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The Open Source Paradigm Shift
Tim O'Reilly has written up a talk he has given about the open source paradigm shift, which he describes as fundamental and long-term changes in the technology world brought on by the widespread adoption of Free and open source software.
I think paradigms should be outlawed.
Who's with me on this?
Somehow, intermingling "open source" with "paradigm shifts" together... it just seems wrong.
A relationship between open source software and corporations can exist. But to the business suit crowd, could you please leave the bullshit keywords at the door?
and embrace this new pair-uh-dig-'em.
You see people using BS buzzwords constantly in the industry where money and marketing are everything, but why in F/OSS software? That just seems counterproductive.
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
If we ban ALL of these words from our vocabulary, it will make many things difficult to express.
Also, at some point it may become necessary to actually communicate things to men wearing suits. In particular, it may at some point be necessary for Tim O'Reily to communicate things to men wearing suits. If Tim O'Reily is to communicate with men wearing suits, it is likely it is to Tim O'Reily's benefit to do so using words that men wearing suits are likely to be accustomed to hearing.
hey ... as long as this paradigm shift helps develop synergy and foster an environment of positive collegiality utlizing a digital framework, I'm in.
I am about half way through and I am totally engrossed. This is a great read. Props to Oreilly
What was that sound? A paradigm shifting without a clutch.
Because Open Source Copyleft GNU/Free Software has no use for buzzwords.
Buzzwords are just so Old Media, and we're too libre for that. We work in "Internet Time".
Well, I for one, welcome our new Tux overlords.
Learn something new.
Microsoft will dominate OS market as long there's no OEM Linux distributors.
The "Open Source Desktop", by that I mean the Linux kernel + Gnu tools + Gnome and/or KDE, has now matured to a level where it has become a real choice, or threat depending on perspective, to commercial alternatives. Goverments are looking into Linux and switching or using it as leverage to get a better price on commercial alternatives. This is new. Not something that came overnight, though, it's something that's been happening for a while. Personally I've used Linux both as desktop and server OS for many years. But I am a "skilled", not average computer user. The big change is that Linux distributions and other OS software is now so user-friendly and complete that average joe can use it to get all his tasks done. And this is a big change.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
This is the reason why my s&p 500 software company won't touch or even allow us to use GPL code.
The BSD license is acceptable.
to simply abide by the terms of the GPL? Then you won't be sued.
OSS, while it may be changing the way the industry works, is still not commonplace to the end user. Linux distros will never have the distribution Microsoft has because of brand name recognition and accessibility. It may be getting there, O'Reilly points out the fact that web-based "killer apps" that appeal to a desktop user (ie. Google) run Linux but a Dell shipping with Red Hat is a long way off.
In Soviet Russia, the Paradigm shifts YOU!
Yay!!! Paradigm Shift!!!
La la la la la.....
Another use of the phrase which makes even the simplest of changes sound like a monumental accomplishment!
At first, I thought that Open Source experiences a paradigm shift, sort of a revolution in its dynamics. After RingTFA I realized that Open Source is a paradigm shift in computer technology. Duh.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
...IBM chose to build its computer from off the shelf components, and to open up its design for cloning by other manufacturers... :)
No they didn't. Compaq had to clean room reverse engineer the IBM BIOS to make the first clones. IBM then brought out the PS/2 with microchannel architecture trying to lock people into their hardware and that didn't work either. Eventually IBM was dragged kicking and screaming into modern times where we all love them for being open.
Shh.
A 'paradigm shift' is a radical shift in the way people think. Not individuals, but a large group as a whole. a population.
Right now, individuals think of the idea of free software being both good and viable.
But more and more people are thinking that way. When enough people think that way, the population as a whoel will effectively be thinking that way, and the way soft ware is produced will have radically changed (hopefully for the better).
At this point, we will have a paradigm shift.
now, given that we may be facing a paradigm shift that might greatly reduce Microsoft's ability to generate large revenue, at least via Windows and MS office, the idea of a service-software industry (aka Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, etc.) being the next big market makes sense. It's certainly already growing.
"It takes a very long time to count to 2 in binary." ~'Fourlegged'
The trick is to just make our niche so large it encompasses the earth.
BTW, the "OS Market" is bigger than "the consumer desktop market".
it's very productive. It's also very right...
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
check it out or this. I tend to agree with the first more, but the second also keeps my computer running.
Tim O'Reilly is right more than he is wrong, though. IBM did choose to make the PC open. The early PCs from IBM actually came with schematics! You could easily get the source for the BIOS! (Not useful for cloning a PC since the BIOS was still under a proprietary license.) IBM made no effort to exclude anyone from making accessories for the PC, or software for it.
