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Shared Source vs. Open Source
leonbrooks writes "Microsoft are fond of touting Shared Source as being "as good as" Open Source, with a view to muddying the waters as much as possible, and so keeping as many people away from the benefits of Open Source Software (OSS) (particularly Software Libré AKA "Free Software") as they can.
This new article analysing the differences arrives just in time for Microsoft's Australia-wide series of "Competitive Hour" misinformation sessions on Open Source, and includes a handy list of potentially showstopper questions.
We'd like your help in putting these and other questions to the speaker during such misinformation sessions, with the dual aim of opening the eyes of many of the audience, and reporting back to us what was said so that we can refine the questions to close whatever loopholes are employed in evading these important issues."
In Spanish is libre, and not libré. (libré would be past participe)
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
why don't they just give it an open source license?
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but it tastes like crap on a bun, it's probably a bad licensing scheme.
"...I'll need guns" --Chow Yun-Fat in 'Replacement Killers'
Stop sabotaging my business, okay? I'm just trying to eek out an honest living, is that so wrong!? ...billg
As a geek, I'm convinced Open Source will eventually vindicate over Closed Source -- no matter what. Whatever argument Microsoft could come up with, there'll always be a better counter argument. IMHO, the only thing their $50 billion could buy is better software, and this will work only on the short term. But I'm prejudiced...
So my question is: Would it be possible for Microsoft to kill Open Source solely through a media campaign?
I work on a scientific project that is supossedly an "open source" project. In reality, it is really shared source. What it comes down to is users from the community reporting bugs and even submitting patches that are never incorporated into the code. The "czar" of the project often refuses to apply these fixes or doesn't do so in a timely manner. It just doesn't work and is just about as pointless as not having the source at all...
It appears that Microsoft's famously successful Embrace and Extend strategy can apply to concepts as well as technologies. Expect to see Shared Source (i.e., Open Source with proprietary extensions for improved performance on Windows only) heavily promoted as a new Windows development tool.
While this is a very informative article, I get a very 'preaching to the choir' felling about it. The bias seeps through and undermines the effectiveness of the article. I think the best advocacy of open source software could be realized through: 1. case studies of successful industry/governemnt deployment of oss. 2. summary of development/use of open source superstars like apache, postgres, etc. of course, its always fun to pick at ms, but the idea is to change minds, not appear dogmatic.
Any-one fancy going throug the M$ code and looking for patent violations, M$ still has a lot of finincial muscle.
Hasn't the OSS done battle with the SS once before?
Unfortunately, the "picking up your marbles" article uses nonstandard terminology and thus may end up confusing many readers. For example, it seems to equate "Free Software" with copylefting licenses (like the GPL), and "Open Source" with non-copylefting licenses (like the BSD license). That's extremely confusing; the standard definitions for both Open Source and Free Software include both the GPL and the BSD licenses. Also, "Shared Source" is still proprietary; trying to claim it isn't just confuses things. Proprietary software comes in at least two varieties: secret source, and "shared source". Licenses are confusing enough without using nonstandard, inconsistent terminology. Hopefully, the article will get updated - it makes interesting points, and the shifting terminology is unfortunate. For the moment, I would recommend Bero's article instead if you're looking for an article opposing "shared source".
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
"Can I provide this fix to others? If not, why not?"
I'd recommend losing the bit about the Borg on that site unless it's a page meant only for geeks and techies -- name-calling cheapens the rest of your arguments. It doesn't matter that they started it. </FourthGradeTeacher>
Just point out the uselessness of Shared Source and the piles of responses to Microsoft FUD.
woof.
A very nice and concise review and discussion. The questions, in particular, are a great preparation for a rebuttal. Polite and informed disagreement will go lot farther in an audiences opinion than shouting "LINUX ROXORS". In extreme situations, it may still be necessary to fall back on that technique :^)
You shank my Jengaship!
What kind of paperwork, NDA's, and other obligations do I need to sign on before looking at the shared source? With GPL I can look at the license (and only that!), and know that if I do not like the source I see, I can put it down, not use it, and be free to continue my life as if I had never seen it.
That document was poorly written, I was expecting a business quality doco. The linux community needs to realise that if they want to be taken seriously in big business, they have to act in a mature business like manner.
