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IT, Be Free!
An anonymous reader writes "The Open Group, along with IBM, has published a 500-word document that it hopes developers will endorse. The 'Developer Declaration of Independence' enjoins corporations, governments, organizations, and individuals to adopt and protect open standards in order to promote interoperability among all vendors and give IT customers freedom of choice. The Boston-based Open Group promotes the POSIX open standard and sells compliance testing to OS vendors. It has not yet organized a 'Boston IT Party,' however."
comparing *declarations* , the phrase "MINDFUL of the desire and commitment..." just doesnt quite have the same catchiness as "We hold these truths to be self evident", does it? c'mon now, if you are gonna extol open source, shouldnt you claim it as self evident?
I suggest 24th of July becomes a public holiday for IT people.
I really don't see the point in this. If you want to support open standards (as you should) then simply.... use open standards. We all know it. This isn't telling us anything we don't know already. People who aren't using them aren't checking out the OpenGroup's web site. This "Developer Declaration of Independence" is just another fluffy mission statement. Yeah it sounds great, but is it actually going to DO anything to help the problem?
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
From TFS (and TFA):
The Boston-based Open Group promotes the POSIX open standard and sells compliance testing to OS vendors.
It should be noted that this appears to be an explanation what Open Group is, rather than what the petition is about. I would feel uncomfortable signing something that helps them "sell compliance testing", but that's emphatically *not* what the petition seems to be about - and the summary gives it that unwanted spin.
That said, this is great stuff. Open standards have always been the state of mind of every developer worth their salt (apart from those with extremely lucrative proprietary interests - IBM of yore, MSFT of today), but it's nice to see some more focused approach to promoting open standards.
And these days, we got IBM backing us. No doubt various naysayers are eager to jump on the fact that openness is "convenient" to IBM, they are not altruistic, blah blah - but that's exactly what makes me feel comfortable: if openness was incovenient and required some kind of altruistic, it could stop by the time of next change of the exec team at IBM.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
POSIX really represents everything that's wrong with the computer industry. No vendor really wants to implement a standard, they only do so grudgingly to apease customers. That's why standards implementation has always been quite poor.
POSIX itself has been made largely irrelevant by the sucess of Linux. Standards orgainisations should learn from this - the world doesn't want standards that vendors can implement more or less correctly to provide a veneer of compatability. What the world wants is a free reference implementation that works and which other implemetations if they need to exist at all, can be compared to.
If vendors want to waste money funding organisations like the Open Group that's their problem, but organisations like the Open Group shouldn't expect anyone to really care about the useless documents they create.
1> why doesn't the article include a direct link to the damn thing.
2> The declaration stinks of pointy haired people sitting in afternoon long meetings. I suppose it serves as a way to explain the value of openness to other pointy-haired people. As a Declaration of Independence, the prose soars exactly the way a bowling ball droped from a tall building might (it doesn't).
3> It still seems a little rich for IBM to be supporting a document that contradicts every aspect of IBM business practices through nearly its entire existence.
When IT gets really free, we no longer see articles about cheap IT jobs outsourced to India, right?
on the other hand, i don't care for the "whereas", "resolved", and "let it henceforth be known" style language used. it just sounds too much like one of those undergraduate student government resolutions denouncing female circumcision in west africa somewhere.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Don't be fooled by their recent Linux-friendly stance. IBM are no different than Microsoft, HP, or any other big company,
these truths to be self evident, that all software is created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights...
On second thoughts, perhaps not...
RoseColor red={0, 0xffff, 0x0000, 0x0000};VioletColour blue={0, 0x0000, 0x0000, 0xffff};find / -name *mybase*|chown you
How did that joke go again?
Oh, yeah: I Blame Microsoft
Lots of it. Apart from when I have to go to the job centre once a fortnight on Thursday.
I'm glad I've got IBM on my side. They've certainly been doing their bit for the UK software industry.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
That's called a troll where I come from. And there's no need to feed it just because few moderators were so easily fooled.
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
Open standards can exist in a completely proprietary environment. Open standards should, however, ensure interoperability. In that regard, open standards should be a legal requirement. Vendor lockin should be considered to be restraint of trade.
I also wonder if this declaration could be viewed as anti-DMCA? That would be radical.
Anyway, when I went to the document, the counter was only at 916 so we're not exactly slashdotting them. Maybe that is some indication of how interested the community is.
