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Open Source Needs Leadership?
alessio writes: "At Webmonkey there is an article from Jay Greenspan which reports from Open Source Conference 2001, and I cannot agree with 99% of what he says. However, there is a point worth of discussion: do the Open Source/Free Software movement need a 'leadership' to better fight back new stuff from Redmond? His answer is yes, my would be no, but maybe it's not obvious."
To my mind, the more important leaders of the OS/Free movement are the leaders of headline projects. Linus Torvalds is the most obvious, but people like Miguel de Icaza are also important. It's these guys who actually provide a focus and a vision for the abundant supply of open source labour that would otherwise go to waste. They provide actual goals and actual directions for the community to follow, which results in getting something done. The philosophers like Stallman are important (and I realize they've contributed significantly on the practical side), but the ultimate goal of OSS is to produce software that people like and use, not write treatises. That's how we'll achieve Total World Domination.
To those who wish the community to go in a certain direction I would say: do what Torvalds and ESR (and the Mono guys) did (albeit somewhat unintentionally in Torvalds' case). Create the beginnings of a project that embodies your ideas and put it up for your peers to assess and maybe contribute to. And be prepared to take on the administrative duties (filtering, reviewing and applying patches mainly) that go with keeping the project going. It doesn't matter if it sucks or not, that's for others to decide. If it sucks, no one will contribute and the project will go nowhere, no harm done.
Your list is hardly a list of LEADERS. A list of oppertunists, yes. Leaders, no.
RMS comes the closest. He stays on target when he talks. Yet, the FSF had their spokesperson whine that *RMS was not invited to the Open Source conference*, yet RMS is the 1st to say "GNU/GPL is not Open Source". (if you are not Open Source, tell everyone that, THEN don:t get invited to an Open Source conference, your message is being heard and understood)
ESR spends his time promoting GNU/Linux, but when asked, he says "BSD deserves more press than it gets". Yet, ESR will not lift a finger to get BSD more press. But, hey, free trips to speak on GNU/Linux, why mess that up with being inclusive rather than exclusive eh?
Bruce Perens has a web page where he talks about how he is all for Open Source. Yet, when you read his works, all he does is talk about the GPL. In fact, he admits that he is "linux advocate". Again, so much for being inclusive.
Miguel de Icaza referes to the GNOME project and the MONO efforts as "Linux software". Yet, the main GNOME web page point out that it is Open Source, and runs on MANY platforms.....the software is not "Linux Software".
OSDN. It is not about Open Source as it is about Linux. Same goes for the Open Source development Lab (Yea, the one funded by Red Hat) Call it the Linux lab or the Lnux development network if you are unwilling to be inclusive.
Tim O`Reilly is a better leader for Open Source than the others. Mr. O`Reilly says Linux when he manes Linux, and when he says Open Source, he includes BSD/Artistic/X licensed software.
Unlike the "other" "leaders" who wrap themselfs up in a cape of "open source leader" because it gives them a soapbox to preach from. Or, puts some money in their pocket.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Open Source needs detail-oriented, small-time, painstaking *work*. Not vision, not tirades against the Evil Empire of Redmond, not manifestos. It needs a lot of people to sit down and clean things up. Small things, things that collectively annoy the user, but individually are too boring for an OSS developer to bother with.
That's how good software, how good *anything* gets done. The OSS way however, has been that for something to be refined, polished, it has to "scratch an itch", it has to annoy someone enough *and* have that someone be skilled or talented enough to go fix it him/herself.
How do you get people to work on minute trivial things that they normally donot care about? the one time-tested way is, well, to *pay* them to do it. Where do you get the money? well, you will probably need a corporate structure that will fund these developers and that will be able to stand on its own two feet.
In other words you need companies, companies like Active State, theKompany, Digital Creations (now Zope) and a few (very few) others. You need to let companies sell OSS without bitching all the time that they are ruining your free lunch. You need to let companies have pay-to-play versions that are ahead of the OSS one so that they can financially support development, QA and documentation. You need to have companies have non-GPL licenses on their products without going Homeini on them.