It's widely believed that IBM did these things because it didn't take PCs very seriously; it didn't view PCs as a threat to its other lines of business. Ironically, it was the very openness of IBM's PCs that led to them demolishing so much of IBM's old lines of business.
The Apple II came with a schematic and with code listings. It seems probable that IBM was deliberately doing things the same way the Apple guys did things, hoping to duplicate the success with a similar recipe. But an open platform with the IBM brand turned out to be a huge success, far beyond what IBM ever expected.
P.S. I have no special inside knowledge of what was going on at IBM, but there are a few things I consider interesting that may indicate what IBM was worried about.
The original PC keyboard was painful for typing; in particular it was hard to hit the right shift key. I believe this was just to help ensure that IBM's word processors (single-task computers, that did nothing but word processing) were not put out of business by the PC. Of course, after-market keyboards came out with saner key arrangements, word processing software became popular, and dedicated word-processor boxes were in fact put out of business by the PC.
The original IBM AT came with a socketed clock chip, which ran the AT at 6 MHz. But the schematic clearly showed that the system was designed to run at 8 MHz. People replaced the socketed crystal and pushed their ATs to 8 MHz, and found they ran perfectly stable. (Overclocking!) I believe this was because IBM's minicomputer group was starting to worry about PCs displacing IBM's lower-end minis. Of course, clones of the AT came out with faster and faster 286 chips.
When the 386 came out, everyone waited for IBM to release a PC with a 386. Months went by. Finally Compaq, in a bold move, made a Compaq AT clone that had a 386 instead of a 286, and the rest is history. IBM had abandoned its leadership role, and never reclaimed it. I believe that IBM's minicomputer group was seriously worried about 386-based PCs, and IBM couldn't come to the decision to launch a 386-based computer in time to be first. (IBM was the leader only as long as it was leading. When it tried to lead the customers to a place they didn't want to go -- the proprietary, locked-down PS/2 computers -- the customers didn't follow.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
so that's what I did. And what I have here is the best of three attempts to address the subject.
Because the frequency of innovation is increasing and the initial lifespan of any one idea is decreasing, things may reach a point where innovation moves too fast for social forces to have much effect on any technology.
Example Absolutely Chosen At Random For No Good Reason Whatsoever: "Trusted" Computing
If the tinfoil nightmare indeed comes true, and laws are passed making it illegal to not use such a system, do we have enough time to reverse its effects until the rules are set in stone? Remember that Money is an immediate force ("Hey, for $X million, would you make Y illegal?"), and that Reason is a slow force ("You can't make Y illegal because you are breaking right Z!").
Also do remember that for every one of us who want information free, there are three who stand to lose money at free information, and six who just don't give a fuck, as long as they get paid.
What I'm trying to get to is that "open source/free" is nothing special on its own, but when combined with the increasing shrinkage of the scale of time, we may be headed with a direct collision with the other side; and at least one of us will be completely devastated.
Or I could just be feeling grandiose---note my abuse of capitalization and overuse of overused metaphors.
Actually, that's exactly what open source is -- a paradigm shift from the principles of Free Software. And the reason for it is exactly because of the 'business suit crowd'.
More appropriate than the author realises, perhaps.
Open Source will prove to be another milestone in human history.
s hipofi nternet12402.html
Like the gun, printing press, internal combustion engine, anti-biotics, concepts of Freedom/Liberty/Rights and various other recent human inventions it will eventaully have dramatic effects on people beyond the obvious ramifications in business.
The movement of human technology is a movement of intellectual and political power from the minority to the majority.
Guns destroyed Feudalism as the professional warrior class that protected it was wiped out by peasent armies with firearms.
Philosophy, science, and religion became accessable to the common man thru the cheap books created by the invention of the printing press.
So on and so forth.
Without the gun, knowledge would be worthless because professional warrior class would still be dominate and enforce the will of the rulers weither or not it made sense for the majority of the people.
So all this goes hand in hand.
Remember the show "Connections"? This is the sort of shit I am talking about.
If it wasn't for BSD and Unix there would be no internet. Without the Free Source software products like the BSD TCP/IP protocol stack (used in early OSes from Windows NT to AT&T unix) we wouldn't have a common language that all computers could communicate with.
Now the entire Internet is full of more usefull information to more people then anything the world has seen before.
Anybody that can afford a computer better then a 486sx, and a internet connection has access (by using Linux, and TCP/IP originally produced by BSD) to the same amount of information that only previously aviable to people attending large universities.
Take the MIT open course work for instance.
Any person, from butt-fuck montana to the tribes of South africa, if they have a internet connection, can have a presence on the world stage.
