of the advantages, showing both the history and advantages as it starts out.
The author puts forth a commendable effort to call Linux "GNU/Linux" and keep the terms straight, referencing to it as Linux only when he talks about the kernel, "The conjoining of the GNU system with the so-called Linux kernel..." and calling it "GNU/Linux" through out most of the document, "...huge popularity that GNU/Linux has achieved...".
"GNU/Linux might never have emerged but for Stallman's second innovation: the GNU General Public License (GPL), sometimes known as "copyleft." Stallman astutely realized that simply putting free software into the public domain was not enough, because anyone could make minor changes in a program and then copyright it, converting it back into a proprietary product. Without some legal vehicle, the benefits of free software could be privatized and withheld from the community of users."
A very good point, im glad they brought that forward. The author continues on with his excellent reference to Eric Raymonds "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" work, and incorperates it nicely.
". Its appeal is not just that it is cheaper, more versatile, reliable and customizable software."
I dont quite know if I can agree with that comment. Although yes, it is cheaper to obtain, the price for training on how to use it, and the training for how to fix it is not cheap.
I really enjoyed reading this document, it is a very complete, one of the most compete I have read so far that has a lot of thought put into it. The author references to many possible set backs with OS and things being done to prevent them from occuring. Good job David Bollier, you put forth an excellent paper.
Stan "Myconid" Brinkerhoff
Hasnt he heard of Debian? (Score:1)
He's probably wrong on that too, but anyway.
"rich latencies"?!?!, "Communitarian Software" (Score:1)
We'll have to wait for the results (Score:1)
Basically, cathedrals, bazaar-style, or what Cox might have called the Town Council.
We'll have to wait for the results (Score:2)
What might be useful is taking the "peer review" principle from the scientific world, and applying it to OSS even more than it is being applied already. This is, have a body of people who review code on a volunteer basis, rather than a fragmented community with no crossover between the different development groups (except for Alan Cox, who seems to do everything)
Problem is your missing the point (Score:1)
Lets suppose a group of developers write some application, make it GPL, and try to sell it for $20. Somone else gets the source and then sells their own "distribution" for $15. They can afford to sell it cheaper because they have only distribution costs, while the developers also have development costs. What they (the distributors) are doing is also perfectly legal, since the code is GPL, remember.
Grandma then has three choices:
1. get it free, but build it herself
2. get it from the developers for $20
3. get it from the distributor for $15
Which choice will grandma make? Probably #3. Especially if the distributor is a relatively well known name like RedHat, while the developers are relatively unknown. So the developers get little or nothing.
You might argue that "the developers could provide better support", but really, how many developers do you know that also work in tech support? No good developers I'm sure.
The people who make money from free software are in tech support and distribution. Developers get nothing, even though they're the ones producing the actual product.
Problem (Score:1)
Problem (Score:2)
You could legally sell a GPL'ed program, but you cannot realistically expect to be able to do that. Because people can get the source code for free, they will get it from a free place, or at least a place that's a heck of a lot cheaper than $1000000. The problem with GPL is that it gives people so much "freedom", that GPLed code might as well be free beer.
How much money did the Linux kernel authors get for their efforts? How much money do distributors (Red Hat, etc.), support sellers (Linux Care), and book publishers (O'Reilly, etc.) make? GPL is biased against the developers. Those who write the code get almost nothing.
The only way a company could actually make money developing GPL'ed software is if they charged *one* person the entire R&D price to get the source. Once that one person gets it, the original developer has no hope of getting any real profits, since the source can (and will) be distributed for free.
A little about me... I'm not extremist. I like free software, and I use and contribute to it. I also believe that proprietary software has a place, until you show me otherwise. If you want all software to be free, explain how developers can make a living writing free software.
Neither RMS nor ESR does this adequately. RMS essentially requires that developers make only as much as sales clerks, and are funded with a software tax. RMS also thinks developers don't deserve recognition or reward for writing code, yet he paradoxically wants to be recognized for his contributions by having Linux renamed "GNU/Linux". (look for "artisan" on the GNU philosophy pages if you don't know what I'm talking about)
ESR has several business models on the opensource.org site, but very few of them make money for developers, only for tech-support, book and t-shirt sellers.