For example: Stop refering to closed source companies as being evil. Treat them all the same - did you know that there are more closed source software companies that just Microsoft? Such as Lotus, IBM, Apple (surely not Apple???) and most of these guys have borrowed code from BSD, Apple even got praised for it, rather than berated. (Which I still can't believe to this day)
Imagine if MS had taken almost all of BSD and started selling it, because they couldn't be arsed to develop their own OS.
" In the lecture of John 'Maddog' Hall on the history of open source (this weekend on Fosdem), his slides had 'livre' software on it. Several times..."
Maybe he copy it from a portuguese or brazilian webpage. In Portuguese, is LIVRE. Take a look here: http://www.softwarelivre.rs.gov.br/
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
Wouldn't it make more sense if you were a company that produced a large, bloated program that has a long history of poor performance that you would want to get input from people that might be able to streamline your program and optimize its performance? We were always taught in computer classes that the best programs where the ones that got the job done, correctly, with a minimum of code and in the quickest possible way. As much as we all might dislike Microsoft, Windows has the ability to be a good OS, it just hasn't been allowed to get anywhere near that ability. It seems each iteration of Windows creates more bugs and more bloated code rather than the reverse (which would would expect in most software programs). So, IMHO, Microsoft should move to open source, perhaps just releasing large segments of Windows code so they can protect their business (otherwise why release anything?). Ask programmers to streamline the code, even to the point of optimizing it for AMD, Intel, and Cyrix chips individually (Make Bill happy that he can market 3 versions of Windows).
I don't understand why people rant about MS ads on Slashdot. MS are paying to keep the site up, even though they get bashed and flamed continuously. Just take their money and shut up.
I suspect that something like 90% of Slashdotters are using some sort of MS product somewhere.
I have a deep respect for many of those who coined the term "Open Source", especially Bruce Perens.
But, I think we're about to find out that "Open Source" was a mistake.
Microsoft will clearly claim that their "shared source" encompasses all the benefits of open source, and for those who do not allready understand what Open Source is all about (which is to say, most people), it will be a compelling argument.
We can go "uh, no, you see, it is about, free, and I mean free as in speech, not beer, uh, if you know what I mean". And they don't. And they won't read this paper. When they can see the source, the source is open enough to them. What more could you ask?
I attended one of ESR's talks, and while it took me a long time to realize, ESR's top selling point ("you can always take development in-house"), is not a simple pragmatic argument. It is an argument based on freedom.
The top selling argument for Open Source, for Linux and for all the rest of it, is, and will remain, an argument of freedom. Not only freedom for individuals, but freedom for corporations too!
It is about politics. It is about creating a society where freedom benefits everyone, individuals and corporations alike, the whole society.
I realize, of course that "Free Software" is not a good term either, but for those of us who speak a Real Language[tm], the term "Open Source" should be abandoned, and terms like "Software Libré" or "Fri programvare" should be used instead.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
it won't take a media campaign from MS
there are a number of threats to OSS that will emerge as it becomes more pervasive. None of these would kill Open Source as a movement , but they will compel the community too temper some of their absolutism.
There WILL be a widespread virus that attacks some popular OSS platform / architecture. The community's reaction to this event could determine the viability of OS across all domains.
There WILL be a test of the GPL that effectively modifies its tenets , perhaps fundamentally changing the character and popular interpretation of the license. This will bring a reality check to the more strident elements of the OSS community , but could encourage OSS realists to adapt more commercially viable licenses.
You know, I read a lot of this nonsense on Slashdot. The vast majority of the board leaps all over anything that potentially infringes privacy, but then turns its nose up at postings from Anonymous Cowards.
Are you also in favour of losing the right to an anonymous vote? You would like all authorities to know your voting record? There is nothing wrong with anonymity. I posted for months as an AC because I didn't want to create yet another web account on something. Gradually, as I found I used this site more I decided to create an account.
Frankly, I find this anti-AC thing to be farcical. It isn't any form of moral highground to insist an opinion be identified with an individual. Instead it represents a regression - you should argue the point, not the personality.
Cheers,
Ian
It is not free as in "you are free to make my day". It is free as in "this software code has been freed from any restrictions, to the point that no man or woman may hide it or stop it from living its life to the fullest".
Law of nature? Law of freed information!
Question 1: Does any software actually exist which has gone through a full life cycle as shared source and not demonstrated major problems e.g. with respect to security, monopoly law, cost effectiveness?