I detect an inconsistency. Developer freedom is going to be under severe attack if every consumer application is going to have to be acceptable to the RIAA and their equivalent in other areas, yet IBM directly sponsors Sen Hatch who is pushing the INDUCE act forward.
We tend to consider IBM as the good guys because of their fight with SCO, but they cannot fail to see that a total clampdown on access to content effectively brings a sledgehammer down on much open source development.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I appreciate the drollery of the Boston IT party joke. Hilarious, well done!
The parent is just being inflamatory --- the post summarizes down to "Standards are bad". Even allowing for highly divergent views, that doesn't merit a high score unless accompanied by strongly reasoned arguments, which are lacking here.
1. It's a direct link all right,
2. If PHB's don't understand, what's the point in trying? What is so wrong about putting out a coherent statement about open source goals? Does it threaten you?
3. Granted, IBM invented many of the industry's sharp practices. What other companies haven't appreciated perhaps is their long view, which is that in the end, it hurt more than it helped them. Now, when they realize what network effects you can get from open source, and make serious efforts to get behind OSS developers, they are greeted with cutting remarks by nobodies who think they own the club. I think THAT's a bit rich.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
I won't disagree with you there. I love Eclipse, IBM's wonderful donation to the world of Free IDE's. I'll start being impressed when IBM releases their patented algorithms under some sort of GPL-for -patents.
The Open Group publishes the Single Unix Standard (SUS); the IEEE publishes the POSIX standard. The latest version of POSIX is a subset of the latest version of the SUS, but only after a long coordination effort.
...we need you to paint the words "SHARE THE SOFTWARE" one thousand times on the side of the Fleet Center.
"The 'Developer Declaration of Independence' enjoins corporations, governments, organizations, and individuals to adopt and protect open standards"
in a 'Declaration of Independence', I doubt you meant:
enjoin \en-JOIN\, transitive verb:
1. To direct or impose with authority; to order.
2. To prohibit; to forbid.
perhaps you meant:
exhort
v. exhorted, exhorting, exhorts
v. tr.
To urge by strong, often stirring argument, admonition, advice, or appeal: exhorted the troops to hold the line.
So much time spent just to specify something, then on top of that, many people spend time actually making an implementation so a specification can actually be useful.
How many people actually implement on a standard? Very few, that's why portability doesn't work. The whole point of a standard is to help portability!
Someone will probably point out TCP or IP has being a successful standard, but they have the two main problems with standards: try using out-of-band data in TCP. Can't? Oh, that's right, few people actually use it because few have implemented it. Running out of addresses in IPv4? Time to write up a new standard that actually takes current necessities. When will there be an implementation? Few years. When will it actually be in use? Even longer.
I would say the root cause for needing standards is the erection of the code/data boundary because current operating systems can't trust random code.
I agreed wholeheartedly with the declaration. I tried to "sign" the declaration, but it consistently rejected my (multiple attempts at) entering an email address. It said "the email addresses do not match."
Don't be surprised if not too many people with qmail-destined email addresses sign up. (I'm using the "myname-organisation@domain.tld" format email address).
fifth sigma, inc.
The rest of your comment is ok, but C# is not an open standard. Part of the CLI spec has been submitted, but the remoting parts (essential for .NET, otherwise it is as dead as a paperweight) and the library are not Open Standard in the Open Standard sense.
All of my code at work is written to POSIX and other ANSI/ISO standards (C, C++), exactly for the reason that it produces portable code. This allows us to be vendor neutral when it comes to choosing hardware. We've been able to move our code to new POSIX compliant systems, often only needing to make changes due to things like big-endian/little-endian or compiler/library bug work arounds.
The vendors typically are good about fixing standards conformance problems, especially when I say I'll just have to buy another vendor's hardware. Don't underestimate the power of open standards!
You are in denial...
I can think of several instances recently where million dollar database server setups were just migrated from e10ks to linux clusters... and it's not because the sun setup was overkill.. the sun setups were maxed out. Oracle is pushing this.
And the cluster nodes, by the way, were by no means cheap. The entire new setups were iirc $500,000 at least (so cheaper than the sun setup, but by no means cheap). That was for roughly 12 nodes. It's only "low cost" when compared to big iron... the servers themselves were far from cheap.
Isn't the GPL (granted its not a declairation of independance) in effect stronger than this (to use an analogy) roman numeral accountants supporting document?