I'm still waiting for an example of a company that sells software, and only software, where all of the software is copyleft, and the company actually makes a profit. The FSF doesn't count, as it survives because of charitable donations, not sales.
Communism doesn't work (!?) (Score:1)
Excuse me? The Soviet Union didn't work, but only because it was not Communism - it was facism. The political organization that lead the SU was instituted after the revolution to implement a peaceful transition towards Communism. As it happened, the folks in power didn't want to give up and things stayed the way they were.
Communism has worked, time and again. Take note of the continued existence of Cuba - even in spite of teh fact that the worlds most powerful country has employed embargoes and attempted assasinations the country continues to hum along quite nicely. You can say what you like about their human rights record, but it is a working Communism.
If you don't like that, try China. The point I'm trying to make is that irregardless of the propaganda you have been fed since your birth, Communism isn't evil, it can work and it is what typifies Free Software, even if RMS is too smart to mention the "C" word in the US.
Oh, come now! (Score:1)
The reason English use is on the increase while French (and, indeed most other languages) are on the decline is because of the whole "global village" thing. English has become the de facto standard for international trade communication. This is largely because of the many, many nations left in the wake of the British Empire (including, most importantly, the US).
When it comes to "openness" German is a far more flexible language, but I don't see anyone recommending we all start speaking that because it is technically superior.
Wow! I thought you were serious for a second (Score:1)
Trying to get a rise out of a commie, eh? 'Fraid it won't work - first I'm not what I would call "a communist" and, second, what you've said is too shallow and small-minded to be really, conciously believed and defended by anyone. Nice try though
Your humour is more subtle... (Score:1)
Or how about "Communism just can't work because of human nature." Heh, heh.
please don't say cuba is a good example...they can trade with many nations - canada, eu etc.
Trade with other coutries may be the reason that Cuba is able to sustain itself (Hmm, I think I'm going to go down to the corner cigar shop and buy a Cuban cigar after this - or go buy some alcohol while 19 years of age - or go break a leg and get it fixed for free - sorry couldn't resist), but there's nothing in Communist philosophy that forbids external capitalism. As long as the internal goods are distributed equally (and in Cuba they are - everyone has very little. Even Castro) and the needs of the people are met then the country is a sucessful Communism.
Communism doesn't exist (Score:1)
Democratic communism? You're thinking about Socialism. There's nothing "democratic" about the communist political style - it is communally (COMMUNEism?) rather than individually based. What we view as oppression and rights infractions (from our individually-based democracy) is what the a communist would view as being the necessary imposition of the good of the community over the good of any one individual. I'm not saying this is better than our system (I still live in Canada, don't I?), but you have to understand that our entire point of view is coloured by the beliefs we've been raised with.
Communism doesn't exist (Score:1)
Not quite. A democracy is when each member makes an individual decision and the sum of these decisions (that is, the most popular ones) are imposed on the society as a whole. This is typified by the electoral process. A communism doesn't necessarily consult the society, the governing authority (be that a monarch or elected body - communism doesn't specify) makes decisions based on what it thinks is best for the people - not what people think is best for themselves.
Democracies are generally also typified by statements of rights for its members, while communes don't limit themselves to certain criteria when determining what is best for the society. If silencing silencing person x, the reasoning goes, is what is best for the people, then that person must be silenced. There are no individual rights, only societal ones.
OED != Academie Française (Score:1)
Fair enough, but there are enough profs out there who believe that if it's not in the OED, it's not English. That was a secondary point, however. English is where it is because the British Empire was the last big colonizer before the dawning of the "information age," not because it is any "better" particularly.
BTW, you know Tolkien worked on the OED?
No, but a friend of my family was a student of his at Oxford while he was writing the LOTR series. Apparently he almost always cancelled his lectures.
Problem (Score:1)
Proprietary software will exist for a long time, I'm sure. But it isn't that we have to convince you that it is bad (I don't think it is bad, btw), it is that there won't be much proprietary software around. You can try to make money by selling close source, but eventually nobody will listen because they know they can get better free software for whatever you want to create.
If you want all software to be free, explain how developers can make a living writing free software.
