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Perens Discredits Mundie's Attack On GPL
SaxMan101 writes "CNET has an editorial from Bruce Perens that quite handily dismantles Mundies attack on the GPL and the Liberty Alliance. He takes the time to make YA strong argument for free software which he backs up with real numbers. Well said, worth the read."
Perens is dismantling Mundies FUD in a calm, businesslike way. Let's hope that the debate on MS FUD stays this calm and reasonable
It's obvious that Mundie sees the world through Windows-colored glasses. Software must be sold to get the money to make more software. How else could a software company work? If you can't license it, you can't gouge^H^H^H^H^Hcollect your due earnings. Oh, and the whole thing about people not working with Microsoft...if that's not a monopolist talking I don't know what is.
Anyway, rant off now. It's good to see someone who can rationally tear down his arguement, and it's even better to see it on a fairly commonplace site like CNet. I think more and more people are realizing the snowjob Microsoft keeps trying to pull, and in the end that will be the thing that ends the monopoly.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
I'm not sure how the numbers balance out, but these concerns far outweigh the price of buying the software. If Mr. Perens is going to dip his toe in TCO waters, he'd be better be sure he can jump all the way in and not get himself drowned.
What's a sig?
The cost of IT personel/sys. admins. is going to be the same whether they are administering open-source or MS software. A business is going to pay only as much as it is willing for IT people, regardless of the software it's running.
In terms of company tech support, considering that MS charges what, $135/hr, you probably end up saving money on support costs as well by switching to OSS, though you prolly could have the same kind of savings switching to a different set of proprietary software as well.
my pet machine
I'm pleased to see such a good piece of anti-FUD work aimed at managers.
:
...
The articles explains clearly that the key point in GPL is
But this is not to say that the main benefit of Linux and other GPL software is lower-cost. Control is the main benefit--cost is secondary.
This quote is the most important : GPL gives you _control_ on the library you've choosen to link with your project. The library is not subject to stock prices or whatever non-IT reason. If you don't want the new features : don't upgrade, you don't like the new direction : fork the developement tree
Isn't open-source essentially a communist-notion? I'm not saying that would be a bad thing. But it seems that Microsoft is saying they should be able to make money selling operating systems, web services, etc: a capitalist argument. The open source argument is for everybody to put their resources in a single pot, and by polling resources a better product can be had for all: sounds like communism to me. That plan makes sense to me, but Americans do live in a capitalist society. If open-source is a communist notion, can the United States really stand against the capitalists? Communism doesn't seem to work for governments, largely because of corruption (- obviously open to argument). Does the abstract nature of software and it's ability to be copied indefinitely eliminate the flaws that made communism fail as a mode of government for countries? Is there any point where the usefulness of open-source software ends and the market for commercial software begins? Or would commercial software be obsolete in the presence of the "new world order"?
Perens calls open source "a crown jewel of capitalism." That may be true, but open source is a crown jewel of freedom. And freedom is the bottom line here. Make no mistake about that.
Who is the GPL bad for ?
I'd add at least the following to your list:
3. Those who would like to use code, are entirely willing to give credit where credit is due, but haven't decided yet if they want to (or, legally, are allowed to) release their own code.
4. Anyone who wants to see open standards. It was only the existance of free-for-any-use code which lead to the global use of TCP/IP -- back when every company had their own proprietary network protocols, the only reason they added TCP/IP support in was because they could do so (almost) for free.
5. Anyone who wants commercial software companies to release their source code. Companies which operate by selling software are never going to GPL their code; they might, on the other hand, release it under a less restrictive license which would allow them to incorporate improvements back into their own codebase.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
The most paradoxical comment within this letter is this:
In other words, he think that the way to protect his intellectual property is to ask that it be illegal for others to give away their intellectual property. And this isn't too much to ask. Scary thought.He also seems to give the RIAA implicit control over all music, but that's another flame war.
He (mundie) said: "Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative."
