Alan Cox Interview

cuvavu sent in a lengthy interview with Alan Cox. He talks about his responsibilities at Red Hat, Microsoft, the Linux Standard Base, etc.

Comments

Cox on governments adopting open source software

[Sudderth]

Governments should evaluate open source technologies certainly. The fact they get the source code and can audit it has been a reason for some countries to adopt open source, pricing is another. However, I don't think its right that government should have fixed rules beyond "fair review". There may be situations where proprietary software is genuinely the right choice.

This is a very pragmatic way to look at it. Obviously, moving government offices to (GNU/)Linux and KOffice or StarOffice would save taxpayer money in per-seat licenses. The costs of platform migration, service, and especially user training might eat up those savings, however. In addition, the public, which is under the Desktop Monopoly's thumb, would demand interoperability with government agencies. ("I'm sorry, I can't read your .doc file. Could you reformat it to take out this feature which StarOffice can't handle?" "It's a freaking Word document! How hard does it have to be for you to read it?!")

I also wonder about the unfair competition argument which MS and any other proprietary developer might raise. If governments mandate -- and contribute code to -- free software, is that government unlawfully competing with private enterprise? And even if it's lawful, is it politically feasible? Here in the U.S., folks would be skeptical if they felt like the U.S. government was setting up their own computing standard as a public monopoly in order to take down Microsoft.

The political considerations aren't limited to the perception that (pick a government or agency) is in Microsoft's pocket. It also raises questions about the government's role in steering the direction of technology, and whether government could usurp the roles of both software companies and free software developers in declaring standards.

probably because

[Ender Ryan]

He's probably changed his mind about desktop penetration because, while it's penetrated the desktop in a big way among geeks and highly computer literate people, it still hasn't become a mainstream desktop OS.

When it first started getting good recognition for being usable on the desktop, he probably thought it would take off. Unfortuneately, that hasn't happened yet for a number of reasons. That is mainly the result, I think, of the chicken and egg problem.

With increasing usage in servers by large business, and also for cool stuff like doing graphics rendering for big movie studios, hopefully it will steadily gain recognition and people will start using it.

I think first it needs more support from manufacturers. At least one of the big ones needs to push Linux in a big way and include a ton of apps, and it would probably help for it to be on a really slick iMAC-like PC.

Re:Cox on governments adopting open source softwar

[SirSlud]

> .. government unlawfully competing with private enterprise?

The real question is, what services are considered so basic as to deserve to be free of the shackles of private interests. Private interests are always directed at a profitable consumer base, not a consumer base with needs. I think, if you say that computing is going to be a fundamental part of your infrastructure (like, broadcasting, roads, etc), you have every right to prefer solutions that are free of private interest influences. Sure, it might cost more in training, migration, etc, but at least you arn't placing important services that your country relys on in the hands of so-and-so's markting plans. The justification is doubly so when the only (real) private-interest solution is doing everything in its power (and thats a lot of power, in MS's case) to minimize competition. The government has every right to say, "Look, if MS allowed competition, then sure, we'd favour domestic market stimulation over the costs associated with riding on the back of private interests. There are enough disperate private interests to garauntee long term viability of this buy-in should this investment fail or suddenly change horses." However, when you go with an MS infrastructure, you're placing all your eggs in one basket, thus giving you a vested interest in their success. In the governments situation, thats the very thing they should be free of. (Good example: Enron. In hiding the details and placing all their eggs in the Enron basket, old boys club notwithstanding, the government effectively screwed a fair number of its citizens in not 'tampering with the market'.) If anything, staying with MS software interferes with the market more than trying to knock MS down a few notches by preferring the only real cost effective alternative, free software.

If there were more than 2 truely viable commercial OS's, I'd say, who cares, but the government is really just doing the market a disservice by not placing a 'preferred' status with 'competitors' (even if said competitor is being forced to give away said software for free because of the barrier to entry of the market that the Intels and MSs have created).

Just my two cents. The whole blind-faith thing that the market works itself out is a successful sell on behalf of large companies. When you look at countries that have fostered the fastest growth in their economy, they've done it through government regulation and placing 'preferred' status' on solutions based on their long term benifit to the economy. It's not by bolstering up the champion of the market at the time the decisions are being made, which is why I think the government, for the sake of their citizens at large, should be going out of their way to not do MS any favours (and the way MS acts, leaving MS alone is a favour in itself.)