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Examining Some Open Source Myths
Neil Gunton writes "I wrote an article distilling some thoughts on Open Source myths. Perhaps unusually, these are not myths propogated by the anti-OSS crowd, but rather dogma that is more frequently spouted by OSS proponents. It is not intended as an anti-OSS argument, but really more as observations and reactions to specific things people say without really thinking about it, such as 'You shouldn't complain about it if you don't want to put effort into providing a fix', 'OSS lets you get under the hood to fix problems', 'All software should be free', 'Scratching the personal itch', etc."
Many of this guy's comments are very good. In many ways, the programing industry is being hit by a much more general sweep of what I call 'copyright depreciation'. The really huge piracy with games, music and movies at the moment is a symptom of copyright depreciation and so is programing. I think a key cultural change in this century will be the rise in the difficulty of the ability to make money off copyrighted works.
In the past, a company could assemble a team of programmers and pay them to write a program for you. Really, the only way you could assemble such a team was under this structure. With the invention of the internet such teams can be assembled on-line and can work in their spare time. Couple this with the ability to be able to duplicate en mass for effectively zero cost makes this form of development very effective.
In the end, the programmer has to get paid or they can't make a living off it. What we're seeing is the destruction of huge profit margins and the market force establishing the 'true' value of a programmer.
Simon
That's news to me. I always regarded Windows to be ahead until w2k, and then the Linux apps quickly got their shit together. Since, they are more or less equal. Now, there's another system that kicks both their asses, MacOS X. That is to say, it kicks Linux' ass, but afterwards, it comforts Linux and give gentle hints on how to improve (Safari -> KHTML (or whatever)).
why do we have to have this discussion every month?
if some 'famous' (weblog) person doesn't write an article about open source and its benefits/disadvantages, a slashdot user will; just to have it posted when it's been more than one month since we've had this discussion
so i can proudly say: i did NOT read the article, and i'll probably never will... unless someone replies that i really, really missed something new
What bothers me most in recent trends of OSS software is that software tends to grow bloated and overcomplicated.
In the days where Stallman started project GNU, toolbox model worked well. One can find that 90% of his problem can be solved by existing tools and concentrate on remaining 10%, which should be easy enough.
Now we want so called usability and consistent interfaces and thus write GUI apps on languages as low level as C!!. Even worse, we have adopted object-oriented model (but non in form of SmallTalk - in form of C++) from commertial programmers, and it makes our software even more uncomprehandable.
What we really need is ability to break such big projects as OpenOffice or Gimp into small pieces to be developed separately.
To be really free software should be understandable for average programmers.
Only person who made step in right direction was John Ouserhout, but even his creation looks a bit too complicated to allow average user make GUI which he want with same easy as terminal users 30 years ago were able to build new command line programs with original Bourne shell.
1. "If you're not willing to help fix it then you shouldn't complain about it"
This is not exactly how I see it. If someone contributes to any OSS project or supports open source, then they are part of the whole movement as far as Im concerned, and they have every right to complain..
If, however, they are ignorant of OSS, and complain about a program they were given that is OSS, then they should be paying for stuff..until they are no longer in ignorance...
The first point is just a matter of opinion. I feel that its counterproductive to hold this opinion, but its an opinion, not a myth.
/can/.
:-) (and hey, where would we be without opinions being challenged?)
More importantly, FOSS does let you tinker under the hood. That it not a myth. The importance of that is not whether you do, but that you
This is an important difference and one that is necessarily true for FOSS, so its cetainly not a myth.
Of course, if anyone claims that everyone does tinker, they're in cloud cuckoo land... I've done it three times. That will be out of several hundred programs I use. Most people want to use their computer not tinker...
There is a fair amount of opinion in the article rather than fact, but it is well presented and not zealot like
I applaud this guy for sticking his head out (or nose, or wahtever you say in english). But I believe some of his myths are misunderstandings.
:-), but, hey, then he will have to develop another application. If you don't like change, the computer bussiness is a silly business to be in...
1. "If you're not willing to help fix it then you shouldn't complain about it"
Clearly that is bogus. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. OK on that one.