Words of monopolistic wisdom, from the horses mouth.
Ra7
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"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
Commerce has thrived in a "commons" since the first public squares were constructed, and the GPL's share-and-share-alike system creates a commons for software.
GPL software would not be classified as a "commons" good, but rather as a "pure public" good. The term commons refers to goods that are non-excludable, but are rivalrous in consumption. GPL software is not only non-excludable, but also non-rivalrous in consumption. My use of a particular piece of GPL software does not diminish your ability to use it, or raise its price (it may even lower it!). Commons are, to economists, one of the WORST ways to allocate goods. Refer to Garrett Hardin's classic paper "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968). Hurray for pure public goods!
What Mundie doesn't understand (or chooses to ignore) is how wealth is created. Simply passing wealth back and forth between companies doesn't create wealth. Paying taxes doesn't create wealth. Government spending doesn't create wealth.
:-)
Wealth is created by increasing efficiency. If I pay you $10/hour to build widgets worth $3 a piece, and you can build 4 widgets per hour, then I make $2/hour profit. If you figure out how to increase you efficiency and make 6 widgets per hour instead of 4, my profit has now increased to $8/hour. This can then be reflected in increased wages for you, fewer work hours, or a cheaper product. Regardless, net wealth of the economy has been increased, since more output is produced from the same input.
Where does the GPL work into this? Because one GPL application has effectively infinite supply, it drastically reduces input costs of production and therefore leads to a very high net increase in the entire economy's wealth. Commercial software necessarily leads to less wealth increase, because it has an artificial cost added to increase the producer's personal wealth at the cost of the whole economy's net wealth.
Mundie's argument is that the artificial cost is necessary for software to get produced, because there will otherwise be no incentive for the producers to produce software. The thing he ignores, though, is that obviously the software does get produced. If OS software gets produced, then it is out there. It has increased the net wealth of the economy. That increase will never go away (unlike the commercial company, which could go out of business). If OS is not enough incentive for the software to get produced, or OS doesn't lead to a solution that is sufficient, then the demand for a commercial version will be high enough that commercial development will be supportable. There is room for both.
Microsoft, of course, is just beginning to realize that the software they make is quite compatible with OS development, and there is no way they can compete with the efficiency of an OS product. Therefore, Mundie is arguing that we will all be better off if the economy's net wealth is held down in favor of MS's personal wealth gain. I just don't buy it
On the other hand, he's absolutely right that there may not be as high a demand for software developers in the future. So what. So, a few programmers may have to change careers. They're smart people (and yes, I am one), and shouldn't have too much of a problem finding work. Yes, it sucks for a few, but where would we be today if we always held back progress in favor of old, established industries. Not to be cliche, but I'm sure the development of the automobile sucked for the buggy whip manufacturers, too. Personally, I'll risk my long term personal stability for the chance of great wealth increases for both myself and the economy as a whole.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
I have to disagree.
"3. Those who would like to use code, are entirely willing to give credit where credit is due, but haven't decided yet if they want to (or, legally, are allowed to) release their own code"
Once again, write your own code, I have contibuted to GPL and NON GPL projects, I have had my code stripped and moved to proprietary products. Im not game here, if you want it to be yours, write it yourself, I no longer submit code to any BSD project, just for this reason, this goes to my second point to the letter.
"4. Anyone who wants to see open standards. It was only the existance of free-for-any-use code which lead to the global use of TCP/IP -- back when every company had their own proprietary network protocols, the only reason they added TCP/IP support in was because they could do so (almost) for free."
The GPL is not meant for the setting of standads, it was meant to provide commercial alternative, supported and developed by a group for public use.
