Slashdot Mirror
Evaluating Open Source
CowboyRobot writes "Jordan Hubbard cofounded FreeBSD and now oversees the Darwin implementation of BSD for Apple. He describes open source as 'finally being openly acknowledged as a commercial engineering force-multiplier and important option for avoiding significant software development costs.' And thus, companies need to know how to evaluate open source engineering as an option for them. In a new article titled Open Source to the Core, Hubbard goes through a typical open source adoption process."
Open source software has poorer levels of QA than proprietary solutions.
at the expense of?
did you forget to take your meds?
Damn and this article doesnt even mention them, but i know it was you all who broke it....
Open source is the cheapest of all software
Yeah! Cheap like mexican beer!
Open source opens the possiblities
Yeah! Open wide!
Yes, open wide for my long, open source
Yeah! Now, that's a fucking distribution!
Just in case the server crashes and burns (like they usually do),I have put up a mirror.h owpage&pid=151 is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_7/acmqueue.com/modu les.php%3fname=Content&%3bpa=showpage&%3bpid =151
The mirror of http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=s
Note to Mods: When I post mirrors, it's a best guess. I don't know for certain whether or not the site will go down!
So what are the chances we'd see Darwin itself open sourced?
It points out a number of stumbling blocks that you might get into and walks you through them.
It has a few paragraphs on dealing with the various liscenses, and on the effort you should put into giving back to the open source community if you use some of the code.
I can see this as a great opportunity to both mainstream developemnt and provide more options. Id software being able to more between mac/windows/linux on their releases is a good example of this.
The article actually mentions Shashdot as a "good source of information"? Now that's fucked up. /. is a lot of things - many of them good. But a consistent, accurate source of information, it is not.
Nil :)
It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying. Everyone knows that ever hapless *BSD is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The erosion of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of BSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major marketing surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.
Fact: *BSD is dying
Why would you want to cut down soft.dev. costs if an engineer in India costs $400/month?
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It
The sad thing about open source is there isn't really any marketing control.
Linux hasn't really taken off into mainstream unti IBM started throwing it's weight and marketing Linux.
If someone could figure out a open source way of marketing and marketing studies to fuel product development, then we'll see a new era.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
"investigation, evaluation, adoption, and communication"
Isn't this true for just about every migration plans?
Investigate -- find out if this will do what you want it to do.
Evaluate -- dig deeper into the idea. Get a better feasibility study with numbers and monetary figures. Make cool looking presentations to the higher-ups that sign the checks.
Adoption -- this is where you SLOWLY incorporate the new with the old. Make sure everything is working well. People may have to do double-duty to work with both systems just so they can give it their blessing (that it all works properly). This is where you train a "core" group of support folks from each department so they burden you less.
Communication -- this really should be earlier on, before adoption. Find people who run this stuff already and communicate whether it may work for you too. See if you can get a "we'll help you through it" before you even adopt.
Again, this isn't anything strictly for Open Source. I'm sure there are nuances and cultures, yadda yadda yadda...but a good plan of action helps minimize risk with ANY project.
- Be prepared to become an expert on everything. If you have problems with component X, if no one in the community is interested in fixing it or if you're under time pressure, you'll have to fix it yourself. Also known as the "if you don't have a kernel expert on staff, you will eventually" rule.
- Almost nothing works the first time. OSS engenders infinite flexibility which eventually reaches infinite permutations. The plethora of configuration options to a large project's source can be very daunting. Everything interlocks with everything else for maximum flexibility which means more work up front to understand how the pieces fit together.
- Forget about binary portability. OSS is designed to support source code across platforms in the same way Windows is designed to support binary backwards compatilbity.
- Expect complexity and plan for it. OSS supports every platform under the sun which breeds extra complexity.
- Have lots and lots of patience.
Just my two cents from having developed embedded x86 and ARM Linux for the last two years.
Slashdot is fine for learning new stuff. A lot of people find interesting articles to post here, then even more comment on them, and every thread always has even more interesting links. It's a force multiplier that way, and you get a lot of great anecdotals, too. Yes, you might have to wade through the trolls, and along the way you might get sidetracked, or enjoy some joking, etc, but all in all it's pretty good. That's why it's popular, it fills a niche and does it well. And it's pretty well customisable, you get the content you want, and you can set your threshold where you want. Price is right, too.
It is too easy to get stuck into a 'local optimum' type framework. It is sometimes better in the long run to start from scratch - shoulders of giants occasionally means heads in clouds. There is little incentive for anyone to independently start afresh with a new 'revolutionary' fashion even in the proprietary sector, but there managers with vision can force it through. The path of least resistance can be, and often is, bristly.
