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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."
On "All Software Should be Free"
Carpentry is a bad analogy. No one says that I should be able to take tables made by carpenters for free. However, the effects of idea creation are much more ephemeral. Or rather, they are much easier to duplicate than a well crafted table. This is exactly why analogies to "stealing" items in the real world do not carry over to the internet. I don't believe in copyright, any of it. But I still think things should have value. I just don't think that the government should grant monopolies on any idea. So, to go back to the analogy, I think you should be able to charge for what you make, be it software or tables. But I also think that the person you sell that item too should be able to make one of his own, and give it away or sell it or whatever. So comparing the internet to the real world we see that copyrights are just a legal entity, they are not real things, they do not exist outside of a goverment's promise to enforce them. So you can tables, CDs, and even bandwidth, but you can't steal information.
So, let's take this point and compare it with the previous point made concerning "scratching an itch". People in many professions get paid for their expertise. A plumber comes in, does his job, gets paid, and goes home. He doesn't make royalties on his work. He enjoys no monopoly on information, but of course, his job makes this unnecessary. But what we see from the case of the plumber is that people will still need software written, even if there are no monopolistic copyright protections when it is written. People will have "itches", and they will need to be scratched. And maybe they won't have the time to do it themselves. And so, others will be paid to scratch that itch. All of this takes place without any mention of copyright. It's not needed.
You seem to be making the misconception that "free software" means "gratis software" - this is incorrect.
/maintainance licenses can pay for things like offices, developers, food, water, bills, etc :)
"Free Software" refers to freedom, not price. I can sell my piece of free software at any price I like, whether you choose to buy it of course, is your own freedom.
For example; a business selling a database product may choose to release it as free software, and offer a gratis download, but offer a support/maintainance license for a fee. The software is still free, and the money from support
Join the Free Software Foundation
A discussion where bashing the soft points of OSS doesn't get modded -1 Troll.
I can see the next article: "Understanding the GNAA"
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
This guy clearly doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'free.' He goes off about price and payments... that's not the kind of free we're talking about. Perhaps he should try to learn a little about a subject before presuming to lecture others on it.
s/a business selling/a business producing
It's also worth noting that 'kicking the ass' of Windows is not the goal. The goal is freedom. If users have freedom, it doesn't matter whether their system is better or worse. That's not the issue.
Join the Free Software Foundation
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 is it this gets posted on slashdot? This sounds a hell of a lot more like his opinion to me. And look, I'm not getting posted on slashdot for saying Apache is cool.
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
Then why do these form the backbone of the philosophy of nearly all FOSS hippy I have met ? Sorry, but these so-called myths *DO* represent the FOSS movement. You can't have the good without the bad. There is tons of good in FOSS, but these so-called myths are the baggage that comes with it. Or is the author trying to portray the FOSS movement as all good, and trying to sweep dirty laundry under the rug ?
"If you're not willing to help fix it then you shouldn't complain about it"
This is not a problem. Not only is it not a problem, but it is at the core of getting great software out.
I'm sure many have heard how many photoshop users have complained about the GIMP, about its problems from their point of view, and often it's the same little dramas. the GUI, CMYK, whatever.
How long have we been hearing this argument now? 3 years? 4 years?.
Now imagine what a phenomenal product GIMP would be in the eyes of graphic artists who now use photoshop if only the people who had complained about it could be bothered to FIX what they see as problems. A few small years worth of effort in total, very little from each person who has seen something wrong, and the free tool would have surpassed the proprietary one years ago. Instead, all we get are more complaints.
Of course, the making of a noise may be the whole be all and end all to the complaining, with no intention of wanting a fix in the first place. Some people are like that, and that's just unfair.
RST
You can keep saying it's unrealistic to expect users to help fix problems with OSS software, but the fact is that only people who do put in the effort make any difference.
The only people who can effect changes are people who do code, who don't accept this defeatist version of 'reality'. If everyone simply accepted it was unrealistic to be able to personally contribute to anything, well, this world would be a much worse place.
What is 'realistic' to this guy is just not relevant to OSS development. Thats what makes OSS different, and special.