Think about kids from small towns, many of those places don't even have libraries. Now they can read about science and liturature and other subjects only aviable to historians just 20 years ago.
Free software means free access. I can run on my cheapo laptop the same software that multimillion dollar companies use to help develope their infrastructure.
I can set up servers, websites, anything I want and it just costs me the the cost of the internet connection.
Even rights-stomping, oppressive communist countries can't sensor the net well enough to stop intellegent citizens communicating and learning about the outside world. Middle eastern countries can block websites and ip addresses, but they still can't keep the truth away from their people anymore. If they do then their country will become so obsolete that they will be driven to obsolencence.
Although they do try:
http://wais.stanford.edu/China/china_censor
Right now pirated commercial software is filling the void, but as MS is working with countries like China to stem the flow of illegal software, free software is will begin to replace it for people that either can't afford or do not want to use Windows.
It isn't important that free software is cheap or even more or less secure then commercial software. The Freedom means freedom of ideas, knowledge, business. Anything that people desire.
Of course this comes with a price, but personally I am willing to sacrifice Microsoft and Bill Gate's fortune on the alter of advancements of human sociatal evolution, dignity and experiance.
Way to cut and paste stuff without any releance to the article.
Is there anybody who can quickly digest about 20 pages of excellent story written by Tim O'Reilly and produce meaningful comment in an hour.
Slashdot needs "slow stories", "slow food".
One point in the article I found very interesting: Net software is different from simple applications. It's an important shift.
Take an old word processor; put it on a compatible computer and fire it up. It still works to process words.
Take an old Internet system (such as an old search engine). It's useless unless it contains up-to-date data, which means continual upkeep, and if it's old perhaps there's no one left who remembers how to tend it. A system like Google can include input from the rest of the Web automatically, which helps it stay up to date, but it's useless in isolation. And feedback systems in eBay and Amazon are very important factors in their success.
We will still need word processors and such in the future, but they won't be as important as they have been in the past. The value of word processors and similar software will plummet towards zero, as the free programs like OpenOffice get better and are more accepted; but Google, not even ten years old yet, is essential and growing.
General-purpose software like word processors will be a commodity. Custom apps for business will remain as a niche. Net-enabled software will be where the real value will lie.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Which makes IBM out as a benefactor to the Industry. But from what I remember and have read... IBM didn't seem to be the willing participant that Tim makes them out to be.
The story doesn't begin with IBM at all. It actually begins with Apple. Apple had made the first real consumer microcomputer. The Apple II came complete with keyboard and nice custom plastic case. But until the first killer app, the Apple II was just a neat hobbyist machine.
Microcomputers didn't catch the business world's attention until Visicalc. Visicalc was the first spreadsheet. And once people began to realize the power of the spreadsheet, everyone who crunched numbers for a living needed a microcomputer on their desktop.
IBM had dismissed microcomputers as being the realm of scientists and hobbyists. The sudden demand for microcomputers by businesses took them by surprise. But they rallied the troops, fired up the engineers, and set an almost insane schedule to produce a machine that would cash in on this sudden market.
We all know they made a deal with Microsoft. But since we're talking commoditization of the hardware market, we'll save that for another time.
What's important is that IBM's engineers went for off-the-shelf components to comply with the need to get an IBM microcomputer product out fast. The only thing that made the IBM PC hardware unique was a proprietary BIOS. Enter Compaq.
Compaq entered the market after a million dollar investment to reverse-engineer the IBM PC BIOS. They produced a superior machine for less than IBM's offering. And since it was compatible with the machine that dominated the business computing market on brand recognition alone... it was wildly successful. Compaq made back their investment and then some; $111 million in first-year sales.
More important than Compaq's success was the beginning of a new industry. The beginning of a process. The move from proprietary hardware to commodity hardware.
It didn't seem like this was IBM's intent at all. In fact, IBM made a failed attempt to regain control of the platform in 1997 with the PS/2 and its proprietary Micro Channel bus.
In conclusion, software itself is no longer the primary locus of value in the computer industry. The commoditization of software drives value to services enabled by that software. New business models are required.
This doesn't apply to software alone, but to all the DRM crap that is going on with the RIAA and MPAA. It could read "The commoditization of music drives value to services enabled by music". The business model for music should probably focus on these "enabled services" rather than the old "pay-per-use" method. I guess that's what is going on with the iTunes Music Store and the iPod.
I don't think WotC wants to put any of their products under the GPL.
away from open source? I remember in school reading about scientists in the olden days sharing research pretty freely. It seems like all this copywrite and patent crap is a relatively new development.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I am willing to sacrifice Microsoft and Bill Gate's fortune on the alter of advancements of human sociatal evolution, dignity and experiance.
