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Hall On Worldwide Open Source Movement
adamsmith_uk writes "There's an article up on ZDNet
summarizing an interesting speech from Jon "Maddog" Hall about non-US open-source, as well as protecting open-source from 'looters' - well worth a read: 'The open-source development community is an international treasure and should be protected as such, said veteran Linux advocate Jon "Maddog" Hall, in a talk in Birmingham, UK, that emphasized the role of open-source software outside the United States.'"
By its very nature, open source is available for anybody to use. Why would somebody using an open source code be called a 'looter' ?
to the "looting" of the Iraqi national museum (at last count, 33 pieces, not tens of thousands), I guess the open source community is pretty safe.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
Not trying to be a troll here, but it just seems to me that if you were to take open sourced software and released it closed source, unless you did it in the US, you would be fine, right? But how can all those VCD Dealers in Malaysia get busted by the Motion Picture Association of AMERICA?
I think the real legal threat to open source is the fact there isn't a huge legal padding fee behind them, hence the Open/Free (yes they are the same) software, no money exchanged.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The open-source development community is an international treasure and should be protected as such
Exactly! And what do you do with international treasure? You bury it away in some dingy, windowless room where no one will ever find it, without an visitors.... to prevent it from getting stolen, y'know.
Hence all OSS developers really need to be locked away in.... uhh ehrmm... oh, NM.
Many IT decision-makers have a herd mentality (e.g. nobody was ever fired for buying Cisco routers). Open Source use passed a critical mass a while ago and enough of the herd is heading in that direction now that the obvious advantages outweigh the fear of the unknown. It's continued acceptance is a foregone conclusion at this point.
outside the U.S.? does he mean Canada? or that other place to the south? Mex Co. something?
F/OSS advocates have to stick together. Divide and conquer still works, lo these many centuries later.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
The best protection open source can get is US legal precendents. The defeat of SCO would be a good start, then a decision upholding the GPL so that it gets taken seriously.
This would not only protect OSS, but allay the fears of fence-sitting businessfolk.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
I wonder if the use of "looters" is intended to point towards the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged.
Casting the Free software movement in the mold of objectivist capitalism might be an interesting thought experiment.
If proprietary software vendors are the "looters" the intellectual efforts of those who can for the sake of those who cannot, it turns a lot of the corporate FUD on its head.
It's continued acceptance is a foregone conclusion at this point.
Dear Sir,
Your attempted use of the possessive pronoun "its" is incorrect. Literally, your sentence has the following meaning:
"It is continued acceptance is a forgone conclusion at this point."
Clearly, this does not make any sense. The correct usage is "its", and not "it's". Please remember this for future reference.
Sincerely,
Grammar Nazi
Because open-source software is in the public domain, support was provided by local engineers, creating Brazilian jobs, Hall said.
WTF?!? It's NOT public domain.
Hall seems to know what he's talking about, so I'm going to guess that the article author - Matthew Broersma - did a botch-job in paraphrasing him. Note that this comment isn't actually in quotes, unlike four other comments attributed to Hall.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Anyway, I realize the speech was about something else and this quote was probably selected because of its topical nature (or the reporter's leanings), but the story has been well disproven as a falsehood seized upon by the media in their frenzy to discredit the US and the UK. I'm surprised to see the "thousands and thousands" version of the story, intended to swing public opinion against the Iraq war, still being referenced.
"These treasures were created over tens of thousands of years, and all of a sudden, because of the lack of foresight of a few greedy people, a lot of them were removed from the world," he said. "The world has to decide whether or not to send in troops to guard this free and open-source software, to protect it for the world's use."
Even The Guardian has backed off of the earlier story.
If you want a right-wing source instead of a left-wing source, try WorldNetDaily which was published more than a month before the Guardian one (it helps to use multiple sources).
And even if the original version of the story had been true, I could really care less about some museum pieces compared to the lives of the US and UK military, the Iraqi people, the Kurds, etc.
Linux International seems to have gone dead. It was amazing how LI was able to protect the Linux name from the insane US trademark system. But the LI web site seems to be complettely stagent. Instead of taking a stance on SCO's attack on Linux and Open Source, the LI web site continues to praise Caldera/SCO as a Corp. Sponsor.
When the source to the system you are employing is open to all, you have an advantage that cannot be matched by the closed-source vendors: The possibility of having someone local (and cheap) help support your system. It's standard, it's known, it was probably studied at school. Compare that to closed-source where you are dependent on the vendor or its designated partners for support.