No, it's not 'realistic', but its happening, and it's happening regardless of how 'realistic' you think it is.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Rather than talking about OSS as a whole, we need to try (as far as possible) to discuss the motives of individuals or the objectives of specific projects.
I was betting from the excerpt, that the article was not well done, even very poorly done. :
...
It's worse than that, it is pretty stupid too.
Well, taking the myths one by one
1 : Red Herring. People who receive this treatment are generally whining or complaining. That's a way to shrug them off, because developers have no time to waste with such people. People who want to help post on bugzilla, explain to the author, tell him about the problem, without feeling compelled to say that the product "sucks".
2 : Never in the explanation did he explain why Open Source doesn't allow you to go under the hood. YOU CAN. That's a fact. If you don't, that's no fault of Open Source (or Free Software)
3 : classic misunderstandig. We're talking about freedom here, not gratis. Stupid really, as all he says is then offtopic.
4 : I've never heard this one. Clearly, nobody sane would state that. Perhaps he forgot the word "often" in the sentence.
5 : Nobody said scratching personal itch was a good reason, that's just a fact. So where is the myth ?
6 : Even if people choose for you, more choice is always better (think monopoly). Even more stupid. Having more choice doesn't prevent you from having a choice pre selected for you. The other way around does not work.
7 : Conclusion : worthless article
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
The only reason to run OSS software is because you care about the software that you run and are expected to use on a day-to-day basis. This is for the following reasons:
1. You don't want to be locked into a particular vendor's proprietary protocols, data formats, etc.
2. You want full control of your system. Why should you waste system overhead running a GUI, for example, on a system you just need to be a web server? You get that level of choice with OSS.
3. You want to feel part of a community. Unlike commercial software, you cannot expect the software programmer to bring what you want straight to you in a format you want - it just doesn't work that way because there is no marketing of OSS software. You have to be prepared to feed likes and dislikes back to the programmer or team who created the software.
4. You don't want to / can't pay for software. This is different to saying "All software should be free" and I'm all for voluntary donations to OSS projects. But it does mean that you can turn old hardware into a working usable system and in poorer countries, where people do not have the income to pay for software, this allows them to have exposure to the Internet, programming and gaining computer skills.
5. You don't support piracy. This follows on from 4. above but surely it's better for everyone to have people paying for commercial software and not using illegal copies while those that won't pay for software just use free software instead.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Whether or not they will, or whether it will be any good, isn't really relevant. I doubt that GIMP has hurt Photoshop's sales much, or MySQL is making a dent in Oracle. It's the perception in the mind of VCs and investors that matters.
And I think it has many interesting points that are worth thinking about and/or taking to heart.
But, I have a critique of point 3 (All software should be free) and an observation about point 5 (Scratching the personal itch).
First, there is profitable Open Source software out there. The biggest example I can think of is LiveJournal. Sure, what LJ sells is premium features for their site, but they wouldn't have a thing to sell without their software, which they've wisely chosen to Open Source. LJ makes enough money to afford some pretty hefty server farms in back of it. There are many clone sites out there that use their software, and are free to make money in the same way, but none of them have come even close to putting LJ out of business yet. In fact, I think they've just strengthened LJs business.
So, software can be free, and still make money.
In point 5, Neil Gunton cogently observes in the last sentence "A commercial company, on the other hand, can afford to scratch the personal itches of its end-users, because the end-users are the ones paying the bills.". This very true, and I think it provides a useful illustration of a means by which an Open Source company can make money by directly selling software.
I think I ought to be able to go into a store and bu a copy of gimp. In fact, I think there are several Open Source packages which would lend themselves well to being sold seperately from distributions. This would do a lot to raise the visibility of these packages from a consumer perspective.
I just answered a question by someone where they were wondering about Open Source packages for doing various things. I gave them a list of them. But every single one of those packages usually comes with a distribution. This person was totally unaware of this.