Even if Bill Gates and Microsoft lost their monopoly, that would hardly mean a sacrifice of their fortune!
The interesting thing here is, that Bill and others at MSFT are just as eager as others to get recognition. If they sense that their old business model is obsolecent, they may very well invest in FOSS (!) to better their reputation. IBM, a former monopolist, now funding Linux is the perfect example for what can happen. I wouldn't be too surprised if Bill Gates did the same once he grows up and becomes a mature and responsible member of our society.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Programming commercial software must:
- Focus on maximizing the feature list and on marketing demands
- Protect their intellectual property by providing API's instead of file formats.
Programming Open Source means:
- Make sure that the features in the system actually work as intended.
- Exploit synergi effects with other software (interoperability, using the code, piping etc.)
- Use well defined file formats instead of APIs.
Did you know that the Microsoft Access file format is "company confidential"? Actually, the precise file format is probably not even written down anywhere in an internal document, since you don't need it - you just use the same code to read a block that you used to write it. It was never intended to be read by more than one implementation of the file format.
Well, that goes without saying.
Because if you give software away and get paid only for support and you write good software that does not need support (as software should be!), you are out of business soon.
Copying microsoft which copies apple and then extracting support fees because users can't install/use this badly designed/written software themselves is not improving the lives of computer users. I am not impressed by OSS, yet.
The academia and hobbists are appropriate areas for creating such software, but pure software business?
I am not entirely sure I agree with his point but it certainly deserves thinking about.
How many people use symbian vs their nokia phone? How many use tron vs some japanese phone?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I wouldn't be too surprised if Bill Gates did the same once he grows up and becomes a mature and responsible member of our society.
;)
I'd b very surprised, at least in the short to medium terms, given that the majority of the MS business model is based on proprietary interfaces, data formats etc, and they are backing that up with defensive patents (double-clicking with a mouse, XML as a storage format etc).
I certainly don't disagree that the open source model should be the way forward, but I wouldn't count on too much help from Billy boy just yet
From the legal academic viewpoint, why do you have a problem with "paradigm shift"? It's a fine choice of words to describe this situation. It may seem like the buzzwords obscure things but look again - it's just a different way of describing this issue.
And it's not just the "suits" who need "buzzwords" like paradigm shift. It's the academics, it's the lawyers, it's the judges and it's the government. There's an entire world out there aside from the computer industry that is interested in what's happening with open source and bringing them into the argument by using words they understand is vital if you want to get your point across with any success.
Why is moving towards open source equated with making more money in this article? Not so - it makes less every time - not that I don't like Open Source - I love being able to download free (as in beer) copies of Mandrake and Knoppix. And I'm sorry, but people who use Google aren't using Linux any more than people who hit my own web site are using Mac OS X. That's just nonsense! Why is Tim using Amazon, Google and Ebay as examples of being able to make money from Open Source? I think he means to say that they were able to cut costs by not paying Linux companies/developers as much as they would have Microsoft/Sun/Apple/SGI/QNX/etc.. I think Tim is missing the REAL paradigm shift here. He said it himself, but failed to see the forest for the trees. Microsoft made 32 billion last year, verses Red Hat's 126 million. Microsoft lost probably 5-10 billion last year due to eroded market share from Linux (well, fair enough - they deserved it). Am I an Open Source supporter? Yes. Do I hate Microsoft? Somewhat. But please, do not say that Open Source has lots of financial rewards. Open Source forces companies to "embrace and extend" Linux in quite the same way that Apple has with BSD, >. Those who don't, such as Microsoft, are losing market share (such as to Apache, Linux, and OpenOffice). Even funnier is the fact that the big-name Linux companies handle Open Source almost the same way that Apple does (like Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE, etc.) in that they work with Open Source and give changes back, but they have their own value add (whether proprietary, open, or just a marketed name such as "Red Hat") added to it. No wonder Red Hat has been accused of being the Microsoft of Open Source. Open Source allows people to "steal code", however, it's not too hard for a competitor to copy the way an app works anyways (depending on which app, of course). Not to mention, it takes a lifetime to read and understand a million lines of code, so the BIG projects such as OpenOffice or the Linux kernel are relatively safe.
Who moved my sig?
