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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.
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.
Microsoft will dominate OS market as long there's no OEM Linux distributors.
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.
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'
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.