Now as the article says, if you are a large corporation you might want to hire another large corporation for support. That's their right, and it's fine. But if you are a small company, or an entity with limited funds (such as a non-profit), it's nice to have the choice to get a local guy to help out instead at greatly reduced costs, and possibly even better quality if he or she is enthusiastic about the program in question.
Open as in free. Can't beat that advantage.
The open-source development community is an international treasure and should be protected as such
John can hide the entire open-source community in his beard to protect it and keep it warm.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
RMS has done alot of great service towards free software but he is a fanatic. Just read India's communist newspaper for more info . His comments on the SCO case show he does not care about the Linux kernel being fudded out of corporate America. He only cares about his precious gnu and views Linux as not part of it or just a kernel. This shows his radical side because he hates anything corporate.
I shudder whenever he opens his mouth. He really does make us in the free software community look bad.
Maddog however cares about Linux acceptance in corporate America and is in favor of other non gpl ( or non free according to RMS ) OSS like FreeBSD.
I wish people would look up to Maddog as the opensource leader instead of RMS.
http://saveie6.com/
I did RTFA and, while Hall indicated that looting of open source is a potential problem, he did not seem to me to be proposing any solutions. IMHO, the most important "protections" are to closely circumscribe software IP:
* ban software patents;
* allow enforcement of software copyright only where irrefutable evidence of infringement exists;
* provide a cheap, fast track method of dealing with frivoulous claims;
* free legal aid for non profit open source providers, but making deliberate misappropriation of IP a criminal offence.
You know, LI and Caldera/Lineo were best buddies for a long time. The original Caldera founders (Bryan Sparks and his friends from Novell) were good honest-to-goodness people who wanted to make Linux and OSS happen. But things started to degrade when Ransome Love replaced Bryan, and now SCO has nothing of Caldera left in it. Caldera was a good company (good as in benefactor of the community), got the first successful commercial Linux distro out back in 1995 (if I remember correctly), then got shafted by RedHat over RPM, then pretty much missed all the opportunities that could have made them great, and now they're just plain aggressive idiots.
In short : John Hall must feel like he's walking on eggs here. SCO isn't at all the Caldera he was talking to back in the good days. I wonder what ties remain between LI and SCO, and if they could be severed for good at last.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The analogy to Iraqi stolen treasures may be misplaced. While initially there were reports that thousands, or, as Maddog says, "a lot of them were removed from the world," later reports in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal put the number of verified pieces missing at 25 in one piece I read and 33 in another.
It turns out that the museum staff stored hundreds and thousands of pieces in their homes, and more valuable pieces had been stored in bank vaults since the first Gulf War. I don't have the Times/WSJ links, but a quick google search turned up this article and this article confirming those basic findings. The later article does mention larger numbers for "minor" pieces, whatever that means.
(On second thought, maybe the analogy holds: lots of sound and fury about stolen IP, followed by findings that very little was taken...)
--LP
Nationalism.
I think this is the greatest strength of the OSS movement. When a government or country is going to invest millions of dollars into IT, doesn't it make sense for that money to be kept local? Munich signed SuSE, a Germany company. It only makes sense.
The great thing is that this fragmentization is a strength of OSM. A lot of small companies all working on OSS independantly, but all of them providing benefit to each other. It is a system where competition makes everyone stronger.
-Eyston
The city of Munich, for example, recently bought an installation of several thousand Linux desktops from German Linux vendor SuSE.
No mention of the cost. Any estimates?
Why not download a totally free distro and burn it to CD assuming you have the in-house resources? A donation could be made in return.
> non-US open-source, as well as protecting open-source from 'looters'
What an illusionist. Open Source == freedom for looters!. It doesn't matter what own visions Maddog has what matters is the license you put your stuff under. If you release your software under the freeticket of GNU/GPL (which many people blindly do) then you can't do anything against it from not being looted by other people. And what can you do about it? To say the truth, you can do a shit about that. As soon as you release your intellectual work as open source, as soon someone else is able to take your work, derivate it, code around it, release it as source again. And how can you be sure your code, routines, ideas are not being used in close source as well? Can you find out?, can you prove it?, can you do something against it? nothing.
I think that Maddog (with respect to him) only want's to create a similar heroic position for himself such as RMS did years back. Like 'Hey listen, I have said something'.
If you think about it for a bit... about a tenth of a second should be sufficient in most cases... no.
Copyright violation is not stealing. Let's all say it together: copyright violation is not stealing. It's just copyright violation.