Point 2: Open source is critical to proving that software is secure in a concrete case: security of one's private machine and data. If Microsoft is only sharing source, how can it be known (without resorting to blind trust of unknown coders/governments) that the source you saw is the source that made it into the final product?
Point 3: Microsoft's shared source campaign seems defined partly in terms of an attack against open source software. How does this reconcile with open source software being highly promoted by the security experts of the majority of major companies, server operators, and governments. Is it such a good idea to distance itself from such amazingly beneficial, successful, and satisfying projects? If Microsoft believes it to be critical to do so, then would Microsoft be open to funding a free (free of cost, anonymous, with results posted publically, and run by a third party) online facility to scan software (source and object code) for violations of liscense agreements (like GPL etc.) to guarantee that no GPL code is in Windows? (After all if it is then all of Windows legally must be GPL'd..)
Didnt they also mention Open Source is "cancerous"
getSexySig();
THIS ARTICLE IS SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO BE VIEWED BY ADULTS AND THEREFORE MAY BE UNSUITABLE FOR CHILDREN UNDER 17. THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: PROVOKING THOUGHTS (PT), EXPLICIT SARCASM (ES), OR CRUDE INDECENT SPELLING (S).
Why don't things evolve?
I keep thinking about the space shuttle, and open-source, and Microsoft; also of tiny winged dinosaurs recently found in the Mongolian Highlands. All these controversies and discoveries start me thinking -- but mostly the dinosaurs. Why did those little dinosaurs sprout wings? What was the point? Don't they know that was a greater wind resistance drag, making it even harder to escape predators? Why did the space shuttle, built in 80's never upgrade? One could talk of the government and the fact that they never, ever, upgrade unless it's tanks or grenades. But the space shuttle, with it's aging tape-to-tape flight computers, and it's spray on foam insulation, and it's glued on tiles -- why evolve to serve this niche, then never evolve? Was it laziness, stupidity, or some perceived fecundity that we've reached the promised land?
I can feel there is a tipping-point here, some wisdom I'm about to understand, and yet it eludes me. Back to Microsoft. Why couldn't Novell evolve? Did they think that a different password for everything was better than one password to rule them all? Why continue to chew the prehistoric cud whilst the meteor streaks across the sky - moocow!. Now it's Microsoft, you might argue, that is starting to run a little slower, a little more gamely, who sees the big game cats bearing down in their proverbial rear view mirrors. Will they evolve? Can they evolve? What will they become?
And so open-source sits too at the precipice, but its penultimate creative spark blew apart at its evolution, splitting into various organisms wading the primordial ooze. Fascinating stuff: evolve now or later, but why not right at the beginning? Evolve on the starting line! It's a pretty awesome strain of thinking. Keep trying to get it right on the starting line -- holding back some DNA -- shooting off ideas that might work. Hyper, hyper-parasitosis. I believe it's the way of informational beings. Even WOPR decided that there might be a better way.
So why can't Microsoft evolve? I believe they can, but it must happen while, and before, the energy required to evolve is still greater than the remaining energy it has to sustain life. Can they evolve a hybrid, become open-source (you heard it here first!), jump from the abyss, sprout wings, and fly?
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
It's a guide for OSS people to be able to ask the right questions at the right time at the conference.
Then see MS people squirm...
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
Red Hat Advanced Server contains the same GPL'ed code as every other Red Hat Linux distribution. Unlike some vendors (who's names start with a 'C'), Everything you get from Red Hat in the basic distro is GPL'ed. They can't "...do the same audits as Microsoft..." because they can't change the licensing. You don't need to buy a Red Hat Advanced Server license for every machine you put the OS on. You only need to buy a support contract for every machine you expect support on. There's a big difference here. Red Hat is pushing the envelope on the chief means for income for an OSS company (give away the software, sell the support), but the code is still the same GPL code you could get from any other distribution. There's no such thing as the Red Hat equivalent of the BSA and there never can or will be.
I normally don't reply to trolls, but this disinformation really ticks me off. Assuming you don't already know all this and you aren't just a 100% blatant troll, you either have never read the GPL or have no idea whatsoever what is contained in RHAS. Either way, if you don't know what you're talking about, then keep your mouth shut.