Once free software replaces most commercial software, developers will make money customizing software for companies. Does Amazon just buy Oracle and it works? Of course not, they have quite a few programmers and system administrators customizing it and adding on to it to do what they need. That is where we'll be making our money in the future. It isn't like we are going to find a limit to the things computers can do for us. Besides, it is going to take programmers to do the most interesting things.
RMS essentially requires that developers make only as much as sales clerks, and are funded with a software tax.
This isn't true for the reasons above. RMS and the GPL only make it difficult to sell software, but they make it possible to take existing free software and customize it to create a better solution for your client.
ESR has several business models on the opensource.org site, but very few of them make money for developers, only for tech-support, book and t-shirt sellers.
So, with the advent of free software, the idea of a shrink wrap software company might not be profitable any more? Probably. There are plenty of business models that have become unprofitable over the past hundred years, should we do something to avoid this or move on?
I'm still waiting for an example of a company that sells software, and only software, where all of the software is copyleft, and the company actually makes a profit.
You are never going to find an example. How could it possibly be profitable? I don't see why you think it should be. Step away from the idea that programmers can only make money by selling shrink wrap software - you have to in order to understand why people like me want all software to be free.
!!! (Score:1)
Sure, there are tons of clueless slashdot postings.
If the OS/FS movement is to maintain its much-vaunted freedom, we need political and historical sophistication and organization
Can you give us some reasons why? I'd like to hear some examples of how it will fail, especially with some of the historical and political context that you talk about. Is free software like any other movement?
You will not win against the closed-source types as individual designers, even very talented individual designers.
What does it mean to win? Hasn't Apache won the web server market with its 50%+ market share? Hasn't Linux/*BSD won in certain tasks such as web/ftp servers? Why won't these and other free software projects continue?
What kind of political organization do you propose? I'd love to hear details (I haven't read much of this essay yet...).
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth (Score:2)
When a multinational corporation sues you for violating some obscure, nonsensical patent in the free software you've created and you can't afford to legal fees to research the case, you'll be quite happy to have a group like this around to provide research and perhaps pro-bono assistance.
This group seems to have the same ulterior motives as those that write free software- to help to create a fair and free society. Although there are quite a lot of greedy, immoral lawyers out there, there are many who take up the legal profession in order to effect positive change in society. These advocates of freedom have been and will always be the front line of defense against big-business influenced legislation and litigation that restricts the freedom of individuals to share knowledge and do business amongst themselves. We would be an oligarchy if it weren't for these people.
As far as their claim to offer leadership, this is quite welcome. Leadership is not synonymous with dictatorship. A society can have many leaders. Leaders take an active role to clarify and promote viewpoints. Like free software, the best aspects of those viewpoints will be combined to result in a stronger, clearer message. We should welcome new leaders, as opposed to being xenophobic and spreading suspicion that they are 'out to get us'.
Mike
Government and Business should listen.. (Score:1)
Anyways, I wanted to note that this article was so long I had to print it to stop my eyes from straining to read it onscreen.
For those of you who have read this far what do you think of Nader's proposed 1-2% vendor tax on commercial software? I think that funding non-profit groups is a good idea but I am not for this idea. I pay enough taxes as it is, and those tax dollars (hopefully) do enough as it is.
I am more in favor of individuals freely giving $ to their favorite non-profit group that supports non-proprietary code works.
Meanwhile, the scientific community... (Score:1)
is moving in the exact opposite direction. Since more funding is being provided by private enterprise, it is becoming increasingly common for them to demand secrecy. Researchers are being confronted more and more frequently with the prospect of discovering something, only to have it kept under wraps by those who paid for the research. Peer review as we know it, may become a thing of the past. Unfortunately, for the world of scientific research, I'm not aware of a "free research" movement - and I seriously doubt there will ever be one.
heh. (Score:1)
We can't have such an important development as . . . open source . . . without having SOMEONE IN CHARGE.
True, but he just announced yesterday that he's not actually quitting -- he's just taking a vacation. Of course, that doesn't excuse your decision to discuss the issue in public rather than privately emailing those-who-are-in-charge.
:)
-j
"rich latencies"?!?!, "Communitarian Software" (Score:1)
. . . the rich latencies of this Internet-facilitated phenomenon may never develop if a new kind of networking leadership does not coalesce . .
