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Red Hat Claims They Started The Open Source Revolution
thrillbert writes: "According to this article, Red Hat is claiming to be the starter of the open-source movement." The article talks about several companies in the area (include the one that owns this site). I don't have the heart to comment on this. I can't say I'm surprised, but I'd tend to think a lot of others might deserve more credit. RMS (sure he'd hate the term Open Source, but he deserves credit). ESR will just take the credit.(Update:Its a joke! I was kidding! Stop flaming!) But Linus isn't even mentioned. I mean, Michael Tiemann and Red Hat deserve lots of credit for helping make Linux mainstream, but starting it?
We've both contributed. That's good enough for us -- and I'm quite willing to believe that his quote was truncated or mangled worse than mine.
>>esr>>
They only quoted seven words from Tiemann:
"We did start the open-source revolution"
I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it might have been taken out of context. Nowhere does it say that "we" == Red Hat, or that they didn't say "We did start the open-source revolution as far as big business is concerned," or anything else.
Seems a little presumptuous to base an entire article on seven words. How about some context?
(Of course, that said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Red Hat were getting a big head.)
To See A Naked Lady, Turn To Page 57. So began the first Open Source program I ever encountered. It was in a text book... probably in the 2nd grade. Granted, it was not well structured (usually it was just a series of GOTO statements) and practicly never executed properly.
However, it had many of the features of a modern Internet based Open Source project. First, it was collaboratively developed, as each new boy picked up on the idea and added additional features. Secondly, its primary purpose was to excite the curiousities of young boys, often in the direction of pr0n--much like the modern internet. Finally, it was frowned upon by the establishment and viewed as a threat to copyrighted material. There were even fines and punishments involved.
I saw this in the early 70s, but I suspect the practice predates me by many years. It probably predates RMS, ESR, and all the other 3-initial guys too.
The serious point here, if any, is that in order to find the first Open Source program, you must first define "program".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It may be that he meant 'we' as in himself (he -- Michael -- definately gets more credit from me than ESR does) and those individuals he has worked with throughout the years.
Feel free to ignore me if the exact quote (which I couldn't find in context) implies that RED HAT is truly the fountainhead of the Open Source movement.
Open Source is just a veiled term for communism. The Open Source advocates are mostly closet communists who enjoy writing propaganda. Red Had is a symbol of Red Russia, or the Mother Volga, both symbols of communism. Notice that if you turn your head sideways, the redhat logo looks like the sickle of the Communist Russian flag. This is not a coincidence to say the least. ESR is a proud supporter of the USCP and RMS is right behind him (in more ways than one). I feel that people should write software, release it, and if someone uses it in a way you don't like, you should kick their ass. Not go and get a lawyer kick their ass, but physically track them down and fight, even to death. This is the method of software licensing called Fighting Source, it has been successful for several products recently, but I don't know their names because I'd get my ass beat for mentioning them.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Damn, people! At least get your history straight if you're going to comment.
Michael Tiemann was one of the founding members of Cygnus. In case you've forgotten, Cygnus is the company that took gcc from being a second-rate compiler for a small number of architectures and turned it into a world-class system that is the standard for embedded systems development.
If anyone deserves to claim to have started the open-source movement, it's Cygnus. They're the ones who demonstrated that you could pay the bills while giving the source code away.
daniel
All I needed to know in life I learned from
"Cygnus (Michael's company before Red Hat bought it) has a claim to have started the open-source revolution; so does Richard Stallman, and for that matter so do I. It all depends on what moment in the unfolding process you want to pick as "start", like designating the year zero on your calendar."
My point, of course, was that trying to pin down a single start of the movement would be foolish and false to history.
>>esr>>
Actually, RMS will be the first to tell you that he had nothing to do with the Open Source movement; he's staunchly behind the Free Software movement.
Of course, a lot of this is semantics, definitions, smoke and marketing anyhow.
Red Hat was probably one of the first "Open Source" companies that both used the words in their marketing material *and* fit the bill in real life.
Personally, I'd have to credit ESR as chief Open Source advocate, and Bruce Perens for the DFSG.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Out of the 7 words quoted (and who knows how many ... were dropped out.) it should be noted that we is not defined. Mr Tiemann helped start Cygnus which in the late 80's started selling Free/Open source software way way before anyone else was.
Cygnus showed that OpenSource (or as those offices say rightly Free Software) could be commercially viable and profitable when people said that Stallman was a Communist quack with delusions of being Marx.
That part of the company is quite proud of that fact and rightly so. Red Hat (OS development) came much later in the game... and i dont know of anyone around Red Hat who would say otherwise.
Must be a slow week and time for sensationalism sells (CNET that is).
Ask many other people (RMS, ERS, Bruce Perens,Linus, etc) of how many times they have been quoted out of context and then used in a news article to make up/enhance rivalry. Bleach
-- SJS smooge at smoogespace dot com
I wish that the issue that we focus on is not who deserves "credit" for the open source movement but on improving it and working towards it. Sure, we could spend our days arguing about who is Mr. Open Source or drooling over our god Linus, but none of that is productive. If you really care about the open source movement, then go code something fantastic and open its source - don't sit around bickering about who deserves credit for what.
Every time a software company (and let's not forget that is what Red Hat is) is successful, zealots (like some of you) start bitching and whining about it when they take a little credit for it. You sit there and say, "Ya know, the last two versions really did start to kind of suck. RH is turning into Microsoft. I'm gonna use Debian from now on. Blah, Blah, Blah."
Red Hat was the first distribution that was really marketed to the general public. It was the first exposure to Linux I and my friends had and that was because we saw it sitting on the shelf at an electronics store three or four years ago. It was this kind of marketing that put Red Hat (and Linux) out there. That is how you become successful; you put what you have out there for sale. If it weren't for this kind of marketing, Linux would not be as far as it is today.
Just a summer ago, everyone here was sporting their collective woodies over Red Hat's IPO and everyone jumped on board singing the RH song. RH in turn supplied its own resources and money into making Linux and the tools that came with the kernel better. Granted, the tools they made were in their own distribution, but it's not like you couldn't get those very tools for free from any ftp site. Now, because they've been so successful and are taking the credit for it, some of you are shunning them.
Face it, folks. Red Hat is in it for the good of the community, but they also know that there is money to be had. Who would've thought a company could get rich from selling free software? Red Hat brought to Linux something that it needed to really get off of the ground: a brand. Brands bring with it success. If success comes at the price of the masses turning against you, then why would any distribution want to be successful? Some of you should really be ashamed of yourselves.
IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
GOBACK.
Linus has done many wonderful things, but he actually has less claim on this mantle than Tiemann. Linus invented a kernel, not a business model or an ideology -- he supplied the movement's most important object lesson, but didn't invent the movement.
>>esr>>