Netcraft Interviews Brian Behlendorf

thejackol writes "The co-founder of the Apache Web Server Project and the First Chief Engineer at Wired Magazine was interviewed by Netcraft's Rich Miller about Netcraft's growth, the SCO case's unexpected benefits and changing the world through software. Excerpt: 'It's a good rebuke to the cynical but widespread notion that all it takes is a big pot of gold to litigate your competition out of existance or otherwise win a legal challenge. Good did prevail in the end. Hopefully it won't make us too cocky, because the next challenge could be much harder to fight.'"

Comments

Apache shows what is right with OSS

[ObviousGuy]

Easy to install on any platform. Easy to administrate. Easy to use. Straightforward interface. And best of all, it is well supported.

The GNU/Linux project could learn a lot from these guys.

Re:Apache shows what is right with OSS

[lukewarmfusion]

But it doesn't run .NET!

That was a joke, at least for me. But many clients don't see it as a joke, they see it as a serious obstacle to using OSS. Fortune 500 companies with Microsoft networks, servers, procedures - they're unlikely to adopt an "unsupported" product like Apache. I say unsupported because Microsoft doesn't support it, and they already have support contracts for MS products. They don't have their toes in the water, they're bathing in it.

You can't use many of your ASP apps on Apache (even if you have Chilisoft!). We have clients that turned to us because we can do ASP/SQL Server, and the competition couldn't. The other quote was cheaper, too.

Hillarity..

[JayPee]

I find it hillarious that Brian, one of the people behind Apache is also behind the very raveriffic Hyperreal

Now if he'd only bring back V-rave..

Re:Hillarity..

[djdavetrouble]

Whats hilarious? That Brian actually had a life outside of writing awesome software? I knew him when he was a UCB undergrad... he also started the sf-raves email list back in the early 90's, and was part of the early rave scene in the Bay Area.. He used to host pre-rave parties too at his dorm room. He was always very social, talkative, and good with people. He didn't just sit down in the web crunching away on the workstations ... There were lots of other coders in the scene too, such as the guys from Twitch records. mw worked at Sybase, etc etc....

not over

[trybywrench]

Good did prevail in the end.
I wasn't aware the SCO case was over.

Re:not over

[0BoDy]

Oh, it's over. don't believe me read Groklaw Daily. SCO has told the courts too many contradictory things to prove any of them. They'll lose to IBM first, then Novell, then Redhat, then autozone, then Chrystler. If they sue anybody else they'll really be fscked. They probably won't exist as a company after Novell. (though technically you're right, the cases haven't been settled, dropped, or judged yet)

Re:not over

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM are already countersuing SCO. Here courtesy of the almighty Groklaw is the latest version of their counterclaims. Even if SCO were to fold or to cease their suing of IBM, the counterclaims would still proceed.

import net.groklaw.IANAL;

Correction

[frangipani]

The co-founder of the Apache Web Server Project and the First Chief Engineer at Wired Magazine was interviewed by Netcraft's Rich Miller about Netcraft's growth

I think that should be Apache Web Server's growth, not Netcraft's. Netcraft is mentioned once in the interview.

A good rebuke?

[mccalli]

It's a good rebuke to the cynical but widespread notion that all it takes is a big pot of gold to litigate your competition out of existance

SCO are attacking IBM. Pots of gold don't come a great deal bigger than the ones IBM have at their disposal.

Cheers,
Ian

Litigate your competition out of existance?

[Phidoux]

Why can't one software product "beat" it's competition simply by being better? Why the need to litigate? Be No. 1 because your product is the best, not because you need the law to make it No. 1.

Re:Litigate your competition out of existance?

[millahtime]

Why can't one software product "beat" it's competition simply by being better? Why the need to litigate? Be No. 1 because your product is the best, not because you need the law to make it No. 1.

This is a dog eat dog world. Look at the NO 1's and look at the best product and they are not the same. To get to the top lawsuits, strong arming and many more things are used. That's just life.

Re:Litigate your competition out of existance?

[0BoDy]

According to this theory, Microsoft would make the best software in the world, and McDonalds would make the Best food. Sometimes the better product wins. Sometimes the better marketing wins, some people are given market share and leverage it to their own advantage, others have to build a far-surpassing product in a new market. Reminds me of the way I see minorities excelling in business. They have to do the same job twice as well, for the same pay. It's not right, and it's not fair, but it ceartainly makes for overall better products and economy if the improvements required to get ahead drive the whole market.

Re:Litigate your competition out of existance?

[rmolehusband]

Why can't one software product "beat" it's competition simply by being better?

Sadly, there are few markets where being 'best' automagically makes you number one. Factors such as installed base, brand perception and pure and simple FUD can always swing things for a far poorer product.

Re:Litigate your competition out of existance?

[KrispyKringle]

Depends on what you mean by best. I don't see it as a given that McDonalds' is not the best food, or that Windows is not the best OS. Capitalist markets are a little like evolution. Humans may very well be the epitome of evolution--or so we like to think--but cockroaches will probably be around a hell of a lot longer. So it is with markets; any number of OSes may be technically superior to Windows, but you have to admit, it does just what needs to be done to be successful (anti-competitive practices aside).