Jesus Christ. It's actually a meaningful sentence, but once I've gone to the effort of parsing that kind of crap, I damn well expect it to evaluate to a thought that couldn't have been expressed in what people disingenuously call "plain english". Uhhh, heh heh heh . . . let's try that again:
What's with all the arglebargle?
Heh. Well, anyway, howzabout this for a notion: An advocacy group which sincerely tries to represent the community-of-many-names (free software, open source, open code, hackers, etc. ad nauseam) rather than just representing itself. Nah. It'd never fly.
Here's another thought: Anybody want to call it "Communitarian Software"? It weasels around the speech-vs.-beer problem, yet it still puts the emphasis where it belongs.
-j
You're right, ha ha (Score:1)
The only problem with "Communist" is that it's wildly innacurate. Other than that, it's okay.
:)
-j
OED != Academie Française (Score:1)
The OED is descriptive, not prescriptive. Nothing goes in the OED but what they've got at least one citation from common usage. Well, usage in print, anyway. Common spoken language is so damn friable (or ephemeral, or vaporous, or whatever -- I'm sleepy) that it's just not practical to worry about it.
The OED is a vast snapshot of an eternally moving target. They are not now, and have never been, in the business of defining the language -- and rightly so. Or "rightly not", or whatever. You know what I mean
-j
Thick, rich, chocolatey latencies! (Score:1)
If "free" is a problem, why not "freed software"? (As in "freed from restrictions.")
Well, you said it right there: If you have to explain it to somebody with a stupid nick on Slashdot (me), it ain't gonna play in Peoria.
Also, "freed from restrictions" could easily be misinterpreted as cracked/"liberated from copy protection", um, you know what I mean? There's enough confusion already.
The more I think about "communitarian", the more I like it. "Free software" requires a manual; "open source" leaves out too much; "open code" is gibberish -- but "communitarian" describes the part we all agree on. I really dig it. Too bad nobody will ever use it but me.
-j
This tedious troll gets a score of 3?! (Score:1)
Jesus christ.
Okay, if it had never been said before, I could see a high score for it; but it's been said again and again and again. Not only that, but it's usually been said a lot more coherently and persuasively than this. A smug toddler telling us all how the world works is not, like, you know . . . big news on Slashdot, is it?
Oh, well.
-j
Harvard Smoothies = Valuable Anti-FUD Commandos (Score:1)
Consider how many people think that since Bill Gates is the richest, ipso facto he's the smartest. Consider how politicians have less time to learn about the world as they spend more time trolling for money. This is not exactly a level playing field for the contest between free and proprietary software. Just as Gates was late to wake up to the possibilities of the internet, he is only now waking up to the possibilitiies of buying political power and (through philanthropy) public goodwill. And he's likely to be more successful at that than at commandeering the internet. Wouldn't it be wise for us to cultivate some countervailing power?
These Harvard Smoothies are more thoughtful than your typical Ultra-Suit captain of industry. Microsoft is not the first monopoly they've dealt with. Professor Lessig did a lot of work with the government's prosecutors to get them up to speed for the current antitrust case. As every Slashdot-reading tech-head knows, non-programmers just don't appreciate how much one needs to know to write good code. But it's easy for US to underestimate what's required to successfully battle the efforts of the corporate powers to lock-in their profitable third-rate technology. The main weapons of our non-scientific allies are LANGUAGE and STRATEGY. They may appear simple, but in fact expertise is important:
EXAMPLE: Despite all the repitition, has Bill Gates pursuaded YOU that Microsoft is a the major source of innovation in software?
EXAMPLE: Does the phrase "Open Source" assure us that our contributions to some project will not be usurped by some proprietary entity?
EXAMPLE: Does something about Richard Stallman sometimes distract people from his message about freedom?
EXAMPLE: Does a "free market" guarantee that you're free to buy quality stuff?
EXAMPLE: Is there anything worse than "government regulation"?