Quoting Tim O'Reilly's speech:
RMS' retelling of the history of the movement he started does not begin as O'Reilly describes above (or, reading O'Reilly differently, RMS is being called an "open-source advocate"). Either way, O'Reilly is wrong. RMS has made it very clear that he does not wish to be lumped in with the open source movement. As for the story of how the free software movement came to be, RMS describes how fortunate he was "in the 1970's to be part of a community of programmers who shared software" which "could trace its ancestry essentially back to the beginning of computing"; as you can see in the brief quote I include below, RMS made it clear that back then source code sharing was the norm and there was no need to define a movement to underscore the importance of treating others in the ethical way these hackers treated one another back then. It is this description of RMS' experience as a member of the MIT AI lab that sets the stage for the jarring experience he had when trying to get the source code for software which controlled the early laser printer Xerox had donated to the AI lab. RMS wanted this printer program's source code so the program could be modified to include the end-to-end feedback improvements the MIT AI lab had hacked into their previous printer control software. Read or hear the speech for yourself (links go to the 2001 NYU retelling of this story -- two years before O'Reilly first gave his speech). Read a relevant portion of RMS' speech:
Furthermore, when O'Reilly tells a story of "building better software through transparency and code sharing", he is not in any way speaking t
Digital Citizen
Let's ignore those paradigmaticly shifting meanings. :)
1-Computers started as big (very big) calculator machines, code were formulaes.
2- then changed to uniform shape and spread among people, the pc era started, code revolved around public APIs,
3- latter communication systems lowered prices and that make possible to connect those individuals machines thru selected servers, that's the internet era, public protocols take the workload,
The next 'shift'? In my opinion, parallel processing at massive scale, (ie, speech recognition, automatic translation enabled phones, etc) that one has been once and again left for tomorrow.
What's in a sig?
That's right. Now add a little outsourcing, and you've got a REAL winner.
Who moved my sig?
It was my sorry attempt at a joke.
:)
I realy don't care at all about Bill Gates or his money.
Thats great, Linux has great mindshare amongst those who create some of the leading web applications.
However, the reason that it's not going to help in the slightest when it comes to client penetration is that an operating system that works well essentially becomes transparent to the user, who should only be interacting with their task and using the operating system to achieve this. Take for example, the latest SuSE's, Gentoo, whatever, there's penguins plastered everywhere, their nice logo is rammed down your throat left and right, and the constant trumpeting of OSS is everywhere, from readme's to splash screens. You either conform to the view thats presented, or you'll be annoyed by it until you get frustrated.
Right now I'm running Windows XP, I don't need to compile anything, I don't have to subscribe to a mindset, I just have to use the software. The "You use Linux if you use Google" is such bullshit in retrospect, we all use DNS a lot more, and that's mostly run on proprietary Unix and in some cases the BSD's. Noone goes playing that trumpet, do they?
releance, eh?
I think from the mispellings and bad english it would be painfully obvious that I didn't copy and paste stuff.
This is my own opinion, from my own mind. I like to think alot, it stops me from getting bored at work.
Sorry to shake up your beleif that other humans are not capable of thinking for themselves.
HA! And I diddn't even read the stupid article yet.
What he says is obvious to anybody with half a brain.
Those are terms, just like "garbage collection" or "monolithic kernel" are. Do you sneer at those terms? How about the computing terms you don't (yet) understand?
The business terms are more abstract than computing terms, they often refer to people's behavior (people in large groups), they do not refer to anything crisp but something very fuzzy at best. They define concepts.
But they're not "bullshit" as you so bluntly put it. Look behind them, there's actually many interesting things.
Of course some people just throw them around like rice in a wedding, in which case the person is at fault, not the terms themselves.
I do not moderate.
Solid, but for how long?
Sep 20th 2001 | BRUSSELS
European solidarity with the United States will depend on just what a global "war" against terrorism entails
A WEEK after the terrorist atrocities in America, the talk in the European Union was all still of "solidarity". "We stand four-square with our American allies and friends," said Chris Patten, the EU's commissioner for foreign affairs, in a statement echoed by scores of politicians across the continent. Opinion polls showed that most West Europeans wanted their governments to take part in military action against terrorism, with the French almost as eager as the British (see chart). Though Germans in general are edgier, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has sounded as robust as the French. [...] But the possible limits to European support for the United States are also becoming evident. [...]
It was noted with relief in Brussels and elsewhere that in the attacks' immediate aftermath, America and Iran appeared to undergo something of a small rapprochement. But it is also clear that a strong school of thought in the United States considers Iraq to be the main state promoter of terrorism. A recent book arguing that Iraq was behind the first attack on the World Trade Centre, in 1993, has won plaudits from, among others, Paul Wolfowitz, now Mr Rumsfeld's deputy at the Pentagon.