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Why? Why is an opinion's origin important? If it means that you can't dismiss a thought with "Oh, that's just so'n'so ranting again" then that is surely a good thing. If so'n'so really is ranting again, then the opinion should be easy enough to knock down anyway.
Are you ashamed of your own opinions.
No. I'm not the original AC. Then again, there's no proof that the AC is ashamed of them either.
Most flames are posted as anonymous.
Granted.
If you think what you have to say or do is so damn funny, than stand up and take responsibility for it.
As I say, the logical conclusion of this is to lose the rights to anonymous ballots. Anonymous ballots were a large step forward in the democratic process, and I rather feel that heading back to the days of pinning things on personalities is not a step to be welcomed.
Cheers,
Ian
This article looked pretty good until I hit this part:
I'm beginning to hate the GPL guys just because they have to shit on every other open source developer because they don't agree with politics of their GPL manifesto.BSD is more free; at first glance and every glance. That somebody can pervert that freedom is one of the costs of being free. Us BSD'ers are not the enemy -- look further up the list not further down.
"(My apologies to those 5 people in the country who actually know how to make free software work to help the people, not destroy the economy.)"
Hmmm... IBM comes to mind as the first of those 5 people (did you mean companies ?) who have made opensource work. Over a billion in sales just last year from free software. Sounds oddly like capitalism to me.
" Why would I trust "free" software from a vendor while at the same time pay them to support that software?"
This argument can be applied to our Government. Would you trust a closed Government to handle your needs for you? Isn't that what Communism was all about? At least in part I should say.
"Seems to me that they WANT the software to be low quality or hard to use so they can charge me more to support it."
Are you saying software like Microsoft's IIS was high quality software? That's scrapping the bottom of the barrel according to the Garner report (SP?) They even told people to abandon IIS and find another web server. Never thought that would have come from their lips.
"Plus, now I have to hire a 150,000 a year linux geek. No thanks."
But of course. You want to hire 10 MCSE's to manage a network that one *NIX geek can handle in his/her sleep.
"Freakin' communists."
Not really but it's clear you have no idea how the OSS idea works. It's like fire. If used properly it can warm your house and cook your food, or burn the whole place down. Learn to use it wisely. (just an opinion)
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
I think the best route is to keep hammering on the differences. Consider our targets for conversion - it's not MS, and it's not governments here - it's potential users of Shared Source, ie companies. And, though you believe they may bess less compelling, companies only care about pragmatic arguments - they could care less about freedom in the abstract, only in the immediate. You don't have to use the "free as in speech vs. beer" argument. Just explain why seeing the source is useless if you can't touch it. I think most people of even moderate intelligence can understand that.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Not to be a troll, and as one of those FREAK's who's never been in a dorm, putting his own ass out of a job: The world doesn't guarantee you a job, a career or money. If you don't like it, go cure cancer or something. I'm going to write software that undermines the ability of other companies to make money to write similar software, and rape their users. I'm going to do this simply for the control factor. That $1000 piece of hardware on my desk is MINE, all MINE, and no software vendor is going to take away my right to use and abuse it. And neither are you.
;-)
It's called capitalism at it's best. Keep making software better than the rest of us OSS FREAKs can do, and you'll continue to make money. Oh wait, maybe you'll suffer the same fate dozens of companies did when Microsoft choose to put some special thing in their OS (like cd-burning, or video playback, or web browser, or file compression) in their OS...
-Chris
Are people free to view the Microsoft source, or is there an EULA type agreement that any person with access to Microsoft Source is not allowed to work on Open Source or Microsoft competitive products. I would think that this would be a very restrictive license term that would get in the way.
Say the anti-competitive period is 5 years. This means that anyone who sees the code is contaminiated and restricted from what they can work on. Possibly a career limiting exposure.
Of course there could be no such terms attached to the source. Anyone have insight?
I suspect that something like 90% of Slashdotters are using some sort of MS product somewhere.
So, what is your point? MS have been convicted of running an illegal monopoly and you do remember what a monopoly is?
At home I used to have a 'nix only network but I had to surrender and revive one of my old Windows boxes so the kids could use it - because that was the only way they could play on many of the websites they wanted to use.
In that sense, I suppose, MS was "better" than 'nix, but not because there was some inherent flaw in free software or because in some way MS were better code wizards.