These packages need marketing and distribution seperately from the OS. That marketing and distribution would raise their profiles, and provide a valuable way for end-users to get involved in how a package is produced. Their money would pay for support. They could be introduced to the concept of Open Source and how to effectively contribute constructive criticism and development money for their pet features to Open Source projects. The distribution company could provide a focal point for this, and a project could put things up on its homepage about how well it was being served by various distribution companies.
This would both generate revenue for Open Source projects, adressing point 1. And it would provide direct consumer involvement that could drive feature development, addressing point 5.
If I ever make consumer oriented Open Source software, I intend to sell it on my webpage, and not provide it for free download. I will tell them that if they can't afford the download, they should get a copy from their friends. I will provide source with the download. If someone wants to grab my source and try to compete with me in selling it under a different name, they're welcome to try, but I'm fairly confident that I can continue to add value to this software that I originally wrote better than anybody else, and they will eventually decide to rejoin my project anyway.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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
Hmm, to me IE feels far _less_ integrated than Konqueror does.
sure, you can type file addresses in IE, and web addresses in explorer - but the web addresses in explorer will pop open a new iexplore.exe instance (which is different to explorer.exe).
Personally, I have no problem with a central browsing application for web and file and any other type of information. But as usual, Windows doesn't actually pull it off.
Microsoft seem to be completely unable to provide consistent integrated UIs.
Take their "Web Folders" for instance - that's the biggest piece of crap kludge I've ever seen. 90% of the time it forgets that it's WebDAV and reverts to http, and stops working. Not to mention needing your username and password every time you go into a different folder.
Another case of bad integration is the "Compressed Folder" (zip file) support.
It tries to pretend that it's navigating a zip file just like any other folder - BUT, right click on something, and half the options you'd usually have are simply not there. For no user identifiable reason.
KDE and Gnome have integration and abstraction and UI consistency done far better than Windows - KDE the most. I don't think Windows will ever catch up, because Microsoft simply don't seem to understand abstraction.
Advanced users are users too!
I'm assuming the author posted his essay and pointed Slashdot to it in the interests of getting comments. Well, here are mine:
IMPE (In My Personal Experience), this statement is rarely the first thing out of the developers' mouths. It's mostly used when firing back at those who try demanding certain features be put into the projects. Anybody has the right to comment and criticize, and the open source developer community probably handles that as well as any audience does for that type of comment. However, nobody can demand things be done unless they're paying for it or they're doing it themselves.
Does a casual user do this? Probably not. Does this mean that no user does this? Of course not. It's mostly a matter of how much import you put on the fix and getting it soon. And in terms of the complexity...that depends on the project. Like the essay author, I am "an experienced developer" and I've already helped fix bugs in rsnapshot (small Perl script) and as an experiment rewrote part of the TightVNC Java client to use as a Swing component instead of an applet (not huge, but not exactly simple, either.)
or more specifically:
No, that's one of the central tenets of the Free Software movement, which is approximately a subset of the Open Source movement. And their concern is "free as in speech" more so than "free as in beer", which is more of a side effect. Yes, this philosophy, if carried to its practical conclusion, means no more shrinkwrapped commercial software. Just like the existence of Habitat for Humanity, if carried to its extreme, means no more business for home builders ("free as in siding"? ;-). But it doesn't eliminate the market for home improvement stores (e.g., Home Depot), as homeowners still have to "scratch their own itch" and fix things around the house. It therefore similarly does not get rid of the markets for lumber, bricks, shingles, nails, power tools, etc.
Actually, I agree here -- anyone who says that literally is nuts. If you put "All else being equal" on the front, then the statement is fairly decent, but rarely is all else equal, meaning a project's open source nature is one of many features, each with their own weight in the eyes of the decision-maker.
The author admits that this is true in the first sentence of his argument. If it ain't a myth, don't list it as a myth -- it hurts the essay overall.
Like with the proprietary "myth" above, as a literal statement, this probably isn't a great statement. With "all else being equal" on the front, it is. Certainly, the inverse -- less choice is always better -- or the contrapositive -- more choice is never better -- are even worse statements, so the "myth" ain't so bad in comparison. (and forgive me if I got my inverse and contrapositive mixed up, as it's been a long time since I covered that in middle school).