For example, I may argue that Microsoft has a terrible security record and therefore must clearly have their heads up their collective asses (so I have argued before). But one would be justified in pointing out that most consumers don't really consider security as much as they consider new features, so Microsoft made a wise choice in deciding to implement OneNote or voice chat in MSN Messenger when they could have been conducting code reviews. I might argue that Apache is far better than IIS (and I don't see much of a counter argument), but those who use IIS will say that without a decent graphical configurator, they just find Apache too difficult to use. Same goes for VB; I sure as hell wouldn't use it for what I do, but for basic desktop application stuff, there's no real problem with it.

What'd I say? Just like cockroaches.

Re:Litigate your competition out of existance?

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

There is rarely a single definition of 'best'. If you value ready availability and price over selection and atmosphere, maybe McDonalds does make the 'best' food. If you favor ease of installation and interoperability (with other people, not software) over security and initial cost, maybe, for you, Microsoft does make the 'best' software.

Re:Litigate your competition out of existance?

[Artifakt]

Your point on markets isn't invalidated by it, but the whole point of Natural Selection is that humans aren't an epitome of evolution, and there just isn't really any pinnacle or focal point to evolution. Those cockroaches we share our buildings with have been evolving precisely as long as we have. They have survived various evolutionary selection mechanisms just as well as we have. Nature isn't seeking to produce intelligence, or any other feature we might find can let us divide organisms into 'higher' and 'lower'. Everything we are evolving along side of is equally fit.
The problem I have with your using an evolutionary metaphor is that applying it to capitalism is just what leads to social Darwinism. Microsoft probably firmly believes it, to the extent they belive that being selected by the forces of the market is the same as being at the predestined peak of the natural order.
It isn't. If ignoring security is really that potent a failing to nature, then nature will select against Microsoft. If millions of people were wrong about the relative importance of security, then nature will select against them too. Public opinion is not a court of no appeal - Natural Selection is.

Behlendorf on SCO: Legal Cannibalism?

[handy_vandal]

From the interview:

Q. What's your take on the long-term impact of the SCO lawsuits? What changes - positive and negative - do you see it producing for Linux and the open source community?

A. I'm assuming that thanks to the BayStar callback that this lawsuit is nearly dead. Of course SCO, could sue their own financial backers and prolong this further, but it feels like we're seeing the beginning of the end.

Whoa -- now there's a thought -- SCO turning litigious against their former backers. Cannibalism among the cannibals ....

-kgj

The opposite is always a possibility

[ObviousGuy]

Netscape sued itself out of existence when it tried to claim that Navigator was being boxed out by Microsoft. Double whammy for Netscape: Inferior product AND litigious management.

hyperreal

[damian]

Hmmm... they forgot to mention the great work he did on SFRaves and http://www.hyperreal.org/

Maybe a bit too underground for your average CV

Best?

[0BoDy]

While I love Apache and trust apache as mutch as the next slashbot, I would like to point out that appache was also one of the first webservers. Originally written as a patch to the http deamon for unix/bsd. They cam out riding on the pigtails of an existing market leader. Microsofts IIS hasn't realy ever taken the lead there, nor will they, untill they shore up the product and secure it better. They'll also have to find a licensing scheme that can compete with Apache's open source license. Better product yes. Is that the reason for market dominance? yes, but only becuase it always has been.

Re:Best?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what happens when your first to the market.

If IIS was their first then it would probably be a different picture.

But then again the internet thing was Microsoft's first big screwup. They didn't take it serious and thus Unix was able to easy maintain it's dominance.

Now that they are trying, it's to late and most people are too smart now to drink the IIS koolaid.

But then again we have dotNet. But that's what Mono is for.

Then people will have no excuse against continueing to using Apache. Good stuff.

Re:Best?

[Roadkills-R-Us]

First to market means nothing with MS around. They've eaten plenty of other apps.

While Apache was originally "a patchy" version of NCSA's httpd, they still did things right, or they wouldn't have taken off in the environment at the time; NCSA or another offshoot would have stayed dominant. The Apache folks did the right things, and not *just* with the software (although they certainly did a fine job there!)

Even with IIS's problems, until recently, IIS were was gaining market share and threatening to take the lead. Apache's dominance was in doubt. The growing acceptance of Open Source has been critical in Apache taking off again, as well as the security issues with IIS.

Finally, you said: ``Better product yes. Is that the reason for market dominance? yes, but only becuase it always has been.''

Better product means *nothing* in the marketplace. Sales and marketing, cubic dollars, FUD, perceived safety, and a variety of other factors make the difference. (Speaking as both a geek and a consumer, that sucks, but it's reality.) Otherwise, the original DOS-based PC would have never made it; there were much better alternatives to both DOS and the hardware platform. But IBM understood all the issues above (and more), and things took off. MS rode IBM's coat tails in that case; Bill Gates (or someone at MS) understood marketing and business, and a clearly inferior product won the day.

Best quote I've seen in a while!

[Roadkills-R-Us]

``I suspect the claims that the GPL "violates the U.S. Constitution" will get recorded in some historical analysis of corporate Tourette's syndrome.''

So *that's* Darl's problem...