The one question that really shows the difference between "open source" and "shared source", obviously has to be "Can I create my own fork"?
Disagreements with the original author about the direction a software package should go, or the apparent abandonment of some software, are two of the many good reasons for creating a fork. This approach allows for competition, and may the best version win. It may piss off the original author, but it allows for improved evolution of the software.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
In the days of big iron, most software came with its source code. The uses of the software knew who owned the software, but they could make changes to the software, distribute the source for those changes, and even sell those changes. You just had to make sure that anyone who picked up your changes had a licence to the orginal software, and also knew that if they put any changes into their source that the support for the modified software would be disowned by the original creator.
This way dealing with source code has disappeared, except for some companies that supply code for library routines. Such source distributions disappeared for two reasons. One was piracy (it didn't help), and the other was to simplify the problem of support. As systems became for complex the fact that the software was modified would became lost, the original software creators would spend a large quantity of time and money discovering and fixing other peoples bugs (this did help).
Even with its problems, I always liked this format of source distribution. It gives a revenue stream to the creators of software, and at the same time is allows further develepment, and bug fixes.
Apples and Oranges. No pun intended.
The Mac has always been an all-in-one box, that's one of it's marketable advantages: Apple made the hardware and the software to work together. That's how the product was initally designed, and if you don't like it there are other hardware/software platforms.
Oh yeah, and there are other OSes for Apple hardware, such as your favorate, Linux.
Microsoft suddenly requiring Windows to be run on special Microsoft made boxes only would be a bait-and-switch and would most certainly be a dirty tactic. Now that everyone has their OS, *suddenly* they are forcing sales of hardware on customers, too? The world would SCREAM bloody murder and M$ would be right back in court.
So stop confusing the two. People who own Macs knew what they where getting into when they bought one. Apple didn't suddenly spring this closed architecture after years of offering their widely-compatable OS.
(PS: As far as price goes, if you made custom computers, i.e. non-x86 systems, that only held 5% of the market, I'm sure you'd charge much higher price, too. Especially when your R&D is so good it inspires the other computer manufactures' to make immidiate cheap knock offs and, one or two years later, practical and "non-infringing" knock offs.)
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
This articel stumbles at the gate:
'Public Domain (AKA "freeware")- help yourself, there are no strings attached;'
According to convention, experience, common sense and the FSF Free Software Definition, freeware is not public domain software. It is propriestary software distributed as gratis binaries without source.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
From my seminal paper, written in 1999 (BEFORE the dotcom collapse):
The High Priests of the Bazaar
This paper presents a case against the open source movement and explains why the open source model does not work for the vast majority of those involved. There are several arguments against the OS (open source) model.
Open Source Doesn't Make Economic Sense For Most
The open source organization has presented a few cases that supposedly explain why OS works economically. However, if you examine the cases objectively you will find that the cases are flimsy and non-specific and do not address any specific concerns. They attempt to bolster their case by pointing out a few "successes", among which Caldera and Red Hat are displayed as shining examples.
The real economic question of the OS model is how is money made, and who is making the money. Who is being rewarded financially for the enormous development effort? The open source initiative claims that there are at least four different models that allow someone to reap rewards. Oddly, it is not mentioned that it is not necessarily the people who did the development work that gain financially.
The four primary business cases mentioned by OS proponents are "Selling Support", "Loss Leader", "Widget Frosting" and "Accessorizing."
The first case proposes that money can be made via selling support for the free software product. This is by far the strongest case and is proven to work, for a few small companies. The two companies that are shown as positive examples of this business model are Red Hat and Caldera, who distribute and support the Linux operating system. What is never mentioned is that neither of these two companies has contributed significantly in relative terms to the Linux development process. Its important to note that using this business model, the people that make the money are usually not the ones who have invested in the development process. So much for the strongest case.
The second case is based on the idea that you give away a product as open source so you can make money selling a closed source program. This also can work, but it should be noted that the money is being made off the closed source product and not off of the open source. An example of this model would be Netscape, who gives away the source code of their client browser so the OS community can do development, but keeps their "cash cow" products completely closed. Obviously, this case may only work if you have a software product that lends itself to this sort of "give away the razor and make money on the blades" system. The truth is that the vast majority of software is monolithic. So much for the loss leader case.