What SCO is doing, however, is attempted theft (although not in the conventional sense). They're trying to take the IP for themselves, so no one else can have it (at least without paying SCO). This is taking from someone. Not just making a copy for themselves without permission. This is theft, not copyright violation.
His use of the term is almost ironically correct.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
The open source movement is finally allowing the computer industry to build a shared pool of intelectual property which can be used to build new and innovate solutions. This has happened in the past in other industries for example the Chemical industry were the trade secrets of yesterday are the textbook examples of today. I think a law that allowed software to be declared "public domain" and forever protected from lawsuits/patents etc etc would be a good thing sort of like a reverse patent. It would allow the computer industry to finally join the rest of the world industries based on a shared core set of technologies.
You can now commence modding me down
I love seeing posts that say this. This really says IMO, "you'll mod me up for me assuming i'm going to be modded down" and it usually happens 99% of the time. "There! I said my piece, now mod me down!" +5 sad mindless mods.
"They can HAVE their insanity in their large cities and long check out lines! As for me, I'll live happily ever after on my shrimp boat drinking recycled urine and rubbing my head to a nice shine to signal boats on the horizon. I love my little shrimp boat. I've already made some new friends! There's the friendly shark Mr. Teeth who comes by. I wave to him and he giggles. I don't know when I'll pop the question but I think he'll say yes." ---- Fester the happy sea clown
There is at least one secretive, DoD centric, left-nameless US government agency that strongly dislikes open source because they don't trust it. Then, if it was developed by someone in a foreign country, that's even worse. Getting the package accredited could take months. (Sorry Guido)
And this organization knows who they are. Just say the words "Please approve Samba" and they all clam up and start fighting amongst themselves. Forget getting that package approved.
Say the words "Please approve Windows Office [current year]" the same week it comes out and you'll get an answer back the same day saying approved. Say "Please approve [name of US vendor] [name of commercial product]" and you'll probably get an approval the same week.
Never mind the gaping holes every one knows exist in Internet Exploder and Outlook. They are approved without concern. Ask for anything OSS and it will take some video footage of you jumping on your grandmother's grave to convice them you'll lock it down because it's your production system.
They obviously don't read anything Bruce Schneier has to say in his Cryptograms. Lots of companies sell snake oil or never put a patch out when the exploits are alive in the field. It's just that the OSS one's are a little more visible.
Long live paperwork!
This approach can have massive benefits outside the United States--the country where most proprietary software originates--allowing greater price flexibility and a focus on specialized needs, Hall argued.
ZDNet generally sucks. It's doubtfull a free software advocate would really say that. Free software has the same massive benifits inside the US as it does outside the US. The Free Software Foundation is headquartered in the US, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens are US citezens. Chances are that Hall mentioned that some software makers in the US might not be happy if free and open software supplanted their eXPensive wares and ZDNet inflated it to that. Software developers, like other profesionals, have long transended national boundaries. Only a maddog would think that US citezens and businesses have something less to gain from free software than someone in the UK.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Quote: "The open-source development community is an international treasure and should be protected as such..."
I strongly agree with that statement.
When you take work someone else did, claim it's "derivative" and then keep them from using it, you are indeed a theif. SCO would essentially be destroying the original copy for the author as well as violating the author's intent for the software to be free.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,974193 ,00.html
You can go on with your screaming about evil companies.
Yes indeed, that occurred to me also. *nix is a code_whore and very, very generous.
The current OSS climate in Australia is interesting. At the same time as one state (South Australia) is proposing legislation to use OSS "wherever practicable", another state (Victoria) is giving Microsoft $80000 to promote .NET use.
"Today, people cannot get a workaround or a bug fix for the software they have paid for. This is a sad comment on the way we think about software," he said. nothing to do with open source or paid support or anything else. it's called configuration management. you can't have that fix because it depends on these other fixes, and those need to be installed xxxx way, and that other software is not ready to go, etc. it's the most difficult problem in software development and it has not and can not ever be completely "solved".
Now I have an excuse to put my commas outside the quotes when it makes more sense. As an American, that's always bothered me.
I would simply note that in addition to bug fixes, there are workarounds.
When I was first using Word98, which is as buggy as anything [as are subsequent versions], there were major bugs that *I later on found out did have workarounds*, but Microsoft was busy trying not to acknowledge them.
There was a huge cost to that.
Usually, for Linux bugs, such as on CUPS, if you have a bug, you post it. Someone else posts a workaround same or next day, and you go on your way.
...for OSS.