Now think about Brollier's manifesto. He describes himself as a journalist. What other journalist has done this much homework about the Free Software movement? True, the writing gets narcissisticly postmodern in a few places, but it's clear that this H20 group already has lots of clues. The academic computer science departments are swamps heavily infected by Unix; H20 sees how Microsoft is using donations to drain the swamps. H20 is thinking about ways to financially support free software projects. If the various lawsuits against Microsoft gain sufficient momentum that Gates fears a stock price devaluation, he might have some more spasms of philanthropy. This think tank probably has some better ideas than giving NT to schools as a tax write-off. And the abandoned-program orphanage could help a lot of people.
We're naive if we think that Big Business will operate in our interests if only the government stay out of the way. Their lobbyists are virtuosi. Look how the cable TV industry got its prices deregulated, yet they still haven't installed fiber optics. Look at the insurance industry. Look at the medical-industrial complex. We need effective lobbying on our side. (There are occasional successes. For example, the unlikely Senate team of Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch kept the vitamin supplement manufacturers largely free from oppressive FDA regulation pushed by the pharmaceutical industry).
The software part of the Free Software movement operates robustly with its process of anarchic evolution. No think tank can throw that off-course. But it's pure libertarian fantasy to think that unrestrained corporate oligopolies will give us what we need. We need contervailing power; and that includes the government; and the government, too, can be used against us (e.g.: CDA) if we don't deploy the best available expertise, both in lobbying and public relations. This H20 thing means Linus- and RMS-quality lawyers and propagandists working for us, not against us. How often do you see that? As for me, I think it's about time!
"NO to H2O" here, here! (Score:2)
Where does a Harvard academic body get off trying to set up a central authority over OSS?? Once you set up a regulatory committee to versee a bazaar, it ceases to be a bazaar and becomes a strip mall.
It sounds like a case of envy directed at the Regents of UC Berkeley, the MIT Athena project, and the X Consortium. All great and beneficial committee driven endeavors, but very commercialized.
The greatest strength and key to the sucess of OSS, has been it's independence from an opinionated and bribable ruling body. Yes, we have our focal-points, our heroes and the leaders we rally around, but we can tell them they're full of bull when they are. You just can't do that with a board of directors, who set priorities on certain projcts by mentioning them in the monthly newsletter, who receive grant money from corporate entities, and who seek personal prestige as a group.
Free Source software should stay the same as it is. An organic, semi-chaotic, self-correcting distributed development effort. And anyone who stakes claim or grabs for credit should be shown the door.
What is all this hubbub about then? (Score:1)
that they can use, and therefore, since money
drives innovation, commerical software will win
out over free software.
First of all, what's stopping a user of a free
software product from *PAYING* the developer to
add a feature that she wants?
Nothing, except knowing what feature that it is
that she wants (which is actually pretty difficult
when its something truly new and innovative. But
in that case, I feel that a group of free software
developers is just as likely to happen upon a
"neat" innovation as a group of commercial ones).
While some people feel that development should be
purely to "scratch an itch", I personally see
nothing wrong for asking for a fee to add a
particular feature for a particular customer that
wants that feature.
The emphasis here is on the act of developing that
feature in the code base...I personally think that
the developer should subsequently include it in
all distributions free of charge, since it takes
no effort to include the feature, only to add it.
(And of course, the GPL pratically ensures that
any sane developer will include the added feature,
since even if they did charge for "adding" it to
other releases, there's nothing to stop the
original customer who requested the feature from
giving their source with the change away)
There's no inherent reason that commercial
software should be more likely than free software
to blaze the path of customer usefulness, and
in fact in many cases it hasn't. Don't believe
me? Then why is Linux gaining marketshare...
it isn't *all* media hype.
The movement is just starting to get a lot of
media attention...everything we consider to be
"common sense" rules of economics may be changing
in the next few years. We'll see.
-Felix Klock
It's about *policy* (Score:2)
And I think the agenda highlighted for H2O is dead-on.
There's a real question today about the breadth of solutions that can be developed in the open-source model as it currently exists. Can "niche" products attract the developer base that they need to leverage the benefits of the bazaar? This is still unproven, I think.
The folks at Harvard that are involved with this are serious heavyweights when it comes to public policy analysis and lobbying strategy. It behooves the community (IMHO) to think about the issues here sooner than later. Some of us aren't fans of our local or national governments, but it surely must be better for the Government to think that open-source is a Good Thing than that it's a Bad Thing.