2. "Open Source software allows you to get under the hood and fix problems"
This, most definitively is not a myth. He argues that only a few actuallky does this, and yes, he is right! But they point is, that you can actually do it. Or, if you can not do it, you can pay somebody else to do it. He seems to miss this point and writes "Most of the time, what really happens is that you tell the actual programmer about the problem and wait and see if he/she fixes it." An alternative is to pay that programmer to fix the problem. And, that is a lot easier to do with open source software. Even for large projects (apache, perl, linux), where there is a good chance that you can get a developer with the required knowhow to work for a reasonably pay.
This is not a myth, but rather the author is to restricted in perception here.
3. "All software should be free"
OK, here the author seems unable to make the basic distinction between free as in free-beer, or free as in free-spech. I adressed the money thing in the previous point. Wrt. free-speech, all software I use/depend on, is free. However, most of my games are not (and I even paid for them).
As the writer realizes, and perhaps his worst problem, is that the work he does can be copied. But, that just forces him to keep working. The Microsoft model of charging for breathing may very well be a thing of the past. But that does not mean that people are not ready to pay money for software that they can really benefit from. An obvious example for e.g. Linux is movie editing software (where people pay for MainActor) and 3D modeling programs (people pay for AC3D). Yes, eventually these areas will also be covered by open source program (insert shameless plug for kino, the Linux DV editor
4. "Open Source software is always better than closed, proprietary software"
Of course, this depends on your metrics. As I wrote, I have several commercial games. Most of these are "better" than the open source games I have access to.
On the other hand, my primary criteria for "real-work" software is "will the time I invest in this tool, be accumulated for me, will I be able to use this tool as long as I like, for the purposes I wish?". Example: I used to use a windows 3.11 closed source program to manage my bank accounts. After having typed in all my transactions for about 2 years, this program was not available when I upgraded to windows 95 (and later Linux). No migration path. With Open Source software I know that I can always migrate my data. And, if I develop needs the program does not address, I can pay someone to extend/fix the program. Because that is my main metric, yes, open source software is always better! (To me!).
Because people do actually perceive this "myth" in the general sense, I give him a "so and so" on this.
5. "Scratching the personal itch"
I have to take a slight sidestep here. The author writes (under point 3):
"...it's also true that in many respects, Windows kicks Linux's ass in terms of usability and GUI refinements. It's widely recognized that the Linux desktop is still a work in progress playing catch-up to Microsoft.."
and
"The Gnome and KDE projects remain a bit of a mess, and while they are making great strides they remain far behind MS Windows in terms of real usability for the kind of "my grandma" users that Windows caters to."
This is BS, and negatively impacts my impression of the authors opinions in general. I have yet to see any grandma users that are more capable of anyth
Suppose I'm a software developer, and I've just created a new program that is vastly superior to, say, Maya. There's obviously a lot of money to be made in selling my work; if I release it as OSS, then anyone can take my work tinker with it here and there and charge even more than I do for their little 'improvements' having done only 1% of the work as far as the whole product is concerned. That person will detract from the potential profit I can make and could also damage the program's reputation by making a shoddy mess of it.
With no ego I can say that I'm a fairly smart person, yet I can't seem to get my head around the benefits that OSS would have in this situation. Obviously it's a benefit in some cases, but there seems to be little incentive for me not to copyright/patent (whatever) my product to stop people copying it and making money from all the effort I put into designing and implementing it.
It's just a thought, but perhaps capatilism and OSS just don't
mix (which is why all those analogies are never quite right). What we need is an emulsifier.
I like his points, but I'm not sure I agree with point #3. I'm not a programmer, but a lot of my fellow consultants make pretty good money off bespoke software for clients. It _is_ related to the point the author makes, regarding "I have some cool ideas, how do I make money off it?" insofar as a lot of people focus on a particular area for development (web services, smart card interfaces, mobile applications, whatever.)
Customers, especially large firms, don't buy that software, but they will hire a consultant to help them by writing an application that plugs a certain gap, period. The "sale" is the money they pay you for your time.
No, you probably won't get to release that application to the public under the GPL, but you may very well obtain future business based on reference projects, business which involves writing similar applications for different projects.