I had the pleasure of hearing him speak at a gov/mil meteorlogical database conference in San Diego a couple years ago, back when I was still wet behind the ears w/r/t Linux, and he had a very positive impact on me. Interestingly enough, throughout the conference there were several individuals who kept inquiring about a timeline for when the DoD was going to approve various Linux platforms for installing various "segments".
The article in Znet did seem a little too processed to properly convey Hall's stance, but the one thing I focused on was what he said about being smaller international firms being able to capitalize on local technical knowledge.
Also, what he said about proprietary ("one-size-fits-all") vs open source (customizable) should be the ultimate argument in favor of open source. As much as I don't like ideologues poisoning the debate trough, a lot of this debate is clearly ideological. Pro-proprietary software supporters (I should say conformists) are just plain suspicious of the idea of something of great value being produced by individuals who collectively enjoy creating a quality piece of software. Most corporate types are still thinking hard-and-heavy machinery-type capitalism, where physical components are "assembly lined" and then fitted together. They just can't see the fluidity of software. It's freaking soft for the love of God!
THey were profiting from the Free Developer's
work, while contributing almost nothing. Now
they turn around and start suing the hands that
feed them for many years.
It is more like as if you after supporting financially
a stranger for many years, one day he decides
to sue you claiming that you stole from
him! Caldera/SCO are not just looters, they
are not just parasites, they represent the
worst of humanity. Our jails have kinder inhabitants
than the SCO group of thugs.
Ok, I'll agree that Caldera stood for something and deserved to be listed as a corp. sponsor at the time they where put on. But what does it take to get removed?! What is LI's 2003 goals/charater in regards to GNU/Linux and what is SCO/Caldera's 2003 goals in regards to GNU/Linux. To what extent are those goals in agreement and to what extent are they in disagreement. Is there any point in which the goals of a company disagree enough with the charater of LI that they can no longer be considered a member?!?!
This is a very strange comparison to make. OSS _is_ commodity software, by its very nature. You cannot get more commodity than perl, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Linux. Open standards are the only basis for true commodity software: TCP/IP, HTTP, etc.
Commercial software is not a commodity, it is the opposite, a corral in which users are captured and bled.
RMS' of course predicted the "Looting of OSS" (or rather was one of the first lootees) and this is why the GPL is so important. The looters become part of the movement.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Perhaps he doesn't know where Linus came from.
The U.S. IS THE problem. Look between your own feet
before talking about what you see around you.
Maddog indicates that legal shenanigans like the SCO suit are similar to the looting of the Iraqi museum because a few people bent on immediate profit are wrecking goods worth a lot more, in the long run, to the public at large.
Um, this happens all the time. Like it or not, it's part of our society. Capitalism does this. That's why we pass laws which act against immediate profiteers in favor of protecting, say, national parks.
Now, the first national park in the world (Yellowstone) was established by Congress in near-record time (for the day) back in the 1870s, when photos taken by William Henry Jackson of the territory that would become the park were printed up and sent to every member of Congress. And in the 1870s, the Wild West was in full swing. The Mining Act, which permits squatters to file mining claims on land they don't own, is also a product of that era, and a more Libertarian law (if that's not a contradiction in terms) would be hard to find.
But the only solution, in a capitalist society, to profit grabs which would result in great public harm is to pass great public laws against them. That's what the RIAA claims the new copyright laws do - keep the squatters off their land. The fact that a lot of people don't think it should be their land in the first place didn't pass muster in Congress.
So assuming Maddog's point is valid, what's to be done about it? Give every member of Congress a Linux system? I'd laugh a lot. Linux doesn't pass the "Mom" test or even come close. They'd scream for their Windoze boxes back.
Maybe Apple should send them all G5s...
Oh no! SCO and Microsoft have won!
I have no reason to live...goodbye, Slashdot!
[ ] I agree with that statement
[ ] I neither agree nor disagree with that statement
[ ] I disagree with that statement
[ ] I strongly disagree with that statement
[ ] I would like to kill whoever made that statement
[ ] This statement is not relative
This isn't a vote here - imagine if all the comments to this story were one of the above choice - it'd be pretty dull, wouldn't it.
Get your own free personal location tracker
It's Fascist, not Nazi...
Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
I hate myself for this, but:
[ ] Cowboy Neal is all the treasure I need
I didn't think he was criticizing to the U.S. here - I think he was referring to the looters.
Do you like Japanese imports?
So what you are saying is that we need to change our herd mentality to a GNU/herd mentality?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.