If the United States chose to attack Iraq without convincing public evidence of its involvement in the latest terror, Europe's solidarity might begin to crack. The anti-Saddam coalition that the United States built up during the Gulf war has fizzled. France dropped out of the air patrols over Iraq's "no-fly" zones in 1998, leaving Britain as America's only ally in the skies. A clutch of French MPs has visited Baghdad, Iraq's capital. France has its eyes on lucrative Iraqi oil contracts, if and when UN sanctions against Iraq are lifted. Many governments and people in the EU now think sanctions against Iraq are ineffective--and needlessly cruel to ordinary Iraqis.
If the attempt to widen the war on terrorism beyond Mr bin Laden and Afghanistan is confined to judicial and intelligence co-operation, the EU should stay enthusiastic. But broader military strikes may cause public unease, except perhaps in Britain, with its emotional and security ties to the United States. Europe's reluctance is not just to do with evidence or with fear of the humanitarian consequences of military action. For all the talk of the attack on America being "an attack on all of us", some Europeans fear that if they cleave too closely to a broad, punitive American policy, terrorist reprisals against European cities will be far more likely. Rudolf Scharping, Germany's defence minister, at first seemed to distance himself from American war talk by cautioning against the use of emotive language: "We aren't on the brink of war."
A lot of Europeans, hoping that their advice may temper what they regard as the Pentagon's wilder instincts, say that the Americans should consult them--and "co-operate" with them--more. This partly reflects some Europeans' long-standing resentment of what they see as America's high-handedness. In this view, common in Paris, Berlin and Brussels, the crisis may have a beneficial side-effect if it makes America seek more equal relations with its European allies. But members of the British government tend not to take this line. A senior British politician points out that "America considers that it has a fundamental responsibility to respond to an attack on its own soil. What action Americans take is a matter for them."
Why can't you get videotaped lectures from there? Is it because they like to talk the talk and not walk the walk?
Truly OPEN "courseware" means access to everything regarding that course. Including videos by superstar scientists.
Uh. When you make the final build just take the GPL source from some trusted non-modified place (you do have separate build teams? since you're sp500) and build it from there. That way it cannot have been modified. It's really not a big deal, the solution can be come up in 1 minute without really even thinking.
How come this O'Reilly guy finds it so easy to get his stuff published?
They could, but instead they're siphoning up tenticle porn at a megabit/sec. And you can't get that from any small town library.
Play Command HQ online
We develop software. Marketting (and spelling) is SEP.
There wasn't stupid things like copyright or patent laws... and knowledge was passed freely around the world.
Then, some people got greedy, and said: "okay, you give me some gold pieces, and I'll learn you how to build a ship!".
Then copyright & patent laws were invented, to 'promote science and creativity', by using greed to stimulate the spread of creative works.
All these patent law suits, GPL vs. closed source battles we see today, is to me just a sign of society finding out that copyright etc. simply doesn't work: for some, yes, but society as a whole doesn't benefit from letting ideas have 'owners'.
Open Source is just a move back to the old ways, where ideas were free to use as you like, and only physical items (can) have owners.
I expect this to expand, to hardware, books, music, whatever non-tangible stuff, simply because it works better for society as a whole. It just takes lots of time for people to understand that it does, and why.
"Bigotry"
Finally, if I am extremely lucky, I will never have to communicate anything to the suits other then the occassional grunt, glare, or "out of the way, you're between me and the coffee pot." I have no desire to learn their bizarre moon-language.
Here is another word for you: "Intransigent"
You can learn a lot from language. I suggest you use it...
I liked this section best, particularly his argument that Amazon is not as vulnerable to competition (say from Walmart) as previously thought due to the way they have managed to incorporate a kind of network effect into their system via all their user contributions to the site. The lesson is to get users to provide value for each other, even if the site's ultimate goal is selling widgets.
And this argument:
seems to refer almost directly to Moglen's Metaphorical Corollary to Faraday's Law:
But I dunno, maybe these arguments only make sense to the minority of internet users who actually contribute content (if only to sites like Slashdot).
A word or phrase, the meaning of which which people rarely care enough about to actually try to understand before they use
I think "buzzword" is the worst buzz word of all. Its like, an "anti-" word...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
first rule of online discussion:
- whenever someone mentions a paradigm shift, smile and slowly start walking away without attracting too much attention
I'm all for open source, but I'm really for an outright ban on the term 'paradigm shift'.
I have a simple test that I use in my talks to see if my audience of computer industry professionals is thinking with the old paradigm or the new. "How many of you use Linux?" I ask. Depending on the venue, 20-80% of the audience might raise its hands. "How many of you use Google?" Every hand in the room goes up. And the light begins to dawn.