The promise of convincing governments of this (obviously, USA-centric at first) is the goal of the organization, and I think it's a worth one.
-- Eric
Another NonProfit Organization? Yeah, why not. (Score:1)
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
Another NonProfit Organization? (Score:1)
don't get it, do they.
Another NonProfit Organization? (Score:1)
I would be highly suprised if anyone connected with H20 has contributed so much as a single line of code to an open source project. Do they then have the right to have any say in the direction of open source/free software? I would say not. Members of the GNU project, yes. Members of the OSS yes. These wannabe johnny-come-latelies? Hell no. Where were they when the work was being done?
phbbbt!
Come on, guys! (Score:1)
Enough already.
Hasnt he heard of Debian? (Score:1)
Underlying assumptions (Score:1)
>Open code software faces some formidable
>challenges if it is to grow and become a broader
>consumer phenomenon
This proposition is at the base of the whole essay, and is often mentioned in
More importantly than this admittedly selfish viewpoint is the problem of what might have to happen to "Free Software" in order to be able to "succeed" in the "free market." Already this essay wishes to develop a "brand name" for OS projects because they think that "consumers" can only identify with brand names. I agree. However, I believe that instead of dumbing down free-software to create more passive consumers of technology we should be using this as an educative opportunity. People should be learning. They should be contributing. They should be enjoying.
The alternative is being herded like dumb sheep by newspeak Harvard intellectuals. In one breath they sing the liberatory praises of "Open Code" (TM yet?) and on the other they start organizing their presidency of the already-quite-nicely-functioning-without-you community.
I humbly submit that if they really want to help then they should start writing out some large endowment checks to the FSF to help with the inevitable law-suits that are going to happen.
I also disagree with several substantive points in this piece:
1.Among the barriers it faces are the lack of popularly accessible documentation and technical support;
If the HOW-TOs are not popularly accessible then I don't know what is. Failing that one could buy some of the dreaded O'Reilly books which are quite excellent on many subjects.
2. the lack of a clear, well-known brand identity and marketing support;
Linux(TM) anyone?
3.a susceptibility to code-forking that can vitiate the development process;
Contrary to their definition of code-forking (they equate it with proprietary sequestration) it is a natural and sometimes useful result of open development. If a sufficient number of people think that the development of the project is mis-directed they can head off on their own. The best resulting code will win - this is the Bazaar!!!!
I agree that there should be consideration given to where we are going, what our goals are, how to acheive them etc. I take the point that many movements have failed in the past and many communities have been squashed because they were less organized and self-aware than outside forces, I agree that there needs to be a certain amount of cohesiveness about central goals. I
I don't agree that we need Harvard Law School to do this for us. I don't agree that the goal of the Free Software movement should be creation of consumers.
agreement, but qualified (Score:1)
"Open Code" (Score:1)
I checked with InterNIC, and I can get
sourceopen.org
sourceopen.com
sourceopen.net
Bow down before me, I am the leader of the SourceOpen movement. SourceOpen is the future, but only under my wise leadership, otherwise it will splinter and fail.
mrlefty
PS - As far as the whole brand identity is concerned, Tux should feel slighted for being overlooked in this paper.
Competition is good (Score:1)
Competition in all arenas is good. In this case you will have various organizations to compare against and as time rolls on and they face various tests and challenges only the well organized groups with a clear mission and realistic goals will survive.
We'll have to wait for the results (Score:1)
Damn, it's hard to start a good flame war these days. };->
We'll have to wait for the results (Score:2)
"Hey, bazaar! You really, really, really, NEED a cathedral. If you don't have one, none of the other cathedrals will take you seriously. And WE'RE just the people to build it for you!"
We're gonna hear a LOT of this in the near future. And I think it's important to let people know that not only do we NOT need it, but we've got a better way of doing things.
BTW I have it on good authority that Alan Cox is actually a group of at least 15 people who go by that name. But don't tell anyone.