"5. Anyone who wants commercial software companies to release their source code. Companies which operate by selling software are never going to GPL their code; they might, on the other hand, release it under a less restrictive license which would allow them to incorporate improvements back into their own codebase"
Thats fine, let them release it under ANY licence THEY want, its their code. Noone is under ANY obligation to release anything. Ive coded stuff that I wouldnt give to god or country, and things Ive done for companies I couldnt even if I wanted to. CHOICE is what its all about do what you want with what you own, but at the same time dont try to dictate terms about something you dont, (dont take this the wrong way, Im not talking about you)
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
I don't think that's what Perens meant. Recouped costs aren't going toward "paying for" GPL software, they are going back into the company's general budget. I can't even guess at how much money we save annually at my workplace by running Linux on all our servers. That money goes into marketing and product development (e.g. it pays my salary).
Even if Microsoft manages to make as much money on services as they do now on selling software, they'll have to increase their workforce to provide the services as well as create the SW that runs it. Which means it'll be a lot less profitable. For Microsoft, this may not be a problem, but lots of smaller software houses will be up shit creek.
I'm not sure I understand. Don't most businesses deal with this already? To continue using my workplace as an example, we've been growing our customer base at an astonishing rate, putting out new products nearly every year, and we still only have four tech support people (one of which just hired). Over time we've become more and more a "services" company and indeed it is our goal to move completely away from software sales and into services. This isn't an outrageous idea. The money that flows in at an increasing rate every day is one piece of proof that our business model is sound. The comments we receive from customers daily telling us how much ass we kick are more proof. Without Linux and GPL, we couldn't have done this.
For now, that will work because the amount of open-source SW is limited. But soon, we'll run out of programmers who are willing to donate free time. So I don't see the ... larger development staff than any one company could support... happening in general. Only for the few Good Causes (in programmer community opinion) will an ample (free) workforce be available.
Apparently you aren't a programmer (or at least not the type of programmer who typically works on free software). The GPL and other licenses like it live on because the really good programmers (the ones you would gladly pay for their services) are also the ones who love doing their job so much that when they get home at night, they do it some more, for free (possibly to the detriment of their spouses). Because they want to. And the number of such people is growing. Quickly. To be really cheesy and quote the IBM commercial, why does Linux (or GPL, Bruce Perens, etc.) work for peanuts?
Because he loves the game.
> Somebody has to pay for the time and effort.
> RMS is a fraud -- we all know it. He left MIT
> to do GNU but was fortunate that the director
> of the AI lab allowed him to comtinue to use
> its facilities (publicly-funded - so you and I
> paid for it).
Umm, the AI lab already had their computers. We might have paid for them to set up, but we probably didn't pay much extra for RMS to work there. Same with most people. If you already have a computer, you don't need to pay for it.
> He needed money: so sold GNU
> EMACS at $150 a pop and funded himself from "a
> software distribution business" (his words).
> Sounds like Bill et al to me.
EXCEPT that under the GNU anyone can do that. This is the old 'free software' confusion. Free software doesn't have to be given away. If I wanted to sell copies of GNU Emacs, I could do, as long as the people I sold it to had permission to sell it on themselves.
The normal cry here is: "but! You can't really make money selling free software, because since you can't stop others distributing it, those other people can give it away for nothing and you'll lose the money you made." Yep, that's right. But then, even if you were making commercial software they'd still be no guarantee you'd make money doing it. And a competitor might well try and push you out by giving an equivalent product away (Internet Explorer anyone?).
There can still be commercialisation and competition in free software. Witness the Linux boxed distros. The only difference is that the scarce resource involved isn't the software.
> And why is is all Microsoft versus Linux? What
> about the rest of us trying to earn an honest
> living out of selling our software?
You have every right to do that. Only a few people believe that *ALL* software should be OS, and even then, it's "should be" (ie, it would be nice if the authors chose it to be), not "should be forced to be".
It's only forced to be if you base it on other free software - and that's only because, were there no free software, you would have probably had to pay a big-ass licensing fee to get at the source code you based it on, if you were even allowed to see the source in the first place.
> Why should I expose all my genius to have every
> half-wit so the he/she can copy it, corrupt it,
> and persuade his boss to give him a raise for
> it?