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
"Open Source software allows you to get under the hood and fix problems"
How is this a myth? Nothing prevents me from doing it, whether I want to is my choice. And those that do are always going to be in the minority.
"All software should be free"
Aaaagh. How many times do we have to reiterate it, not as in beer? Another "software is manufacture" argument.
"Scratching the personal itch"
So the desire to rule out leeching wasn't a valid itch in the case of bittorrent. Or the wish for a fast uncomplicated window manager made blackbox the choice of only programmers. My particular itch has nothing to do with programming. This might have made sense maybe five years ago, now it's laughably easy to shoot down.
"More choice is always better"
This is a bad way to put it. "A bunch of bad choices is worse than a few good ones" is a better argument, and has much better application to software.
This was lazily written and needed more thought before /. got hold of it. Bad move :)
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
Most of the time, a list of myths provides little more than an opportunity to trot out a consignment of straw men-- willful distortions of the opponent's arguments, to be hacked, burnt, and slashed at for the the audience's amusement.
Perhaps I misunderstood the title of the article - I think the use of the word "myths" is misleading, since almost none of the points brought up are verifiable, but merely the author's opinion.
:^)
2. "Open source lets you get under the hood and fix problems"
Some examples:
Just my humble comments on an otherwise quite interesting read.
The idea seems to be that Open Source is better than closed source because you can "tinker" with the code. But how many people actually do this? Hardly anybody in real life. In reality, it's generally very, very difficult to fix real bugs in anything but the most trivial Open Source software. I know that I have rarely done it, and I am an experienced developer.
Not sure where this comes from - I never heard anyone recommend OSS on the basis that anyone can fire up their editor and happily fix bugs in any software in minutes, because it's Open Source.
The advantage that Open Source has over closed, proprietary source because of its "tinker friendliness" still holds true, irregardless of the author's conclusion that it is "very, very difficult" to fix problems in OSS. The source code is still available, right?. This means that it is at least possible for someone motivated enough to try and fix it. You just don't have that when the source code not is avaliable (legally).
Just because the percentage of users actually contributing their own patches is low, doesn't mean that the advantage of source code availability is reduced. To me this sounds a bit like "Oh, they say that this brand of car can be driven faster than the other brand, but since almost no-one is skilled enough to push the car to those speeds, it's a myth."
4. "Open Source software is always better than closed, proprietary software" People rant on and on about how much MS Windows sucks, and it's true, it does in many respects. But 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 people continually wage religious wars on each other's OSS projects.
Come on. I don't think I ever heard someone even on Slashdot seriously put forward the idea that Open Source "always is better, just because."
Not really sure where this argument is going. Shall I read it as "The idea that open source always is better is wrong, because some proprieraty alternatives do stuff better." Hmm. Again, only the most fundamentalist zealot would not know this.
6. "More choice is always better"
[...] For example, a new Linux user has to choose between all these different packages (e.g. which desktop) without knowing anything about either choice, or else just admit defeat and click "All", which results in a bloated system. Reducing the choices would reduce the bloat and clutter that seems to be in danger of overtaking the Linux of today - how many CD's are there now in the average distribution? [...]
This is a comment on distributions, and _not_ Open Source in general. Reducing the number of choices (or at least putting them under some "advanced options") in the most "user-friendly" distributions may be a good idea.
"If you're not willing to help fix it then you shouldn't complain about it"
Agree. (i.e, agree with the author's disagreement to this statement). However, the statement is generally only aimed at someone who simply flames developers without offering anything constructive, in which case its valid.
"Open Source software allows you to get under the hood and fix problems".
That statement is aimed at companies, not home users. Know why gimp is popular in hollywood, despite competing proprietary software having a lot more features? That's right, studios can (and do) pay dozens of programmers, and with gimp they get the source.
"All software should be free"
Hello? That's RMS's philosophy, and maybe the philosophy of the Free Software movement. The "open source" movement differs from RMS on precisely this point. Author's long rant about this is completely wasted, because it is a minority of FS/OSS proponents who believe that all software should be free.
"Open Source software is always better than closed, proprietary software"
Find me 5 people who believe that.