What I don't see nearly enough for my tastes is a "middle of the road", use-whatever-works-best approach in choosing or writing software. We live in the real world and gotta solve problems; if you have the time and energy to devote to writing programs idealistically, I salute you, honestly. If you don't, considering for example that you have to make things work for a client, or simply don't have the resources for it, nobody should give you s*** for it.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Apart from the fact that this guy has a totally ignorant understanding of open source and especially free software(read: Free software doesn't mean software cost $0.00), what left me disoriented was the fact that he said Windows was usable.
/. Mac is just weird to me), though I haven't upgraded to Panther. And believe me, that's a compliment to the GNOME developers.
Now that's a joke. My girlfriend was having issues in her Windows XP box, just yesterday. Me, being the geek that I'm, and ex-Windows hardcore tweaker, decided to see which virus I was going to have to remove.
So, I booted her machine. I still don't understand why she turned it off. Then proceeded to click on the start menu. Lord Have Mercy! My medulla oblongata was overwhelmed by the chaos that ensued. Talk about menus that have no order. I'll stop there.
Now, I hadn't used XP is over 6 months, and even then only briefly. But when I compare the usability of GNOME to that of Windows XP. Call me a troll if we wish, but GNOME is a millenia ahead of that mess Windows XP is. I never realised how just aweful and ugly the Window's start menu is, at least when compared to GNOME's.
Even KDE notorious for it's horrid usability is eons ahead of Windows XP. Oh, and that is just the start menu. I'm not even going to talk about menu layout, consistent behaviour, intuitive icons, dialogues, graceful failure, look and feel, etc.
I agree that the Windows XP desktop is ahead of GNOME and KDE is several aspects, but usability is not one of them. Now if you were talking about the availability of applications. I'd shut up!
When it comes to usability on the desktop in free software land, look no further than GNOME. I even find GNOME easier to use than OS X(Yes, crucify me
Obviously, you haven't used recent incarnations of GNOME or KDE. Because I doubt Grandma will find Windows XP easier to use than GNOME in 2004.
"My logic is undeniable."
The Anglosaxon style copyright has mostly been concerned with the economical aspects of copyright. Copyright is seen as a tool to promote the creation of intellectual works. The copyright tradition in Continental Europe (droit d'auteur in French), has been more concerned with the moral rights of the author to be recognized as the creator and to decide how the work is used.
It would be possible to abolish the economic monopoly of copyright, but still keep the moral rights. Of course, AFAICT The moral rights of software authors seem to be pretty limited in most countrys compared to other forms of copyrighted works.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
I have no problem with people using copyright to charge for their software - it seems to me both parties get something from the deal. But it has to happen in a free market, and in the free market the price of information has fallen and can't get up.
As Shirky says: The price of information has not only gone into free fall in the last few years, it is still in free fall now, it will continue to fall long before it hits bottom, and when it does whole categories of currently lucrative businesses will be either transfigured unrecognizably or completely wiped out, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Nor should we. Industrialization wiped out the weavers' guilds, most of the farming population and the horse-cart manufacturers - and we're better off for it. The winds of change are blowing again. Let's tear down the windbreaks and build windmills instead.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
1. This one understates the real problem. SOME open source developers may just as well be writing shareware. Naming no names, but I know at least one mail package that's completely closed to third party modifications... and I've run into other programs where the developers are nearly as hostile to patches.
2. This one, however, is no myth. The vast majority of open source software is very approachable, easy to get into and fix things. I'm no "super programmer" but I've submitted patches that have gone into programs from AMANDA to THTTPD... hmmm, I guess I better see what I can do about Zeroconf, I'm a few letters from the end of the alphabet.
Anyway, not "getting under the hood" is a choice. It's not hard and lets you scratch *your* itch.
3. There are many many people in the OSS movement who have no objection to closed source software. I was at Usenix when someone asked McKusick what he thought about someone "stealing" the TCP code from BSD to put it in closed source software. His response... he welcomed it. It meant better software all round.
4. You're assuming, again, that there's some basic conflict between the two approaches. Combine them, you get better software than either... there's hardly any significant proprietary system out there that isn't using OSS components. Apple is the obvious example, but Microsoft uses a lot of OSS in NT... they're even shipping a package containing GCC these days.