Well, you said your software was for Linux, so calling the people who might have written the kernel 'half-wits' is a shade hypocritical..
> DOn't I deserve more than a mindless "credit"
> in the source code -- (and half of you take
> those out as well, in my experience).
Of course you do. Go persuade your boss to give you a raise based on your product, just like the other guy did. If he could do so and you can't, then, well, he's obviously improved the product and deserves his raise.
> No, no, no and no again. You're wrong-headed,
> misguided, foolish and economically illiterate.
The capitalist economy is fully operational on free software. It's just that you have to find something other than the software to be scarce. Think you're such a hot programmer? Sell the service of making custom alterations to it. Grab distributions, test them for hours to ensure industrial standard and then sell them with proven certifications. Sell support. Write about the software then sell the book. It's all there.
>There's a bit of a credibility gap.
I disagree. One of the things that I think is missing from the open vs. closed source debate is the values that people from the two camps are really supporting. Microsoft has one overriding purpose: to increase shareholder value. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. If any corporation engages in altruistic deeds or helps the environment or the less fortunate, they are doing it because there is a return on the investment in the form of good will. Anyone who believes that Microsoft cares about their business as anything other than a revenue stream is a fool. That's not Microsoft's job.
Open source advocates promote their software because they want to have some control over their fates, to promote the general advancement of the field, and for numerous other reasons. They do not do it because they wish to make a profit.
The case that open source people can make that microsoft can't is that they are not trying to extract more money from your business. They are trying to improve technology because they believe that it's advancement is valuable in its own right.
Thus, Craig Mundie is a a salesperson, whose job it is to say anything necessary to promote microsft's way of doing business. Bruce Perens is an advocate shared technological advancement and general improvement.
There is a credibility gap but no the one you think. It needs to be exploited more though.
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
I write code, I can do whatever I want with that code,
If I choose I can sell it, (Its value is lessened if any tom, dick, or harry can, and legally, get it elsewhere) I can do so.
I can open source it, in doing so I am granting others the right to use it, Under whatever liscence I deem appropriate(remeber its my code)
Or I can let it sit on my hard drive and rot. not much use there.
But If I write the code, its my choice ho I make it available, If I am gracious enough to give it to the world, why should they dictate the terms under which they would like to use it ? That greed, and being ungrateful.
I have MANY time seen things I needed similar solutions too and said damm be nice to use that in my project, but I couldnt, mine was proprietary theirs was GPL, so what, I wrote my own. No bitching no moaning, just an understanding its not my code who am I to tell someone else how to make the code their blood and sweat into available to me under my terms, I wouldnt do it and I dont expect anyone would do it to me.
I am a capatilist, simple period. If I can make more money using open source I will, but if it interests dont meet mine, I will write my own code to fill that need.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Bruce Perens claims that:
"Mundie uses a textbook tactic of manipulation: start with some reasonable talk, and lead the audience to an unreasonable conclusion."
Then he goes on to make the following claim:
"A partial count of the software available in just one noncommercial Linux system released two years ago shows that it would have cost about $1.9 billion to develop the same software the way Microsoft does it... If open source was economically unviable, development would have ceased long before there was $1.9 billion worth of it."
Pot, meet Kettle. It might have cost $1.9 Billion the way Microsoft does it, but open source development is not built the way Microsoft does it. Open source development often relies on time and effort provided essentially by donation. As such, the $1.9 Billion he's using to imply economic viability never existed. Nobody paid $1.9 Billion to develop open source software, so that particular test never occured.
His statements are a perfect example of false logic. Strip down his arguments in the article, and you see that he IS another soapbox idiot. I trust him about as much as I do the people he is lambasting.
You two seem to be arguing slightly different things.
What Mundie was saying, as I understand it, is that the GPL is bad because it prevents companies commercializing the GPL'd code. In other words, Mundie claims that when someone releases code under the GPL, it's bad for the economy and society as a whole. This is the assertion that CDWert is arguing against. He's not saying that the GPL is the best license for everyone to use, he's saying that people who release code under the GPL aren't harming anyone else.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Frankly, I think that the CS degree should move to the Engineering department, and become a true software engineering degree. The CIS degree belongs in the business department. [I'm one of the latter.]