The third case, "Widget Frosting", sounds completely practical. The premise that hardware makers produce open source software so that the OS development community will work for free to produce better drivers and interface tools for their hardware products. It sounds great on the surface, especially for the company that produces the hardware: they get free drivers and do not have to pay for expensive developers. The OS community wins by getting presumably stable drivers and tools. What is not mentioned is the reason hardware makers usually don't do this is because they do not want to reveal trade secrets regarding their hardware design. Production of efficient drivers requires an intimate knowledge of the hardware the driver is for. It is almost always the case that it is in the hardware developers' best interest to keep their hardware secrets close to home. This also brings up the question of why isn't hardware "open"? So much for the frosting case.
The final case, "Accessorizing", is similar to the first, but throws in the idea of selling books and complete systems with the open source software, and other accessories as well. It is obvious that selling books qualifies as support, and that it really belongs in the first case. The idea of selling computer systems, T-Shirts, dolls, again begs the question: "Who is making the money?" As with the first case, it is not necessarily the people who have done the development work. Additionally, the question of how much money can be made selling books, t-shirts, mugs, etc, is never answered. O'Reilly Associates is frequently used as an example to be a company who has made money using this case. The reader should notice that O'Reilly Associates are not the people doing the development work. Indeed, it is never asked why all the O'Reilly books are not available for free or at least at manufacturing cost? This also brings up the question of why isn't book production "open"? Perhaps they are waiting to see if they could sell enough O'Reilly T-Shirts to pay their bills. So much for the accessories.
Open Source Does Not Necessarily Produce Better Software
The open source proponents frequently state that OS necessarily produces better software. This statement is made without any evidence. Indeed, there is evidence to the contrary. GCC is a standard compiler produced by the GNU organization. It lags its commercial counterparts in both efficiency and features. The reason behind is illustrates the largest weakness in the OS plan. It is very hard to convince qualified engineers that they should do such boring and unglamorous work without any sort of financial reward. The idea of throwing large quantities of people at the source does not work in this case, since there are not large quantities of qualified individuals available.
Open Source Did Not Make the Internet Successful
Another statement made by the OS community is that somehow open source was responsible for the success of the Internet. The reason behind this is probably a result of the confusion between what is open source and what is an open protocol. It is easy to see that the foundation of the Internet was built on open protocols. This does not equate to open source, for the two are quite different. The vast majority of the machines on the Internet run on closed source operating systems running mostly closed source software, which communicate using open protocols.
Where Does Open Source Work?
Open source does work in certain cases. A good example of where it may work well is Netscape. The act of giving away the source to the OS community so they can work for free and produce a product that helps the sales of their server software was a stroke of genius and proved very profitable for the relatively few at Netscape. But is this truly making money off of open source? Isn't the money is made off of the closed source software?
Another example of where it does work is the aforementioned Red Hat. Red Hat has been successful making money off of the work of thousands of others who have contributed to the Linux operating system and the associated GNU programs that have shipped with the Linux distributions. The question is: do those who work at Red Hat deserve to be rewarded, or do the people who do the actual development work deserve to be rewarded? Should the money go to the few, or to the many? It seems that the High Priests of the Bazaar believe the former.
THIS DOCUMENT CAN BE RECOPIED AND REDISTRIBUTED WITHOUT RESTRICTION, HOWEVER ADDITIONS/MODIFICATIONS/CORRECTIONS SHOULD BE LABELED AS SUCH WHERE THEY OCCUR.
Another thing I would like to point out, and which I will include in an updated version of the paper, is the fact that by contributing to Open Source you are decreasing the financial value of software. The reason for this is because you have eliminated the artificial scarcity of the product. This only serves to lessen the financia value of the product, which leads to lower compensation for those that produce software.
Music and book publishers create scarcity via the copyright mechanism, the software industry should be no different.
For those of you who have bit hit hard by the recent economic downturn in the software world may want to consider this before giving away your efforts to the corporations for free.
The origin of an opinion is important, beause that is where the nuances come from. "Freedom is slavery", when said by Orwell, sounds very different from "Freedom is slavery", said by the nazi skinhead with twisted sense of history.
If the people running the project suck, you can just maintain a better fork if you want. With shared source, you might not even be able to distribute your patches to other customers suffering your fate. The point is that true OS gives the control to the ultimate consumer, and anything less isn't worth that much. Why contribute your work to something that another private entity owns and controls?