5. "Scratching the personal itch". Proprietary software publishers do that too. They talk about being "technically led" or "market led", but the result is the same... if their "personal itch" makes their software less usable or less secure, the user loses. Integrate browser and the desktop? User loses! Abandon GUI guidelines in favor of the New Metal Look? User loses!
What keeps them in check is competition, not any "market driven vision". And the same thing keeps OSS authors honest... PLUS with OSS you have a chance of getting into the source and scratching your itch as well in a way proprietary software can't equal.
6. "More choice is always better". You don't want to choose? That's a choice as well... and one you get to make. There's lots of prepackaged OSS-based systems that have someone's idea of what the "best choice" is.
7. Conclusion: it's not so simple. There isn't any one "Open Source" world, like there isn't any one "Proprietary world". Some OSS models are better than others. Some proprietary systems are better than others. Some OSS advocates have not-so-hidden agendas that you can learn to avoid... but most of those "myths" are simply a matter of your choosing *not* to take advantage of what OSS can offer you.
Gimp never was a LISP library, far from it. Gimp used from the start SIOD, which isn't a Lisp, not even a Scheme, its some broken non-standard kind of Lisp dialect which is a major pain to work with (almost undebugable, error messages that don't tell you more then 'something went wrong', etc.). Beside that Gimp, isn't even much coupled with SIOD, it just comes with it at default, because SIOD source was small enough to get included into the Gimp one, so it didn't add a extra dependency. Gimp functions are exported via the PDB, which doesn't depend on a specific language. And that said, the SIOD bindings are pretty much the worst of all, in SIOD every function returns a list, no matter if its just a single value or multiple, which is extremly unnatural and forces you to flood the whole source with car's for no reason, which are easy to miss and extremly time consuming to debug of cause.
Beside that, the PDB itself is extremly limited, all you can do is call plug-ins and give them parameters, you can't create real GUIs with the PDB, you can't add buttons or now windows to the GimpUI, you can't create new tools for Gimp. The PDB doesn't even map to the GimpUI, often there are cases where the GimpUI provides some functionality, but the PDB doesn't, so you have to manually recode functionality that gimp already provides, because the PDB doesn't give you access to it. Which I think is also one of the major reasons why there still isn't a macro recorder.
Gimp is really NOT 'very friendly' far from it, a CorelPhotopaint from 1996 actual blows Gimp pretty much away in almost every aspect (scripting, macrorecording, GUI).
The only thing that Gimp is actually good at, is the number of Plug-Ins it provides, but beside that there is really not much talk worthy in Gimp and especially not 'simple hacking', when you can't even configure the buttons in the toolbox.
Rowling received a grant from the Scottish Arts Council in 1997, and wrote part of the Harry Potter series while on the dole. Perhaps we should consider OSS subsidies as an alternative to draconian penalties for unauthorized copying.
Just one minor nit: If you distribute your binaries and source together, then there is no obligation on you to distribute source to any Tom, Dick, and Harry. They will have to either get the complete package from you or deal with someone who did. The clause 2/3 distribution only comes into play if you distribute the binaries without source.
While it is certainly true that the GPL provide a fairly effectively means to prevent prices from getting unrealistic, it does not prevent you from selling software. Imagine a company that build a piece of software. They then choose to distribute it under the GPL, set up websites/ftp/mailinglists etc., demand a small fee for the download, make sure that paying customers allways get source, and make upgrades easy and frequent (and worhtwhile).
To "rip off" (as in fork the project and become the "official" version) the code from such a project, you would need to provide enough of the infrastructure that the original company provides, keep people interested in your version, and merge any "good" changes (while keeping in mind that you need to pay for each new version (the GPL does not gaurantee you future binaries, and you only get source to the binaries you have)) the original developers make.
Now if the company is charging too much for this service the competing free effort is likely to succed, but I believe that it is possible to hit a pricepoint, where it is more profitable (for the end user) to pay a small subscription/fee than to fork the project (and under the GPL any forks could be merged back in if they pop up and develop something useful). Not that it is easy, but it should be possible.