"Scratching the personal itch"
Well, that's the explanation of how unpaid OSS gets written. Commercial OSS is a whole different thing. I don't think anyone confuses the two. The author assumes that people do, and then goes on to explain why they shouldn't. Duh.
"More choice is always better"
Yes and no. That's why we have distros. If you are a linux vendor, more choice is always better. The vendors pick and choose and put together a coherent product so that the end user needs to make one choice (which distro to use) and nothing more. They get a usable system right away. If the end user wants to choose, they can, that's why you have debian, gentoo etc.
Conclusion: these statements aren't myths at all, except in the author's mind, or have important caveats which the author ignores.
The article is biased because it, seemingly deliberately, omits crucial parts of the discussion. For instance:
2. "Open Source software allows you to get under the hood and fix problems"
The author says that the idea that OSS allows you to tinker with the source code is a "myth". He is totally missing the point; The freedom to fix the software is important, not because every user will be able to do so, but because they will all ultimately benefit from this access being available to the programmers that will submit patches.
- Brian.
"If you're not willing to help fix it then you shouldn't complain about it"
Personally I've never heard this one, although I've fixed quite a few things, then submitted the necessary as it kills that one dead.
"Open Source software allows you to get under the hood and fix problems" - Maybe you'll poke around a bit in the code, and if it's trivial then you can fix it - but again, this really isn't something your average user is going to do.
Look! Over there, other side of the road, travelling in the other direction...it's the point...
The point of this 'myth' is you have the ability to. That's it. Whether you submit the patches or not, you can make any modifications that your little heart desires.
"All software should be free" - I write something independently, then there is basically not a chance in hell of being able to sell it or make money directly from it.
There is money being made, but I think the point is that all software should be free in terms of usage rather than monetary cost. Frequent mistake, but a schoolboy error for someone with 20 years experience.
"As a developer myself, this prospect is profoundly depressing"
Why the hell should it? I'm currently developing like there's no tomorrow; people pay for my ability to make things work how they want them to, they don't care about which tools I use. You don't stand over your plumber's shoulder and demand he uses branded Stilsons; you'd get one in the mouth after a short amount of time.
"Yeah, I know, some will say "Go ahead and try, it's a free world". But you know as well as I do that if I am successful then inevitably some kid in his parents' basement will write his own Open Source version of the thing, for free."
Unlike the corporation that could also do the same thing and just slightly undercut you? Grow up. Competition means going out there and seeing if your product/service will fly, and the capitalist ideal means that you could find yourself competing against an eight-year old wunderkind. On a long enough timescale kids will always kick your ass.
"the Linux desktop"
'The'?
"Some of these benefits include having a more focused direction for the team, given the fact that there is (usually) just one manager and team leader, firmer schedules and deadlines, tighter management, profit incentives, salaries and bonus motivations. While this can also be true for open source projects, the "design by committee" that goes on with community projects often results in a more bloated and less focused product that tries to be all things to all people."
Have you worked in a closed source environment? For one thing the manager generally doesn't code, the bonus motivations are usually in place to sweeten the complete lack of innovation and flair that are endemic to a heavily specified job and the deadlines usually slide for whatever reason. OTOH, you'll find that most of the _successful_ OSS projects actively try to cut down on the 'committee' element to the extent where someone usually throws their toys on the floor. Same shit, just slightly more transparent and vocal when it happens.
"A commercial company, on the other hand, can afford to scratch the personal itches of its end-users"
If it listens. Experience has shown that frequently features are thought of as more important than fixing problems, which has led to the current bloat cycle that usually results in the various companies talking about thin-clients...until they bloat the client again.
"Some people will inevitably condemn me for putting down Open Source"
Personally I'm disappointed that you appear to have such a narrow viewpoint. Your major concerns appear to be your own inertia, a couchlock attitude when faced with the idea that you can no longer simply code a product and leave it, that you may be faced with competition and that convienience should be paramount
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
I can understand why the larger software companies are getting very twitchy about Open Source - after all, Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL and so on are rapidly becoming mature enough to be real competitors to the major software vendors.