I know that the Creative Commons makes licenses for other types of creative works than software, but I can't help feeling when I look at the list of software licensing possibilities in this story (Public Domain, BSD, GPL, Shared Source, Proprietary) that there's something missing here that is present in the licensing options from the Creative Commons.
I would throw in another license between GPL and Shared that allows more than just a glance at the code (ie. use it, modify it, do what you need to with it), but restricts redistribution more than the GPL does. The problems with this gap being there are several:
I know that Open Source isn't about money-making, and that redistribution of some kind is one of the fundamental Open Source requirements, but (especially in this economy) programmers need to eat too. So while many of us are compelled to make our work "as Open as possible", we're kicked in the butt when we're told it's "not Open enough". This means that a company falling somewhere between GPL and Shared Source can't use either well-known moniker, and since it's software they're talking about, can't use the Creative Commons as a point of reference either. I feel that one of the benefits of being Open Source is the reputation that comes along with it, one of not "locking people in".
So I guess my question is, why the double-standard? Or is Open Source just missing that gap and either a) willing to include qualifying Creative Commons-like licenses or b) willing to clarify its stance on the licenses of the Creative Commons?
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The older, more self-assured slashdot poster rises Zenlike above this silliness. He knows that it is the idiocy of his opinions which will send his PJF heavenward.
I must take issue with RMS and others' use of the term "freedom" to define a contractual agreement. Of course a contract represents freedom -- the basis of contract is voluntary association. Open source and proprietary contracts are both examples of freedom. It does not matter what the terms of contract are; if the contract is engaged through voluntary association, then it represents freedom.
Freedom is defined by the lack of force, and nothing else. Freedom does not know the difference between open source and closed source. Freedom does not know what software is. Freedom knows only two states: coercion (force) and voluntary association. If an individual engages in an interaction with another individual or group, and the interaction is voluntary, then the interaction represents freedom. If the interaction is non-voluntary, i.e. an initiation of force, then the interaction does not represent freedom.
Therefore it is meaningless to define your terms of contract as "freedom". Microsoft's shared source contract is no more or less "free" than an open source contract, because you are equally "free" to engage both. What you really mean to say is that one vendor's terms of contract are more restrictive than another vendor. Freedom has nothing to do with it.
I don't buy the security by obscurity argument, but it is an argument. I just find the track records MUCH better for OS.
Under OS, all the bad guys have the schematic for all the locks in the kingdom. But all the good guys do, as well, and lets them improve the locks.
Shared Source gives a small subset good guys a look at the schematics, but prevents them from improving the locks for themselves or anyone else. The most you can accomplish is working as an unpaid and probably ignored QA engineer for an unethical corporation. In fact, you are paying THEM for the priviledge. (Debugging OS code makes you a participant in a larger community of volunteers - a very different vibe.) It all but guarantees that the SS code will leak to essentially all bad guys, who will either not honor NDAs or aren't bound by them in the first place. It also appears to taint any OS developers who look at it, so their presence in an OS project threatens it with litigation entanglements.
So - OS gives all access, SS gives bad guys access and restricts the freedom not just of code, but developers. As Dilbert says, "I gotta get me some of that!"
It does not involve profit from software sales.
It is about business.
Software was originally written by companies to make that company better able to do its primary business. An automobile manufacturer uses software to make and sell automobiles. A retail store uses software to assist selling merchandise.
All the "business cases mentioned by OS proponents are" about how to make money selling software.
But what if most software was developed internally?
- What if the programmers shared with programmers from other companies to ask for help?
- What if it was easier to maintain the software publicly than to pass around copies every time you had an issue?
- What if it meant you received fixes for things you had not encountered yet?
- What if it meant you received fixes for things you had not NOTICED yet? (Like that bug that affects payroll.)
This is the world of GPL open source applications.
- We need an application.
- We download a database program.
- We build our application.
- We realize the database is missing a feature.
- We add the feature.
- While programming, we notice a bug.
- We fix the bug.
- Our application does exactly what we want, and we send our changes back to maintainers of the program.
- ?Profit? There is no profit from the software sale. The only benefit is that the company has the application that allows it to compete better.