I've seen that idea recited for years now. Make Free Software, give it away, and make money by selling support. Well, this sounds great if you are developing software for the corporate enterprise, which is the predominant purchaser of support services. Most corporate IT groups won't even consider a particular software package UNLESS they can buy a support contract for it.
But what if you are a developer of desktop software, designed for home users or small business? By and large, those users don't buy support services. More importantly, if you are developing desktop software such as an organizer or an email program, it should be designed well enough that it doesn't require support.
There is no money to be made in selling commodity software to individual consumers. Support or no support. The more software is available at no cost to consumers the better. Let the corporations and specialists feed the commercial software developers.
I disagree. While software has not been seen as a service until recently, I believe it has more potential for good as a service industry than it ever did as a product industry.
/not/ market a service. Even most manufactured products are produced only when ordered -- a request for service. The only difference is that in manufacturing, most of the cost over the lifetime of a product line is in mass production, and can be amortized to the cost per item. In software development, the vast majority of the cost is in the development, which indicates to me that the payment should be for the original development and not for the copies. Once the software has been developed, most often for a corporation but possibly under government contract or for a consumer organization, it could then become public, to be used by anyone.
When producing a product, it is necessary to predict what will sell on the open market for the best margin. This is not always the item most needed. It is not always produced by the best programmers. The product and its quality are determined by groups of individuals interested solely in maximizing the bottom line.
As a service, software would be produced when needed, to meet known requirements planned out in advance. The best team of programmers available will be chosen (for the money those interested are willing to offer -- and they are the ones to choose the cost, since they are the ones needing the software). There are very few "failed products" because the predictions are no longer necessary. In short, the process becomes far more efficient, and the developers end up making money in roughly direct proportion to the quality of their code (and general software development methods, such as staying on schedule) rather than the competence of their marketing department.
OSS is a service "industry". Software is developed, for the most part, because someone wanted it. There was a need for it. Generally, they chose to spend time rather than money to have it developed, having already the necessary skills to develop it themselves or a willingness to learn. They did not worry about what would sell well, or what the market wanted, because those did not matter. The need existed, and they chose to fulfill it. And while many an OSS project did not "succeed" in the market, nearly all accomplished the purposes for which they were written.
The software industry is one of a very few that does
The software doesn't have to become OSS, of course; it can be held under trade secret (contract law) if the company does not wish the resulting code to be used by its competitors. But in the case, it would be under a service model anyway -- with one copy, there is no difference.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Neil misses one very important point in his analysis. If you reduce the problem down to cost, which is what most companies like to do, the cost of paying for their developers to work on open source can be much cheaper than paying those developers to enhance or implement proprietary solutions.
The idea is that the company USES the open source software that is being developed for something important to their business, instead of paying for a commercial solution.
Typically even after you spend a large amount of money on a commerical software, you end up paying large amounts of money for integration and support. If a couple of your developers were on the open source team, those costs are built in with your payroll.
The software industry is one of a very few that does /not/ market a service.
Is this a joke? I personally right code as a service to numerous clients, as custom software houses have done for decades.
The reason it's not more popular is that it's expensive. Now I presume you don't support the premise of the great grandparent, that software should ONLY be a service. That idea is just religious fundamentalism manifest as software devlopment ideology. If people can't sell software they write then there's gonna be a whole lot less software period.
Actually, I get in there and fix bugs when I can. I've helped with the Linux kernel in version 1.3.38 and I tell you what, it just feels great and I luuuuuvvvvv doing it. And I'm not one of the "tens" the author alludes to, I'm more like one of the thousands that has contributed a small bug fix many years ago. Money is a seperate issue -- yes we charge for crappy commercial software that's not really gonna make a difference to the world at large because we need to eat, but this is not my motivation. My motivation is pure creation with a multiplier of 6 billion potential users; that's a lot bigger than the tiny number of people worldwide that can afford the luxury of playing the WIPO game. The complaint about most people not fixing bugs is irrelevant. If you don't like participating, then this movement is not about you. Find the spirit that moves you and follow it. This is not a myth it is our dream becoming our reality.
IP is the ultimate in regressive property law.