Bullshit, manipulative, and dishonest. Wording the question that way leads the people to think he is asking what they use on their own machines, on their desks. Ah, but then he comes back with his tricky "revelation". This guy should be a fucking politician.
And the day he can't make bucks off of open source is the day he'll quit giving these talks and positioning himself as a "leader". Ask him why the text of all of his published books isn't freely available online, and see how much he really believes in it.
A lot of the problems that apply to proprietary software (and which open source solves), also apply to modern democracies. Ie. paradigms like 'the one with the most money wins'..etc.
Would it be possible to build an open source (possibly web, or possibly not) system to enable people to run for office, and let people 'moderate' the candidates somehow (like slashdot moderation), so that the crackpots, spams and flames get weeded out, leaving a few reasonable choice or choices that people could vote for, that would end up on the traditional ballot along with the candidates of the regular parties.
This could work well in pretty much any modern democracy where money/politics have gotten too intertwined with each other (which is then what causes pretty much all the other problems that the said country then has).
The great thing about this of course, is that it (because of open source IT), would cost almost no money, and so by definition, be more fair, open and democratic (ie. the corporations with fat open checkbooks wouldn't be running everything (ie. like in the US right now, and some Western European countries as well).. Rather the voters would run things again).
Anyone working on such a project to 'open source democracy?'. I guess it would be more a project like Gorklaw rather than a specifically IT only type project..
Who cares. Paradigms only run about twenty cents each anyway.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Don't underestimate MS's ability to do 180 degree turns in the whim of an eye. On the 3rd WWW conference in spring of '95 MS presented its vision for the back-then new MSN which was initially thought to counter and totally obsolete the then still young WWW. However, it got clear very soon that this never would be the case and MS engaged in a manic race to catch up on the Internet and Web field. They only needed 3-4 years to destroy Netscape (ok, Netscape's own incompetence helped them greatly) and establish IE and other Internet-related products firmly.
So never underestimate MS, they are capable of unbelievable things if feeling threatened, and they have a lot of money in their pockets.
Does anyone have a link to an eDirectory and Samba HOWTO?
"Guns destroyed Feudalism as the professional warrior class that protected it was wiped out by peasent armies with firearms."
Actually, that's not true. Gunpowder first appeared on the battlefield in the 14th century around the time of the Battle of Crecy, but various types of feudalism survived in Europe until the 18th century. It's the French Revolution that is often credited with putting a final end to the feudal order.
The truth is that what ended feudalism was the rising power of the middle class, which was changing the world so that the old feudal order was obsolete. It was a slow process, but an inevitable one.
Truth be told, I think that works as a better metaphor for Open Source vs. Closed Source. There is a place for both, but Open Source is starting to prove a better development model, and very likely may one day lead to the end of the Closed Source model (although that would be a very gradual process). It is not, however, a self-sufficient development model. In order for it to survive economically, the IT economy has to be service-based, and the money from those services has to be used to subsidize the software developers. Otherwise, the Open Source developers can't pay their bills, and Open Source remains a hobby rather than a professional model.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
I am trying to decide if the moderator is themself trying to be homourous or is simply devoid of all humour.
that 30 years ago, source was always given. It was a shift to give only executables. Now, we are seeing the boat rock back. A shift? No, I suspect that it is just a rejection of a different one.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You've been brainwashed.
Could the revolution of France happenned without the gun?
Why was the japanese warlords so paranoid of it and made owning firearms illegal and made it a cultural issue?
Basicly the middle class would of never risen to power in a world were the military controlled their lives.
Feudalism ended because the governments were forced to respect their people because if they didn't the people would kill the military and chop their heads off.
The french revolution is mearly the most impressive example of the evolution that was spreading across Europe.
Notice I said GUNS not GUNPOWDER. Fireworks are not effect military devices. It wasn't till the musket came along before it was a effective military weapon.
Before that it was to fragile and error prone to be used on the battle feild in large numbers.
Get your history straight next time, and understand the evolution of warfare and weapons had on human culture and it's evolution.
Political force alone that makes change.
Political force is worthless without anything to back up that force with real power. Why do you think that so many people are resentfull of the US military force? Because of our potent middle class?
Why is it that Europe is going to form it's own military force, because of envy?
The middle class exists because they can form a large military force.
People + military potential = middle class
People - military potential = peasents.
don't listen to your government when they tell you that you realy don't need to be able to protect yourself, your neighbors and their/your rights in this "enlightened" world.
It isn't important that free software is cheap or even more or less secure then commercial software. The Freedom means freedom of ideas, knowledge, business. Anything that people desire.
Here is the problem. Free Software based on principal alone will not become popular enough to take over the market. Businesses and home users don't care about freedom of ideas or knowledge. The only thing free software has going for it is the price.