We don't need no steenkin' bureaucracies. (Score:3)
Yet, as with the Internet when it first came to the attention of the prevailing pop culture, there is a terrible fear that NO ONE IS IN CHARGE HERE. We can't have such an important development as the Internet (and now open source) without having SOMEONE IN CHARGE. Some large, bureaucratically organized group of people who know more than we do to guide, direct, and take control of this terrifyingly chaotic environment.
Bull. We're gonna see a LOT of these newbie-come-latelies trying to jump on to the latest hot thing bandwagon offering to provide leadership and guidance that WE DON'T NEED.
Just say no to H20.
Hmmm... Arsenic under the Sugar (Score:1)
For instance: Without losing the moral legitimacy and political strength of its grassroots base, the new software movement needs to evolve new governance/leadership structures to deliberate and advance its interests, strikes me as "you guys aren't good enough to figure out what to do next". Which begs the question, who? And judging from the title, I'd say he intends the H20 project to do it.
Ideally, there are certification tests to assure that an open technology actually meets the specifications. What the heck? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the collective debugging of open source natural assure following spec?
Oh and this one: Brand names are a form of cultural credibility. If so, tell me what is the brand of the scientific method? SciMod? I think not. Brand names are fine for physical manifestations, but are silly for information, much like patents.
And what's with who's supporting H20? They're not programmers, techies, scientists, or even education professors. They're lawyers!!! H20 is backed by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center on Internet & Society. Yes, it's very nice to help out with Open Code, but I do not understand why lawyers would do this. Is there an alterior motive here?
However despite his claims and doubts, I believe that Open Code (IMHO this name is worth keeping) doesn't have to worry about most of the problem he sees. Rather, he's preaching to the greenhorns the joys of Open Code laced with arsenic and making him sound like an idiot to those who survive the damn wordy prose.
I ain't drinking what they're selling.
Linux? GNU/Linux? (Score:1)
Very well written. Very bad news. (Score:1)
English is from the bazaar. French is from the cathedral. The parallel is exact: there is a "cathedral" in France called the Academie Francaise and it is responsible for how the French language operates. And French is dying (I take no pleasure in this; I say that because things are changing faster than the structure can follow). In contrast, English lives in the open and anyone can coin a word or phrase. The only criterion for adoption is usability. And surprise, surprise - English is vibrant and its user base is increasing.
And it got there with no help from a tweedy clutter of barf-mats offering "leadership".
Influence peddling (Score:4)
Not that I think the article is without merits. Oh no, it struck the head with the nail on many a point. The lack of future feature insight, our chaotic nature of development (benefits and penalties), the potential traps of "almost-open" licenses......none of which is exactly new news, but is here treated in a competent and clear cut overview.
Actually, of all of the ideas presented by this paper, only one really jumped out and grabbed me by the jugular. The creation of a repository for all once proprietary and now discarded software, which is growing almost as fast as the internet.
"Popular programs such as Sidekick, Xtree, EchoPro and soon, it is predicted, Eudora, are being thrown on the dustbin, forcing satisfied users to buy new software. H20 proposes becoming a standing repository for these programs by becoming the legal owner of the source code and, where possible, helping interested user groups to organize themselves to sustain legacy products."
Again, I think this is a great idea, and one that I feel could even be feasible(Hell, I'd LOVE to see this happening). However, to add this on top of the shaky pyramid of power that H2O is trying to build is overkill. "Not only do we want to influence you, but we want to posess all you used to hold near and dear." Say yes to legacy apps, but I'd have to say no to H2O.
We don't need no steenkin' bureaucracies. (Score:1)
Just say "whoa" to the status quo.
Communism doesn't exist (Score:1)
It's important to note that the true splits are democracy/dictatorship and capitalism/communism; US propaganda from the cold war days commonly redefined communism as the opposite of democracy (innacurate but fair, because none of the countries which flew the flag of communism were democratic). Nobody knows how a large democratic communism would work because we've never seen one. Communism relies on central control to allocate resources, and naturally evolves into a fascist state if it reaches a certain size.
Communism isn't evil, just unworkable at large scales. I've heard of moderate successes at small scales.
communism, academia, whatever (Score:3)
OpenSource is not crumbling, it's just getting so big that consensus is taking more work (or just not happening). More useful work is being done, it's just being done a little less efficiently with more duplication of effort. Arguments are no sign of decay; the FreeBSD/Linux split, for example, hasn't destroyed the free software movement. A certain amount of duplication of effort makes the system more robust: if Linus had just decided to wait for the HURD kernel, we wouldn't have Linux today, and probably wouldn't have such a well-developed platform for the GNU (and other copylefted) tools.