I wonder if IBM is also interested in promoting open standards with its overpriced hardware?
If I sold hardware and services for a living, I would do everything in my power to make the requisite software as cheap as possible. For example, I would line up as many young programmers as I could and market them into taking the lowest possible wages, or even working for free, while also hedging my bets with new plants in India. This is exactly what Data Tree in San Diego did and it's exactly what IBM and many others are doing.
Maybe all of the hardware/services manufacturers should setup source-code collaboration efforts that pay young programmers to write free code? Then, the smallest members can feed the larger while the largest members use commercial pressure to make sure the smaller members never become larger. Meanwhile, all of the young programmers NOT being paid by that collaboration will have to find other careers and the entire industry (as we know it now) will die. Brilliant move if you are one of the largest members, mind-numbingly stupid if you are not.
Free Software from academia is Good --it sets a new baseline for industry and the state of the art. But free software from brainwashed young technicians is Bad --ultimately for the young technicians hoping to stay in the business of producing Software for a living wage and ultimately for the Public which will have less productivity due to a slower pace of innovation.
I remember in 95,there were allot of people who considered me absolutely foolish for wanting to drop promising career opportunities in Oracle,Microsoft,and SCO Enterprise Unix for Linux.Back then I remember hearing million dollar speakers who couldn't get the future right 18 mo's out,but none the less I hit the nail on the head 10 years out into the future.I wanted to share my thinking,because I think it will benefit other people too.
History teaches that during the 1800's there were many people who believed that the entire meaning and purpose of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit.Ironically just the opposite was true,the industrial revolution actually demanded a mobile and skilled workforce.
It didn't matter that the plantation system was vastly powerful,it didn't matter that the plantation system had many of the most wealthy,educated,resourceful,and well connected people on the planet.More importantly it didn't matter that slavery existed for 1000s of years,that they paid allot of money for those slaves,and it was upheld by the full force of law at every level of government,and was considered a property right.What mattered was was that society needed to move into the industrial age,but simply couldn't until employers could hire labor at will and on demand without fear or concern over who "owned" them.(not to mention that slavery was just plain evil)
Today many in media circles believe that the entire meaning and purpose of the information age is to use inventions like the internet to leverage their copyright holdings to the far reaches of the earth for unlimited growth and profit.Ironically,just the opposite is true,the information age demands the unrestricted flow of information.
It doesn't matter that the media system is vastly powerful, it doesn't matter that the media system has many of the most wealthy,educated,resourceful,and well connected people on the planet.More importantly it doesn't matter that copyrights have existed for 100s of years,that they paid allot of money for them,and they are upheld by the full force of law at every level of government,and are called a property right.What matters is that society needs to move into the information age,but simply can't until companies and people can use information at their disposal at will without fear or liability in regards to who "owns" every little piece of it.
History shows that just because an institution calls something a property right, doesn't mean that it is. Just because an institution calls something an incentive doesn't mean that it is. Just because an institution looks successful on the surface, doesn't mean it is. That the future is formed by facts, and not the common beliefs of the day. Most importantly that the surest way to become irrelavent is to sit the fense, attempt to appease both sides, or to aviod taking sides at all.
It is no accident that Microsoft is under siege by Linux, Hollywood is under siege by p2p networks, and publishers are under siege by from alternate sources of content on the internet. All these forces have in common that they are forcing society to move away from the control of media, content, and information. Likewise, I also think it is in my best interest, and others best interest to do so too and hold our success accountable to it.
By pushing to rely on software like Linux and other open source software and having a bias against proprietary software, information, and content when possible (even when a little inconvenient). It will create opportunities, like it did for me, as time goes on rather than disasters every time an improvement in information technology happens along. It will lead to technology solutions that are more reliable, secure, and interoperable, while at the same time being less costly. It will create a migration of technology that tends to change for improvement make rather than the sake of obsoleting unprofitable versions. It will lead to solution
I disagree, whether the poster was trolling or not their misconceptions are obviously shared by a few people and surely you'd agree we're better having educated people around than not.
:).
Always cracks me up when people start moaning about open standards having failed on Internet forums being accessed by millions of people using open standards. Nothing like refuting your own argument with the very medium you choose to make it, just because you don't understand it (not you personally, the parent
The reality is IBM doesn't really give a flip about open source or the developer community. Let's not forget that IBM is also the king of offshoring efforts.
Their support in open source only exists so they can use it for their exhorbitant consulting fees with nomimal cash investment on their own part. If, for whatever reason, they could no longer charge $250 an hour for medicore consultants they would drop Linux faster than you could blink an eye.
The point? Remember, beyond their line of crap they care zero about Linux, open source, or any other item beyond what ability exists for them to milk it dry for their own cash gain.
Sounds like they are trying to create a community where developers can freely share their work. What a novel thought. www.gnu.org might be a place they can start for ideas.
hooray.
now finally there is a reason to harass gary gerchak (ggerchak@us.ibm.com) into getting off his arse in stalling the release of dce 1.2.2 under the LGPL license.
gary gerchak is the ibm opengroup committee member.
ibm is the ONLY original copyright holder that has NOT agreed to dual-license dce 1.2.2 under the LGPL.
Isn't it contradictory with software patent ?
We the People of Earth, understanding that information technology is an extension of the Human Mind, and seeking equality between men, hereby proclaim:
That all technology which is used to transfer knowledge and information shall be made available to all people without prejudice, at no cost, that no barriers to aquisition of this technology shall be erected, and that all such existing barriers shall immediately be removed.
Let it be understood by all that we are clear in our purpose, strong in our resolve, and determined to reach our goal.
Now, quite unrealistic you say? Methinks the signers of the Declaration of Independence had little hope that the King of England would say "Oh, but of course.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Of course not - there's no outside force here stopping expansion westwards into Native American lands or abolishing the tax on tea that was funding a big chunk of local govenment. Whatever the grubby motives, it was a step that led to the USA - but something to be proud of? Read some history guys.
Except that it would be a lot more valuable if it offered precise meanings of the words "open" and "standard."
Ignoring for the moment the definition of "open", which of the following are standards:
I believe an argument can be made for each of these being a "standard," but for different reasons, and reasons that would not sit well with everyone.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
these guys did Stallman one better. They associated their organization with the American Declaration of Independence and the UNICEF charter.
I'm laughing my ass off.
My penis' name is "it". And when my girlfriend wants some, she'll pull down my shorts and say 'IT..be free!!'.
heh.
I don't want to take anything away from IBM or The Open Group, indeed, I'd applaud them for their work on the side of goodness and light. But doesn't something along these lines seem to happen every few years? It feels like El Niño is back again.
Open standards are a good thing when the alternative is a proprietary "standard" that someone else controls, or when there's no standard at all. Open standards are not so good when you control (and maybe license to others) the de facto standard. Microsoft and others have shown us many times that control over a standard is power, and can be leveraged to gain more power. Conversely, open standards tend to level the playing field and lower barriers to entry into a market.
Therefore, a dominant vendor in a given market can be counted on to resist open standards, and will only support them when customers demand it or when attempting to move into a new market where it is not currently dominant. Marketplace underdogs will push for open standards, and if enough of them get together and agree on a standard, together they may have enough influence to bully the dominant player into going along. Or, if there are two or three players all vying for a leading position, an open standard may be adopted quickly as one tries to get a step ahead of the others, and the others quickly follow suit.
Networking technologies like TCP/IP, ethernet, 10baseT, and 802.11x seem so firmly entrenched now that it's hard to imagine working without them. But there was a time for each of those standards when it wasn't clear at all that that's the standard that would win. The same can surely be said of all sorts of other things that we take completely for granted now, like NTSC video, 110 VAC, ASCII, 8-bit bytes, etc. Look into the history of any real standard and you'll doubtless find a plethora of proprietary standards and an industry movement to adopt an open, unpropriatery standard.
I searched, even using a Linux box to make sure there were no errors. Just as I thought. No William or Bill Gates signature on the list.
"Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity." - David Gelernter
> The Open Group, along with IBM, has published a 500-word document that it hopes developers will endorse.
> From the article: Open standards create more options to address IT needs...
> From the article: The subjection - or "lock-in" - of developers to single-vendor technology constitutes a denial of self-determination...
> From the article: Cooperation among all developers is called for to increase awareness, adoption, and protection of open standards
IBM needs to practice what it preaches and break its own "lock-in" first. I'm referring to its single vendor Lotus Notes technology. What would I like for them to submit to a standards body? Let's see: the Notes database and document formats, standard grammars for LotusScript and its formula languages, Domino classes/API, etc.