..... So rapidely they are here and you did not see it ?
Rapidely becoming mature
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
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
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.
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.
I thought the article was well thought out and the numerous people who are accusing him of confusing free as in beer and free as in libre are being unfair. The guy clear understands OSS, but if your software is libre then those you distribute it to can redistribute - meaning that you can't charge very much if anything for the code itself.
Of course you can charge for support etc. but the article explicitly discussed that. It annoys me (as someone who is considering a career as a developer) that people seem to be deliberately misconstruing what the man wrote.
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
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.
How many home users would use a particular program that was free to download, but required paid support services because it was such a bitch to use and maintain?
The "Free Software, Paid Support" model simply breaks down at the desktop level. And as long as there is no profit incentive for developing Free desktop software, you will see that software continue to be developed by hobbyists in their spare time. And this certainly won't further the cause of Desktop Linux.
but the particular expression which is the Harry Potter series is protected.
This is not true: try to make a piece of fan art than builds on the characters established in that series and will will be found in violation of copyright.
The definition of "derivitive work" is vague and allows copyright to be very stifling.
Application to software, then: if a company spends thousands or millions of $CURRENCY developing a product, and then the first person they sell it to can make as many copies as they want and sell them on for half the price, that person will make more profit per copy, because they didn't have the overheads, and will sell more copies to boot. The only way to avoid this is to sell it to that person for the price of developing, which means that there will only be incentive for a company to write software if it's in-house or built-to-order. There goes company innovation.
Most software IS already made this way. Unless you are talking about Microsoft's version of "innovation", nothing of significance would be lost.
....there's a good work out there called "I, Pencil" which addresses the current real world effort needed to manufacture another (mostly) simple wooden product. And this was written in 1958, it's even more complex now with the interactions.
t ml
The bottom line is it takes a lot more than one persons efforts usually to get to a wooden table.
Here is a reference to the essay, it's quite long so just the url:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.h
The trends for software for the next ten years are for programming tools to get better, to the point virtually anyone may write their own programs easily. Right now it is commonly taught and used even in the less developed nations and societies, it is not the arcane science limited to a few thousand people it was when mass adoption of computers was just getting started 40 years or so ago. The business will be forced to change as it's quality gets greater combined with ease of creation. That means it will be worth-less. Not "worthless", but worth-less. Just like the references to copied art forms, when the only way to get an art form was to create or purchase the only copy in existence, it was worth a lot more, as it has become easier to re-create that effort, it naturally follows it is worth-less, all the way to the point now that copies of audio and visual "art" can be created for under a penny in actual cost and at minimal effort. The original creation of the work will have to be priced accordingly as well, as more people can "do it" compared to years past. The businesses of "art" and "software writing art" will eventually have to adjust to that reality. They can postpone the diminishing of "cost" to the consumer only with legislation, but only temporarily, societal changes will eventually force recognition of reality.
Hard to do + Hard to copy = limited over all use or enjoyment, limited to a select few, very expensive, your base paradigm.
Hard to do + Easy to copy = Greatly expanded use to members of society, more universal enjoyment, costs start dropping, distinction between originators and users starts to merge, beginning of the paradigm shift
Easy to do + Easy to copy = The paradigm shift completes to a new one, costs negligible, universal enjoyment and use, society must change, including their "laws", or stagnate
In my way of looking at it, we are almost exactly at the tipping over point between step 2 and 3.
Most of the anti-copyright posters here always roll out the candard that they don't "believe" that people should be granted a monopoly of ideas. By presenting this issue as one of personal belief, they try to transform any discussion of it into an attack on their own personal beliefs (as if we are not allowed to do that.)
Ideas are noncorporeal things that cannot be possessed. If something cannot be possessed, it obviously cannot be monopolized. To use a very simplistic example: "2 + 2 = 4" is an idea. Everyone in the world can hold that idea simultaneously, yet no one can possess it. IT cannot be copywritten. A piece of paper printed with symbols understood to read "2 + 2 = 4" is not an idea. It is a symbolic representation of an idea created at a specific point in time. The person who created it owns it and retains absolute rights to it (a monopoly, if you will) until that person decides to transfer some of those rights. Copyright is the legal framework that protects that right in balance with the larger needs of the oublic.