I like the idea of Darwin, a free Unix-like OS specifically designed to work well on a Macintosh, and had hoped that it would be developed as a real and useful BSD but from what I can see, it is simply the core of Mac OS X and no one seems to be interested in making it useful OS on its own right.
Maybe things have changed since the last time I tried Darwin but there are a few problems with it, such as:
1. No partitioning/formatting options during install
2. No way to setup Airport
3. No way to add users/groups without knowing arcane NetInfo commands
4. Some commands do not make use of the full console dimensions; probably because no one wants to fix Termcap.
5. No security announcements lists or patches.
6. No binary releases have being generated since 7.0.1.
Furthermore, I have seen people who wanted to use Darwin as a server (on a remote Macintosh) told to use Mac OS X Server instead. It seems to me that this is the wrong attitude, that people should actually want Darwin to be useful as a server and and a Unix workstation. It is a shame.
For all the talk about Jordans history and talents I must say that the darwin-ports project sucks mud.
There are projects based out of buttfsckastan with 3 developers that make more progress in a week
than darwin-ports makes in months.
Sure some will respond that darwin-ports is better than sliced bread, Baah
Jordan, Apple, we are still waiting for a decent packagable/uninstallable/dependency
tracking capable ports tree for OS X.
With your resources this should not be a big deal!
Of particular interest:
Bravo, HSW, for making Open Source more mainstream!
Back in 60s and 70s, the era of huge collaboration that gaves us UNIX, Internet etc, everything was open sourced. Of course, the targeted audience who participated tended to be those in academia (outside the corporations that developed them). Guess what? Open source softwares was then and there and yes, it was viable enough to be an academic experiment and commercial at the same time. I think the only thing different now is that we have the same revolution with a wider audience and a sensibility that will sustain open source movement for a long time to come.
Activists United
Alright lads, we're going to get people to develope this for us, open source style... then we're going to charge for it. We'll make millions for pretty much free.
Sounds like that to me... isn't the point of open source to "Give a little back to recieve alot". A "One for all, all for one" approach to software?
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
Maybe because:
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
It lowers the barrier of entry. Small local businesses can thrive in an environment like this, and anyone is eligible to obtain the necessary knowhow and skill to get a job or start a business in the field.
I have pretty much one criterion in my mind regarding economics in the USA. If it ups the barrier of entry: automatically bad. It divides the haves and have-nots into perpetually irreconcilable camps. If it lowers the barrier of entry, any perceived "loss" or "recession" is due to the fatcats getting outdone by nimble startups or their own customers. In other words: automatically good.
Lowering the barrier diminishes corporate power; diminished corporate power means diminished corporate influence on government; and that means more power to the REAL PEOPLE.
It has two sentences on what you'll find if you read the article.
What's with the & in the URL? I get an error when I go to that URL. I tried cleaning it up, but it still doesn't load. Anyway, a mirror isn't even needed as the site is very speedy.
... this article is dying
What do you mean, that evaluation was "so stupid, it made a Carrot Top movie look brilliant"?
Oh, I see. Sorry.
The target audience is a critical difference between what happened in the early days of computing and what the open source movement brings to bear. The open source movement targets business with its message because the goal is to help business be built (and that is certainly consistent with the message of Hubbard's article here). Early computer software development was available to anyone who wanted to learn but the goal was not to help build a business. As the first sentence of the open source definition tells us, being "open source" is not just about access to the source code.
Digital Citizen
I fully understand that this article is coming from an open source advocate and therefore it will reflect that movement's philosophy. The same thing could be said of Mark Webbink's article about licensing and much (if not all of) ESR's articles. But I don't think that means there is license to misstate history. Hubbard notes:
A relatively minor correction: the GNU project began before the Free Software Foundation. Therefore the FSF did not launch the GNU project. GCC was renamed to mean the GNU Compiler Collection some time ago when it compiled multiple programming languages.
What's more important to note is that GNU was not just at attempt at only making a complete OS, its ultimate goal is to give people software freedom (a concept not discussed in the open source movement because software freedom is perceived to get in the way of speaking to this movement's target audience--businesses). RMS launched GNU with that aim and GNU continues to be developed with that aim today. Understanding this focus will pay off in Hubbard's next paragraph.
GNU is not properly discussed in the past tense just as it is inappropriate to speak in the past tense about various BSD systems (despite the running gag here on Slashdot that BSD is dying); all of these systems and others based on them continue to be developed.
Here we get a clear indication that this article is chiefly aimed at managers who want their businesses to be treated as charities. The GNU project's aim to deliver software freedom would be hindered if that freedom could be taken away in derivative works. So the chief license of the GNU project (and the entire free software community) requires that all the power of the license be granted to licensees.
Later we'll see that the most agreeable licenses are the non-copylefted licenses (forgive me for using free software terminology here but the open source movement doesn't differentiate on the basis of freedom preservation and as Webbink's intellectually dishonest essay illustrates, this is a useful distinction): most notably the MIT X11 license and the new BSD license. It's key to remember that this essay is not about businesses licensing their programs under the new BSD or MIT X11 license; it's about what licenses to look for in other people's work that allow businesses to build on what they have done and exclusively control the derivative program. Given this, it's odd that these licenses are championed for their ability to let businesses sublicense derivative works and yet (in the last part of the essay) businesses are warned not to "establish a reputation, either fairly or unfairly, as a "taker" who has no interest in giving something back".
In the second section, Hubbard summarizes the GNU GPL:
"Use" is a tricky word because it
Digital Citizen
Note to Mods: When I post mirrors its a best guess,I don't know for certain if the sight will go done or not!
"it's" a best guess.
"site" will go "down".
Your comma should be a period/full stop or a semicolon, and a space should follow it.
Also, "whether" is probably better than "if", as is moving "or not" directly after "whether".
Finally, putting a comma after "mirrors" is better for sentence flow.
Jesus Christ, man, that's your sig! You should at least make some kind of effort to get the spelling right in your sig.
Here: Note to Mods: When I post mirrors, it's a best guess. I don't know for certain whether or not the site will go down!
"Use" is a tricky word because it implies a limitation on running a program (which goes beyond what US copyright regulates). Similarly above, there is no restriction for anyone "using" software from the GNU project. Copying, modification, and distribution are the actions US copyright regulates which have meaning for computer software. Also only distributed derivatives of GNU GPL-covered programs need to be licensed under the GNU GPL.
Use "in your own code". That doesn't suggest runtime to me, but maybe you regularly include running binaries in your code?
Provided under the same terms "to end users". That suggests he's talking about programs that have been distributed to me.
Looks like someone needs to work on their reading comprehension skills...
I don't think that's such a sad thing. It'll be actively marketed in one way or another as long as someone sees a way to make money from it. IBM has found such a way (or believes that it has), but even if it stops then linux and open source will still be there for me to use --- complete with all of the enhancements that IBM provided.
I realise that it's not exactly what you're referring to, but in the past week or so I've been hearing Microsoft commercials on the morning radio, definitely peak time on high rating stations, that directly target open source software.
I don't recall the exact wording but the commercials definitely say something along the lines of "you may think there are free software alternatives, but there are really hidden costs." This is where I am locally (New Zealand), but I understand that Microsoft has been taking similar approaches in other places.
From the tone of the commercials, I honestly can't see how Microsoft could be doing anything but shooting itself in the foot with this type of campaign. One of the main barriers to open source is that people haven't heard of it, and another is that people don't see it as something that's worth seriously trying to use. It's a credit for open source whenever anyone hears that Microsoft is afraid of it, because that implies that lots of other people actually are using it and successfully.
I describe open source as good enough for IBM, Cisco, Oracle, HP, Amazon, Yahoo, etc etc etc.
Open Source is good. Get over it.
One of the biggest disputes concerning GNU GPL compliance has to do with binaries that are uploaded to equipment (sometimes called firmware) and binaries that are executed or run on the computer as drivers. Sometimes the complete corresponding source code is not supplied thus creating a situation where the complete GPL-covered work becomes non-distributable because one cannot comply with all of the requirements in the GPL. Part of the discussion concerns what is sometimes called "glue code". Since RMS is co-author of the GPL, it helps to read what he says on the matter. From a recent post he made to Debian-legal:
Then you would probably not be able to pass the GNU GPL quiz or be a very good GPL compliance person. Programmers are also end users of programs, and yet programmer employees of the same organization can share GPL-covered code amongst themselves without their sharing qualifying as a distributed copy the covered work. Hubbard's essay contains too brief a summary of the GPL and his lack of warning to get lawyers to review the licenses businesses like (the non-copylefted free software licenses) is also unwise and telling. Those licenses do nothing to grant you (the ostensible open source advocate who is willing to give your time and expertise to businesses at no charge) a license to deal in any patents that cover the algorithms you might need to do the work. By the way, I passed the aforementioned quiz with a perfect score.
Digital Citizen
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
Have Americans (I assume he's American) finally done "leverage" to death?
Is "force-multiplier" the mot-du-jour?
FP.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863