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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?
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
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
"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.
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.
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!
On the other hand, you are correct in saying C# is not of much use without the rest of .NET...
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
"What other companies haven't appreciated perhaps is their long view, which is that in the end, it hurt more than it helped them."
It's not IBM's long view, it's IBM's current view. When it was to their advantage to be closed, they were closed. Now that they can't benefit as much from being closed, they support open standards (although they haven't given up much of their mountain of IP).
Should they find in the future that they can make more money being closed, they will be. It's not philosophy, it's not religion, it's business.
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
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."
!!!
And what does that have to do with anything?