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?

Comments

I think..

[g_mcbay]

The 'claims' may have been taken slightly out of context. Remember that Michael Tiemann comes from Cygnus, and before that he worked with FSF/GNU.

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.

Nobody made open source, we took it

[linuxonceleron]

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.

And the problem is?

[dgris]

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

They truncated my quotein an unhelpful way

[ESR]

What I actually said:

"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.

GNU and RMS

[pb]

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.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Remember Michael Tiemann helped start Cygnus

[smooge]

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

Credit

[at0m]

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.

dgris has a point -- it's why I didn't flame Tiema

[ESR]

dgris is correct; Tiemann's claim to have started the open-source movement is actually quite a strong one if you look at the history. That's why I was gentle with him in my response.

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.