I don't believe OpenSource is the answer for all software development, but I believe it will coexist well in the future with commercial development, in the same manner that scientific research coexists well with commercial engineering projects. We're still just learning how to divide up the work.
okay i can't resist... (Score:1)
whine all you wantabout the u.s. and the evil capitalist system and yes it is extremely vicious but some form of regulated market economics combined with state control of certain areas of society is the best model we have yet. please don't say cuba is a good example...they can trade with many nations - canada, eu etc. despite the us embargo but the inefficiency of their current system is just plain to see.
i am not some ayn rand junky, just a realist. people work hardest when they have something at stake. that's why almost every nation is now capitalist to some degree.
Mr. Gross, you understand the "real" world (Score:1)
Until you do, you lack the necessary knowledge and experience to make accurate judgements. I have been both in academic and commercial software. I have contributed to open source projects. I have seen both sides. Open source is needed to maintain standards and provide the basics, but it will never be cutting edge. It will always be the commercial software that blazes the path.
If you have ever worked on a commercial product you will know that customers only care about ONE thing, "Can I do my work with it?" They don't care what the code looks like. They don't care if the underlying architecture is genius. They only care about its usefulness.
This is just like how you don't care what the internal design of your microwave oven is. All you care about is whether or not it will heat your lunch noodles.
Given a choice between a free product that is well coded but lacks more powerful features, and commercial product that has sloppy code but has the tools that they need, most business will choose to pay for the commercial product. Why? They don't care about the code. They care about what it can do for them, and sometimes the cost of the commercial product is worth the features that they get.
And the money, well that drives compition and innovation.
- Darrick Brown
And now the fun begins (Score:1)
It is important to consider where they are coming from -- they are on the side of the public, the users. In the area of public policy, Harvard (or Yale) should have significant expertise. They do seem to have a good grasp of the issues, much more than this poor head of mine. It *is* complex, like macroeconomics compared to microeconomics.
Good programs are beautiful, to programmers.
Good public policy is beautiful, to politicians.
I, for one, wish them luck.
Ulterior motive. (Score:1)
> Brand names are a form of cultural credibility. If so, tell me what is the brand of the scientific method?
The credentials, reputation, etc. of who proclaims the "science".
"rich latencies"?!?!, "Communitarian Software" (Score:1)
You ain't seen nuttin yet. And if it gets screwed up, you won't even suspect what you're missing.
>An advocacy group which sincerely tries to represent the community-of-many-names.
They are more advocating and representing the lUsers (ie public) than the hackers.
>"Communitarian Software"
Right on. BTW, this article is aimed at Harvard, the next generation of CEOs, Congressmen, Senators, etc.
Re: Problem (Score:1)
ESR has several business models on the nsource.org site, but very few of them make money or developers, only for tech-support, book and t-shirt sellers.
I presume that both RMS and ESR are compensated by somebody for something? And, if so, their high profiles might elevate such compensation? Just curious as to whether they benefit economically from evangelizing.
This is an important paper (Score:2)
Without a PR arm, we don't have a chance of changing the social constructs that make the proprietary "hate-thy-neighbor" software industry _possible_. Without a legal arm, we're not capable of protecting our own or anyone else's intellectual property from misappropriation, from software patents or outright theft. Without a research arm, we lack the ability to track, critique, and eventually shape computing trends to as great an extent. Without a marketing arm, the ONLY thing we have to go on is quality, and though we might like to believe that rational people will choose systems and components based on quality, all you need to do is look at history (or, for that matter, the present) for a good slap in the face and wakeup call.
There's no point in settling for free beer when you can have a Renaissance. (The author mentions this at the end of the paper, by the way.)
-jhp
(cypherhippy)
One of the fellows of the Berkman center is... (Score:1)
His essay from early 1994, The Economy of Ideas [wired.com] is still strong stuff and definitly relevant for the discussion about free/open source/code. If you haven't read it you should....