Im working on a project right now that involves a database. Im not using windows for the following reason: the licensing fees.
I admit that I may not be "getting it". Open Sourcers are creating the brave new world, and software for money is out.
In order for Open Sourcing to work, you have to have a population base of computer savy people. These same people have to be at least somewhat bright. Bright people need to eat regularly, and will find some way to do so. If they are not getting paid for writing software, they will do something else.
Without someone buying software, you lose your intelligencia. The developers turn to other professions to make their living, and Open Source dies. Even if the assumption is that Open Sourcers are all academics, the acedemicians that I know are responsible for teaching, grading, publishing etc. They have very little time to contribute to the Open Source phenomenon.
Can we all migrate to that great new software product in the sky "infoware"? Not quickly. Until then, developers, DBAs, and the like need jobs that pay, because there are customers that pay. Without the lubrication of lucre, the machinery of Open Source grinds to a halt.
I know this is RMS's spin on the history, but it's not true and not fair.
"Free software" and "open source" are synonyms, and there is only one movement. The founders of what you call the "open source movement" were and are members of the free software movement, and like all other members, their goal is the furtherance of software freedom.
They disagree with the founders of that movement on how best to further that freedom, and indeed believe that the misleading name the movement initially chose was such a barrier to that furtherance that it was worth choosing another. But this is no reason to pretend that they are not part of that movement, or that their goal is some other goal than software freedom.
To pretend that the Free Software movement is different from the Open Source movement is as ridiculous as to pretend that liking zucchini is different from liking courgettes.
Xenu loves you!
My premise is that free and open source developers are in much the same position today that IBM was in 1981 when it changed the rules of the computer industry, but failed to understand the consequences of the change, allowing others to reap the benefits.
do open source developers really put in all that work and love and dedication, only because they expect to reap benefits? i think they do it just to get their names on /.!
When you say you have a right to impose a non-free license, what you are syaing is that you have the right to use the force and power of the federal government to coerce someone not to copy something freely at their disposal. While this might be bearable in the physical world, in the information age it simply won't work. Copyrights half to die and the reason why free licenses are so successfull is because they most closely mimic this effect. I think it's a mistake to treat non-free licenses like just another flavor of ice-cream. What this implies is that truth behind free software is just an opinion. The fact is free licenses are better and necissary because non-free licenese by their very nature are coercive and restrictive on others right to copy things freely at their disposal - a right that will be absolutely essential in the years to come.
Open source speaks chiefly to businesses about a development methodology and purposefully pushes aside software freedom because that movement's founders believed that freedom talk would scare away the businesses they wanted to talk to most.Open Source considers freedom as a means to an end, while Free Software considers freedom as an end in itself. So what? There's room for both. They're both pushing for adoption of the same unencumbered, shareable software. Neither movement hurts the other. So why complain about it?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
It's just a matter of time before either Yahoo or Google offers a word processor online. Then things should really get interesting..
As in science, a paradigm shift is an illusion. In evolution, genetic mutation happens constantly, then every so often this mutation is beneficial to the organism and it begins to multiply. In some cases this organism will eventually come to dominate an enviroment to the detriment of a previous species. Looked at from one angle it would appear that this organism suddenly appeared, however if you look slightly deeper you see that there were many organisms evolving and dying out, with one eventually taking over (for a while). The same can be said for technology, in fact O'Reilly states, "And as with scientific revolutions, they are often hard fought, and the ideas underlying them not widely accepted until long after they were first introduced." If a paradigm shift takes a long time to evolve, is it actually a paradigm shift?
Yahoo! Bang the drum for Tim Oh, really? "The Internet is the true platform." Maybe, just maybe the swing to Open Source is being spearheaded by the SW MFR MFC MSG ?Do you mean Monosodium Glutamate or Main Service Gates. Bill1 to:=> isapi?=redir.dll? finally ready to return all his toys back to the free box that he got them from in the first place[Would somebody please answer the phone?]RING1 MASTER2 BAIT3 HOOKS4.00_01;->{...---...} Screw UUNET BINDERY We're from TEXAS! Pop this in your SBC 2 SitComms..............TV[0] CBS[1]Arnold Ziffle CITE:b1.oink.wav,,,,,,,,,TV[2] ARNOLD16SCHWARZENNEGER32.c1.Governor.CA-x-enus.asp
Linspire's primary target audience has always been the home market. Lycoris, Mandrake, etc. also have OEM programs.
I guess two things changed. How much money you can make in computing, and how much some people will tolerate being told they'll be wage slaves to their corporate masters forever.