But I've never understood the random ways that schools go about producing the CS people. Not that they're bad, it just seems to have no real standard.
Software Engineering ought to be more like ENGINEERING! Not just throw code at the compiler until it sticks.
I have faith, mostly, in the structural engineers, and the chemical engineers, and the electrical engineers. But software engineers?
Here's an appropriate poke with a sharp stick...
A DESIGN PARABLE
Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two
of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box
with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. "What do you
think this is?"
One advisor, an engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he
said. The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for
it?" The engineer replied, "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I
would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and
quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow
white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as
the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it
would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the
initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay,
it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next
week, and I'll show you a working prototype."
The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the
danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just
turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles.
What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the
subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand
more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can
also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster
that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the
future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few
years."
"With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to
the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize
this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The
specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into
toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage,
links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs,
hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet
classes."
"The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because
it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry
classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved
without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create
the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook
yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the
kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast
than to scrambled eggs."
"Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has
revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of
breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived
requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with
multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get
cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required,
too."
"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the
food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users
won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical
interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see
a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message
'Booting UNIX v. 8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be
out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down
a menu and click on the foods they want to cook."
"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in
the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware
platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of
memory, a 30MB hard disk, and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If
you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports
multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will
be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had
foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a
four-bit microcontroller!)."
The king wisely had the computer scientist beheaded, and they all
lived happily ever after.
Now that all the CS people hate me...I'll slink into the shadows.
Cheers!
I think the point of Mundie, and also you, is wrong. (bad grammer I know)
Mundie wants to make like there isn't a choice. He basically claims - Once there's GPL software, it creates a vast wasteland where no innovation can occur.
What a crock. If you like GPL code, go approach the creators - who own the unrestricted copyright. They can sell you a non GPL version to use as you see fit. It might not be cheap, but if you really need it, and it's such great code, the option is available.
For the right amount of money, I'd bet that even our "beloved" RMS would sell a branch off of his GFL programs. And why shouldn't we. GPL is a "lifestyle" - if you don't want the lifestyle, you can have other options - they just come with different costs.
The GPL isn't viral. You always have a choice. Pay the GPL program creator, or program it yourself.
TCP was a defined standard - i.e. RFC. The code was just a representation of that RFC. The reason that TCP made it, was because it was not protected by IP. The RFC was available for all.
Ok rant over.
Cheeers!
GPL advocates appear to believe in a non-zero-sum game, where almost everyone can win. The theory as I understand it says:
-
Good programmers win because people will pay for their work. How "big" you can win is limited by the GPL, though, since you are limited to selling a "service," not non-redistributable code.
-
Sophisticated users win because they get source code and can modify it if necessary.
-
Unsophisticated users win because they get good code at low prices because they're not locked into proprietary solutions.
I suppose bad programmers lose, but only because users choose not to use their code.Free markets are about bottom-up decentralized control of production. The distinction has little to do with making money.
Microsoft is all about top down control of software research and production.
Free Software is all about localized, bottom-up control software research and production.
When a commune goes bad, you can leave - unless it is one of those really nasty cults. Microsoft is so big, that you can't get away from them. They is why they can get away with ever more oppressive licensing terms.
There are advantages to centralized production. It is nice when Microsoft drives standardization of PC hardware. But participation needs to be voluntary. Microsoft is becoming like a cult - it becomes harder and harder for its members to leave.
Perhaps I should link to the number of israeli soldiers (about equivelent to the amount of israeli dead) that refuse to fight against the palestinians because of the abuses and attroticities percieved by them on the front lines of this battle.
This will be my new sig perhaps one day.
How many soldiers does it take to stop a war?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty