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Eric Raymond: Why Open Source will Rule
DNapalm writes "A very interesting two part interview with Raymond from ZDNet, talking about the success of open source and Linux on the desktop, among other things. Check out Part I and Part II (I liked part II)." Raymond also asserts that Microsoft could have killed Linux if only they'd started a little earlier.
A direct quote from the article:
"If OpenOffice still exists, and it's GPLed, and they're going to start charging for StarOffice, then they just shot StarOffice through the head."
Replace the word "StarOffice" with "Redhat Linux".. why does the same logic not apply?
I can't help thinking - would it be possible to do it again? But this time, instead of basing it on the solid, well known but old and unadventerous unix, use new ideas, incorporate the latest technologies and so on. Would the open source community be willing to move away from Linux to this new open OS, or is the momentum behind it too strong to abandon?
is why do the OSS and FSF people care so much for the "Windows world". During the last several months, I've seen an enormous amount of articles that deal with how evil Microsoft is when compared to Linux developers and vise-versa. I ask these writers: "Why ?" Why should I care ? I really don't think we're gaining anything by doing the same things MS has been doing all these years. It always goes on like this: "MS attacks, OSS movement responds, MS attacks, OSS movement responds, OSS movement attacks, MS responds". This is getting boring you know, why not make deeds instead of shouting ?
OK, sure, Windows is installed on the majority of the computers out there, but it doesn't make it world's most important thing. Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys are popular too, are they important to me ? Nope.
LOL! This is a troll right? I'll bite. Maybe you have a point and Windows is right for you, but maybe you work for Microsoft, as they are the only people I ever see who write Windows(tm). You sound like you just walked out of a TV advert!
That's why I choose Microsoft Windows(TM) for my computing work. The easy setup and configuration let me get right to work and the cross-platform standardizations let me easily port my work for colleagues. Furthermore, the highly-optimized nature of the Windows(TM) Operating System Kernel makes for blazingly fast simulation runs even on the low-end hardware that my University is willing to pay for.
What cross platform standarisations? I don't see any. In fact, I'll think you'll find that EVERY major OS out there other than windows is based on unix.
Sheesh, I'm way too easily trolled. -sigh-
Unfortunately in every aspect *except* price, Linux looks more like a sustaining technology vis-a-vis Windows. Linux is the more secure, more high-end, more niche-like product. In the disruptive technology model, what happens is that *Windows* becomes reliable "enough" and hacker-pleasing "enough" and takes over from Linux.
Now Linux is free...that is true. But that is the only way it is like a disruptive technology. In fact that is not really like disruptive technologies either. They are usually cheaper. Free is strange.
Now Linux is indeed a disruptive technology compared to something else -- Sun. Linux on a PC, compared to Sun on a Sun box, has all the classic hallmarks of disruptive technology, and in fact is doing so.
I ranted more about this last year on another site. Here's a quote: "To take this to an extreme example, at some future date Windows CE might displace both Windows 2000 and Linux, and the Personal Web Server shipped with Windows might displace both Internet Information Server and Apache. This is highly unlikely, but it illustrates the direction in which disruption happens.".
And don't forget this profound comment where I ask the question ""Is the bazaar upmarket from the cathedral?" (read that again).
- adam
Excerpts from the 'fall of Redmond' radio conversations:
"Red Hat, this is Yellow Dog. Come in.'
"Red Hat here. We've gotten Balmer. I repeat, we have Balmer in custody."
"Mandrake says Gates isn't here today. Debian, can you clear out the marketing department please?"
"Roger that, General Raymond. Attacking marketing immediately."
"Suse reporting that legal has been secured."
...
"Who the hell is that?"
"Looks like the FSF showed up. For once them and OSI agree on something."
"Hi there, Stallman. Raymond here. What are you boys doing here?"
"We came to download the source code for all the MS software to look for GPL violations."
"Good thinking. I have Slackware in there now, and I'll let em know your coming."
...
and so on and so forth. Maybe I'll write a more detailed version one day.
"The normal channeling of aggressive instincts into acts of senseless violence."
I am officially gone from
Humm, I tried to use Word to write equations when I was in college studying Physics. Even though I had no exposure to Linux at the time, I found that most of the professors and grad students used LaTeX instead. It's much easier to use, and it's much easier to learn. I picked up most of it in an afternoon. It's also pretty much standard for Physics people to write papers full of equations in LaTeX and not word.
And as for the "blazingly fast simulations" - I'm sorry, we never ran simulations on Intel based computers (too slow except for really easy stuff). We'd use mainframes for that, which used Unix. And what kind of University that is considering doing real physics can't afford that? Are you sure it wasn't a community college? And if you're curious, the University doesn't buy the computers for the physicists - the physicists get grant money from the government for that kind of purchase.
You wouldn't happen to be paid by MS to make such a false statement? I have been seeing a lot of these nutcases making wild claims that are absolutely false and full of crap. (Do you REALLY love Linux? haha! I caught you!)
Jonathan
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
ESR's fundamental argument to Linux taking over the desktop is solely cost. Because the cost of Windows will be a bigger chunk of the PC price as PC prices, OEM's will seek out cheaper options (e.g. Linux).
I believe this is wrong for at least two reasons:
1. Microsoft has a much freer pricing structure than most other component makers. Since they employ monopoly pricing they are able to price the product exactly at the point where it maximizes profit. Futher, since their marginal cost is essentially zero (as opposed to chips, disks, and other hardware components), they have a lot of downward headroom in their prices should this ever become an issue.
2. There is little evidence that cheaper wins out. A classic example is the IBM PC (and clones) which were substantially more expensive than home PC's (such as C64, Atari 400/800, Apple II, etc.) but won over the market big time. There are many factors other than cost which contribute to the success or failure of a computer product. Indeed, very cheap computers (e.g. $350 or so) computers are available today, but the sweetspot seems to be the $800-level machine which will get you something pretty good.
I think Linux will take over the desktop, and I think the reason it will doesn't have much to do with whether we clean up and polish our interfaces or not. Linux will take over the desktop because as the price of desktop machines drops, the Microsoft tax represents a larger and larger piece of OEM margin. There's going to come a point at which that's not sustainable, and at which OEMs have to bail out of the Microsoft camp in order to continue making any money at all. At that point, Linux wins even if the UI sucks.
And frankly, the UI doesn't suck. It's not perfect, it's got a few sharp edges and a few spikes on it, but so does Windows.
Oh dear god, this is the funniest thing I've read on slashdot in six months. So no matter how bad a computer interface is, all it has to do is cost less than Windows for everybody to adopt it? Well, hell, I'd better dust off my Apple II then!
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Well, another one zapped by the Microsoft machine. In their context, LaTeX and gnuplot are the standard. Ever wonder why the Los Alomos preprint server offers the papers in that format?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
:Peter
from the article :"This is necessary because software is growing ever more complex, and an increasing amount of work must be done simply to debug programs."
This is the real problem with todays new software: every programmer wants to put every functionality in every program he writes. This creates bloated and bug-ridden programs.
For example: if I want to buy a new bicycle, and I would like to look up information on the internet. I NEED a browser that supports pdf files, flash animations, at least 5 different graphic file formats, cascading style sheets, java scripting and so on, just because nobody cares about standards. Because of that all pages look really bad, because my fonts scale differently, or I have a different screen size.
Wiebe.
With all of these endless /. posts about how Linux will rule the world, I have yet to see a single post explaining how programmers will ever get paid. Don't any of you want to write code for a living? Open Source companies can make money, sure, charging for services. But services cannot pay for programmers. Let me repeat that so that everyone is sure to see it: services cannot pay for programmers.
/. come up with a way for Open Source to succeed and pay programmers at the same time?
Since Open Source code is, well, Open, absolutely any service provider or consultant has access to the same software. If company A pays programmers to write code which is contributed to the community and makes their money selling services related to that code, and company B has no programmers but offers the exact same services for the exact same code, the company B will always be able to make more profit than company A. Because company B is in the exact same business as company A, but doesn't have to pay programmers. They can cut their costs below company A, stealing their business, and still enjoy higher margins. Company A either fires the programmers or dies.
A company can only afford to pay programmers if they have name recognition high enough to charge higher prices for services, or don't give feedback to the community about upcoming releases until its actually out so that they have a big enough head start to give competitive advantage, or they use closed code. That means they either pimp themselves, act like weasels, or go proprietary. Nice way to make a living. The Open Source movement lives on successfully, but the coders end up eating a lot of ramen and working at Circuit City. The only model I've seen so far depends on coders working for free. Volunteerism is great, but you can't base a business on altruism. Besides, in some ways making money off of unpaid workers is worse than Nike using cheap foreign labor - at least the foreign labor gets *something* for their effort. With few exceptions, contributing to Open Source is like pissing yourself in dark slacks - you get a warm feeling, but nobody else notices.
Can some of the clever folks here at
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
talking about the success of open source and Linux on the desktop
There's a short conversation.
I suggest you give it a try too at your first opportunity: it's called "Commodore Basic", and runs on a machine called the "Commodore 64". I have assisted the Astronomy department with setting up a simulator of stellar collapse on that, and they were completely blown away by it.
I noticed the same thing. A guess: Perhaps what he meant was that since they did this, StarOffice is dead in the long run. Which would make sense. Eventually OpenOffice will outstrip StarOffice and there will no longer be any reason to pay for Star. Sun is just cannibalising it for a short term revenue stream, really.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
If Microsoft doesn't want to kill Linux, why is it running ads attacking UNIX, spreading FUD about the GPL, etc.?
First, MS does want to kill for-profit UNIX servers, and UNIX-derived MacOS X. These companies represent competition in the for-profit market, and have carved out niches difficult for MS to penetrate even given their desktop monopoly.
In this modern era, however, it is important to maintain a duopoly, to avoid the appearance of monopoly. Traditionally this has been a weaker commercial competitor that is dominated but protected from destruction: think Apple, AMD, or Pepsi. One danger of this approach, as all three of the aforementioned companies have illustrated, is that it is hard to keep this balance: companies tend to consistently lose (Apple) or gain (AMD, Pepsi) market share in ways hard for a competitor to regulate.
Enter Linux, a revolutionary new duopoly opportunity! Now Microsoft's "competitor" is a non-profit volunteer organization: very hard to kill, and yet very unlikely (at least in the estimation of Microsoft) to gain dominance. Better yet, this is an organization supported by major corporate players such as IBM that give the appearance of being competitors without actually attempting to directly compete.
Granting this analysis, Microsoft's best course in dealing with Linux is clear: sufficient repression to prevent dominance, but not sufficient to marginalize the "competitor". Indeed, all of Microsoft's actions to this point have been in line with this behavior.
All that is left now is to see how this new strategy will play out...
So, your question is really: "How can the programmers make money if they're willing to give their stuff away for free?" Three possibilities:
- Stop giving it away for free, or just provide the source under a different license than the GPL; for example, make the software available for free, but you only get the source if you *buy* the product. Of course, then you'll lose the advantage of "many eyeballs", <troll>but hey, who audits all that code anyway?</troll>
- Ask for donations. By all accounts, Mandrake and TransGaming are doing reasonably well with this approach. (See my other post below.)
- Do the coding, not to get paid directly, but in order to increase your chances of getting a better-paying job. There was a very interesting study linked a few months ago on
/., analyzing the countries and backgrounds of contributors to GNOME. The observation was that a disproportionate percentage of open source contributors are from countries that have developing IT industries, not established ones, so his conclusion was that the coders were contributing in order to develop their skills and establish their reputations.
The last one is the option that can motivate me personally. I'm out of work at the moment (hire me!), so I'm planning on contributing to the Wine and/or Mono projects to boost my marketability. Is that so bad?Many open-source projects get to the point where they sort of work, but aren't pushed through to the point that they work solidly. Probably because the grunt work to achieve that is boring.
A very few high-profile projects, like the Linux kernel, attract enough developers to push through this barrier. Most projects don't.
There's another possibility. If you get the architecture wrong, the open-source process won't fix it. That may be Mozilla's problem.