It's the gift that keeps on taking, a la Sonny Bono Copyright Extension. Let's all take a moment and remember that we earn money to live, we don't live to earn money. I am curious what is your real reason for doing what you do.
--Rudi Cilibrasi
there are two aspects to copyright: The economic rights (the right to make money off your work, and preventing others from doing the same) and the moral rights -- attribution and the right to control how your work is use, in what context etc.
With software in the USA, there is only economic rights. The US grants moral rights only for visual works (see the 1997 VARA bill.)
The Anglosaxon style copyright has mostly been concerned with the economical aspects of copyright.
Ehrm, I think you mean the American style copyright. Pretty much every anglo nation (Canada, the UK, etc) have strong recognition of moral rights.
That's a nit and you know it. I was not using nobody in an absolute but rather in the near absolute which matches the authors intent. Kinda like when your hear "nobody pays attention to the speed limit" when in reality that's not a true statement.
His term "hardly anybody" implies near zero when we all know by the software we use everyday that it is much, much more than that. The evidence is all around but statistics are virtually impossible to gather due to the nature of OpenSource development. One indicator that IS verifiable is SourceForge which has over 84,000 projects and almost a million registered users. Anyway, I call "BullShit" on the author. His statement is totally unsubstantiated and flies in the face of reason.
." There's a BIG difference between "nobody" and "hardly anybody".
..."
Heh; yeah, and it's often the difference between proprietary and open source.
I've also contributed code to a number of open-source projects. And in many cases, my work was triggered by reading a complaint from a user. I'd have the response "Hey, that's bothered me, too, and it looks like I'm not the only one. I wonder how hard it would be to fix?
Then, usually far too many hours later, I announce that I've got a patch that fixes the problem, and people should try it out. Or if it's simple enough, I just send in the patch in, it gets included in the next alpha/beta release, and I can reply to the original users complain saying that there's a fix in the archive for them to try.
With closed software, I couldn't have done this. If the code maintainers aren't following the same lists and groups as I am, they probably never notice the complaints. Or they are under pressure from their management to implement only the changes requested by Sales.
It isn't important that everyone hack the source code. What's important is that open source allows a significantly-larger crowd of programmers to hack the code. And it usually turns out that those programmers are users of the code themselves. This often makes them more responsive to user complaints than commercial developers, who usually only answer to their superiors (and are often intentionally kept out of direct contact with users).
And if the code's maintainers aren't responsive enough, open source allows you to do a fork. I've been involved in this, too. With closed source, it's only possible with permission of the original group. With open source, you sometimes (though rarely) get a fork that's more useful than the original. Or, more often, it's useful to a set of users that wouldn't have ever become users of the original.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
If this guy wants to be an ISV because he has a really novel and profitable piece of software in mind, he's going to get considerably stiffer competition than "some kid in his parents' basement". If his software turns a decent profit he's going to be up against other businesses that will be happy to invest serious resources to build a product that makes people want to pay them instead. The kid in the basement can try to build something better, and if he's got the resources to do that on his own, he'll be tempted to go commercial too.
People release things open source because they know that they don't have the resources to produce something complex on their own and to an agressive timescale needed to get to market while the money is still there. The super-successful open source projects draw their resources from a large number of contributors and take a while to get going. If these projects could reach new and lucrative markets while there was still big money to be made in them, the temptation to go commercial would be too much for many.
Why do copyright supporters always make the assumption that in a copyright-ridden world, people will somehow be unaware that there are no copyrights, and say "damn, they ripped off my latest work again!" every time?
In a copyright-ridden world, people will simply create books for the love of creating books, and nobody will "rip it off" because by definition, copying it will not be ripping anyone off.
You are akin to the person who says: I hate pickles! I am glad I hate pickles because if I liked pickles, I'd eat pickles all the time, and I just hate pickles!
Now consider the opposite. As I sit in front of MKS Source Integrity which has the same bug that pisses me off every single time I use it and I can't fix it. It's rare that a bug will piss me off as much as this. If only.. I know, where's that debugger. Uh huh, I've found you little window call, say goodnight. Damn... I can't even patch the binary because it is written in some protected native java shit. God I hate closed source.
How we know is more important than what we know.