The programmers may have been a consultant, so maybe they profited. Or an employee, who got paid. Or a student, who gained experience and a line on an rather empty resume. Or a hobbyist, who had fun.It would be nice if the company sent a few dollars to the program maintainers or mirrored the site, but it cannot be required. I doubt there is money there. The program maintainers COULD sell their services to help with implementation. But so could anybody else. This is where your four business models fit.
But none of this is necessary to make open source a good investment for a company. Even if the company is the only source for improvements for years, eventually someone else may start to use the software (such as the company your former programmers join. Programmers hate solving the same issue twice.) And if they use it, they will add value. (If you fork the code, you lose the benefits of what everybody else is doing. If there is any development progress, you quickly lose the ability to apply your patches to the maintained version.)
Open source is about programming to support business models that are not based on selling intangibles like software. That is why companies that are completely based on selling software will do anything to destroy it. That is why companies that have trouble selling software packages are embracing it. That is why every non-software company should be embracing GPL open source software whenever they can. And they outnumber the software companies.
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About the financial value of software, there is none. Software's value is what it does to help you. Hopefully it helps your primary business make money. (Even if it is just the extra alertness from walking and getting coffee every time you need to reboot.)
Imagine if information transfer was free, because there is no method to record it so it has to be person to person, or because something like the internet removes the cost of the transfer. With the personal method, I can tell you an idea, or sing you a song, for free. With the internet, I can send you a million word idea, or send you a recording of an opera, for free. Words went from spoken to written to printing-pressed to websites over a very long period, but music and 2D video have only had about a century between the ability to record and the ability to freely transfer. The companies that were created to deal with the difficulty in distribution are complaining loudly now that they are obsolete.
You can put artificial constraints around software, music, and other intangibles, but this is not good for society. The whole patent system was created to make sharing easier. Today was built on yesterday, and tomorrow will be built on today, if we remember what we did today. Most examples of creativity, whether software, music, or doodles, is thrown away after a very short period. The example of creativity with music is the performance. Recording it allows me to share it with others. If I do not record it, it is lost forever. If I record it and bury it in the backyard, it is useless. Only by sharing can others improve on my work. This goes double for software: you probably cannot improve my songs; you can probably improve my programs.
Ideas are free for those who can hear them. Stop trying to silence them to increase the scarcity so you can increase your compensation. The world that requires no new software is a world without progress.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
From Microsoft's shared source policy is not equivalent to open source:
Good programmers are not willing to sign the non-competition and non-disclosure agreements that Microsoft requires. They fear that would put them at risk of a Microsoft lawsuit. Even if they were found in court not to have infringed on Microsoft's contract, the cost of the lawsuit would be enormous. Also, they could lose their jobs over any such dispute. It is possible that the only real effect of Microsoft's shared source policy is to cripple an organization's best programmers, so that they cannot work in any field in which Microsoft has an interest.
Microsoft's policy of allowing government programmers to see source code is not equivalent to having open source code. A thorough review of the more than 40 million lines of source code in Windows XP is far more than even a government can attempt. It would be easy for someone to hide spy instructions that could be controlled from outside. This is not unlikely. The U.S. government's spy agencies, the CIA, NSA, and others, have an essentially unlimited amount of money. They can and do exploit any method of spying. The U.S. government has bombed 14 countries in 35 years. Organizations should not assume that those who think killing is a way of solving problems will suddenly become moral when they consider computer software.
There are Shared Source licenses that permit redistribution.
For example the Rotor (Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure) distribution ships with the following license(which was fought for by the authors of Rotor -- David Stutz):
As you can see you can modify and redistribute your modification.
And no you aren't contaminated by reading the source (that's specifically called out in the last right granted).
You can redistribute under another license that's compatible with this license (OK, so that's not GPL or BSD but most licenses lock you into the same license not merley a compatible one).
One of the ideas behind releasing this source code was to encourage research based on the Rotor(technically the CLI is very interesting) and to help implementers of other CLI implementations and to help people who code for
David Stutz wrote a good article on this at ORA.com.
If you are interested in finding out more about the SSCLI O'Reilly has a book in the works that should appear in March 2003. The first chapter is available online. Don't worry Microsoft won't own your soul if you read about it. If you are interested in modern language design or compiler implementation then you'll find something here.
I do happen to work at Microsoft as a contractor but these are my own words. And yes, I used to think all Shared Source licenses were the same too.