Preferrably all of the above do not involve flammage and mail-bombing and invocations of Rights and Freedom. Writing software is not Speech, it is *not* equivalent to expressing one's opinion on common matters ("politics", people call them). Writing software is hard, painful and mostly boring work, engineering work. It needs good design, a painstaking devotion to quality and most of all someone to be paying that budget.
What you people really need is to change the stereotypical image that most IT departments have of the Linux community.
Stop acting like children. Stop crying about everything Microsoft does (Hell even Sun has SOME restraint when it comes to that).
The Operating System market is NOT Cuba and Linus/RMS is NOT Fidel Castro. Until you learn the simple fact that you must show respect towards your competitors in order to be respected, you guys will always just be Fringe Fanatics.
Gam
"Flame at Will"
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
While Bill Gates may be the person that many of us love to hate, he is the icon of Microsoft, and puts a human face on an otherwise impersonal corporation. He just looks unassuming, and mild mannered... kind of a "geek next door" look.
If someone in the open source community were to step forward to become the poster boy and PR representative to counter the FUD that Gates distributes to the media, it would probably help immensely.
Of course, with a 20 in charisma, he's going to be rather hard to defeat.
Your reality is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. - Baron Munchausen
The fanatics however, who think politics instead of just sourcecode, need a leader, to 'fight' (haha, it's sourcecode, not a war) whatever they declare an enemy.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
It took me towo pages to find that OS did not stand for Operating Sytem (as it usually does) but for Open Source.
It would be nice if articles that describe Operating Systems and Open Source at the same time find it usefull to be a bit more clear about it.
In all other sciences it is custom to explain abbreviations in the text at least once.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
It's in the nature of the open source movement that there's no-one who can actually appoint leaders. But don't we already have de facto leaders? People like ESR, RMS, Perens, O'Reilly etc. who speak up for open source when there is some controversy? In fact, Jay Greenspan seems to acknowledge this in his article.
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You need leaders if you want to lead the market...
I think the issue of leadership that rises with open source project is often the lack of focus. People code what they feel is missing, or what they feel like coding. This means the devellopement follow a more organic and darwinist path, not a strategic one.
I don't think that the organic way is worse than the strategic way. While things might be less focuses, they also are not so easily distracted by fads. Sure people will add new skins and UI gimicks to programs, but those who believe their software should do this or that will simply not change ways because this or that is the fad.
I would say that the main issue nowadays with open source is simply political. Most people I know that program something open source do it because they feel it is missing, or they want to fiddle with the code or notion, or want a variant of this or that, or a doing research in universities. They have only a vague political vision - they certainly don't do it to overthrow microsoft - it might be a nice side effect, but it's not the main motivation - they do things for themselves.
But of course this does not fit with the dominant capitalism credo. And this psychology is not liked by the media: can't do headlines with people doing things in their corner because they feel like it. Real geeks don't go to discuss with the media, they code in the basement...
What happens is simply the corporations noticing that open source does not behave they way a corporation does, big surprise. So of course they think that if open-sources wants to take strategic positions in the market it should have strategic leadership...
Of course this premise is broken, because open-source is a good approach do build sturdy systems which might not make economical sense (at least for MS), most killer apps where first closed source. Eventually, an open-source contender came, but generally the original app was closed source. I don't think this will change tomorow, but then again I don't think this is tragical.
It's easy to convince people to code to get their PC and their hardware do this or that - to support a card, or to crash less, or to build a clone of this cool game, or to have a window manager like this system. It's another game to convince them to build a framework whose goal is not so clear...
Warning: Rant: The biggest problem with open source is user interface. I see plenty of programmers involved, but few UI experts, let alone serious usability testing. Until this happens, I'm sorry, but open source doesn't have a chance. Done mark me as a "traitor". I'm a big fan of the open source movement, but I'm also a programmer with 22 years in the field. The fact that most open source software is difficult for me to use is proof enough. Sorry, but that's the cold hard facts.
Open source doesnt need a leader. We already have a leader. OURSELVES. Open source lets ANY one of us become a leader, if, by ability and personality, we are capable of it. Why appoint anyone? The fluid leadership status of various projects gives those projects a far greater dynamic than a project where you are forced to work under someone, regardless of their suitability.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
I'm tired of the attitude that there's some kind of open source vs. closed source war going on, which is pushed by the popular media. There is not.
If there is a genuine need for something, or an interest in an open source version of some technology, then someone can build it. But don't make open source out to be some kind of single-minded mission. There are many many different kinds of people with different interests that happen to do open source work. To me, this is a bottom-up self organizing process, not anything that needs one leader or governing body and global strategies. That will never work! So what if there are ten .NET-like projects? So much the better I
think.
Hackers dislike authority. Welcome to anarchy, baby.
I think this antagonistic attitude is very destructive. The best stuff comes out of need and genuine interest in developing good software.
Fair competition is good, but rememember that the people developing closed source applications are people too before you pick up that gun! In fact, some of us do it as our day job.
-Kevin
.. was the object of open source to "fight back against Redmond"? Sure, if they create some new product that's a good idea, theres no reason not to implement our own open version. This happens all the time. But if Microsoft released "Inflatable Dartboard v1.0" I get the impression that some jerk would release a free version, just because they feel the need to compete with MS.
From my point of view, I just want tools to get the jobs done that I need to do. If those tools happen to be similar to something released by MS, then fine. If not, thats just fine too. In my opinion, some of the best free software is that which was created to fill a niche of its own, not to compete against MS.
"But now, as we move into the next phase of the Internet, it's time to pick one overall strategy and stick to it. If OS continues on its lovably factioned way, it risks losing its important role in the future of the Internet."
Here read: ".NET is coming out, should there be Linux support?". This article was not about leadership for Open Source, it's about supporting M$ technologies - and this arguement has already happened with all the other Ximian/Mono articles that came out before this one. ( = 'bandwagon' + 'missed')
"Can O'Reilly, Stallman, and others agree on one approach and convince others to follow it"
Short answer: 'no'. It being Open Source, some people may want to work on supporting stufflikethis(tm), other mights not - but there should never be anyone standing up and saying 'Open Source should/should not support this project, and any work done to provide this support is valid/invalid.'
At the end of the day, it's going to be a bigger audience than this who decides whether it was worthwhile or useful.
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I work at a consultancy that provides technology solutions, and from my experience, if you want people to actually use something, you need to do a lot more than just code it.
You need (among other things) an understanding of your users (this was covered in more detail here) and the way they think, a proper direction (no point doing stuff that no-one will use) and so on. Thought leadership may sound like verbal wankage, but if they get you in the news, get you addressing the right issues, get you more generally understood and recognised, then you're on to a winner.
Of course, if they try to take credit for it all, and then go ahead and make millions from their status as open-source movement leader, then you've either got to condemn them or think 'I wish I'd done that'...
Disclaimer : As i said, i work for a consultancy. Therefore most of what I say is bullshit. Oh well
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Who cares about this, for crying out loud? Such 'commentators' should matter little to the OS movement. I am sick and tired (and sick and tired) of hearing the same old arguments from the same old, tired hacks, who have to make a living somehow. The strength of the open source movement is it's variety and this very lack leadership that everybody so bemoans. The current set-up leads to an anarchic, chaotic, but often happy and innovative playground the open source used to sit quite happily, before we discovered the what the initials VC stood for. The reason OS works is because it moves fast and sometimes in unexpected directions. Innovations are always going to come from this kind of background, and thank goodness for that. The OS movement is a testing ground, and ultimately a killing ground for ideas that don't work. Where movement OS leads, commercial concerns follow. Let's keep that way. Not stultify it with this Western Obsession with top-down hierarchies. Celebrate diversity, not uniformity.
Choice is good, fragmentation is bad.
It sounds like you're saying: If KDE and Gnome both produce a desktop, that's wasted effort. But if Microsoft and Corel both produce an office suite, that's competition and choice for the user. I don't see how those two statements can be compatible.
The shareholder is always right.