An argument that attempts to make the case that the creator of a work does not own it has to make that case for all works, not just things that can be copywritten.
In truth, most anti-copyright rants here are simply windowdressing used by unprincipled people who want free stuff.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
For you to create your creation, were all your steps yours alone, or did you build on the efforts of others? Did you design your own OS, build your own kernel, develop your own code language, code your own compiler for that language, design and build your own computer, all from scratch? If at every step of the way you were restricted to non-use of any of those tools or very expensive use, and if the knowledge of HOW to use what you have was further restricted, are you sure you could have built this application?
If having the tools and prior knowledge of others in the past is useful, then having them cheaper all the way to free is even more useful to use for your own new creation, yes? But wait, all those other folks insist on a huge sum of money, a non trivial amount, and want to dictate what you can do with their creations, they want it severely restricted. But wait again, those people themselves had others they relied on, and THOSE people further back up the creation-food chain want to restrict their efforts to a huge level as regards cost and what they allowed others to do with their products. And the folks ahead of them, and so on.
We had those times, it was called "the middle ages".
How far into restriction and huge cost do you want to go, just so that YOU can be creative? Do you wish to be able to cheaply and easily and completely "use" others works so that the work you are interested can be accomplished or attempted? Wouldn't that be a better deal for you? If so, isn't it logical that others would want the same, as regards your work?
You can't have it both ways, you must choose one way or the other.
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.
He claims that it's hard and that nobody does it "in the real world."
No, he doesn't. Direct quote from the article: "But how many people actually do this? Hardly anybody in real life." There's a BIG difference between "nobody" and "hardly anybody".
OpenOffice (Sun), Mozilla (Netscape/AOL). As the author pointed out... The Gnu Image Manipulation Project doesn't have the end-user market share (yet I would also point out that this "End-User" project is the result of 'developer', not end-user, tools).
Programmers are a commodity, good developers are not. For every 100 programmers, you'll find 1 developer that has a good idea. After hearing the idea, 95 of those programmers will say, oh, yeah - that sounds obvious (yet, they had not thought of it). That's the crux. You have 95 commodity programmers who are willing to give away 1 developers good idea, because - in hind sight - it seems obvious. Maybe a general or interesting application is actually a new idea. I'll admit that this isn't always the case, but this does happen. THAT is why copyright exists, the idea has value. ...There are underlying social reasons for this as well that I'll be happy to get into.
Further, I don't think it's bemoaning to point out that in the 80s (and much of the early 90s) the software industry was still open to the single developer, and also not hobbled by open source efforts. This was also before massive consolidation of the software industry. Seems to me, just a simple statement of fact.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
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.
The very title of the article shows that the author doesn't understand Open Source Software. Very few blanket statements will apply to all open source projects or developers. His blanket statements are no different.
"If you're not willing to help fix it then you shouldn't complain about it"
I've heard this, but it has been rare & is becoming more rare. In fact, I most often see it in conversations between two end users (and often on F/OSS for Windows). This can usually be seen as noise--in many cases the developers are quick to offer a much better reply, saying it is on the TODO, or offering short suggestions of how one might start to make a patch if they are so inclined. In other cases, complaints aren't expressed in the right forum--if this was the "last word," as the article's author states, it is often because no developers are able to read it. End users should be better educated how to voice their gripes & have something happen--search bugzilla (or a developer's mailing list) & if you seem to be the first one with the complaint, make it politely in what appears to be the correct forum for bug reports/feature requests!
"Open Source software allows you to get under the hood and fix problems"
Well-written ("maintainable" or, as ESR says, transparent and discoverable) and highly used Open Source Software almost always receive patches or plugins not written by the development team. The Linux Kernel Team might keep tight reigns on what they maintain, but there are plenty of kernel patches that find their way all the way into the vanilla kernel, or are at least popular enough to be found in non-vanilla kernels. Many, many, more can be applied by end users.
Diff/patch are proof to me that this really isn't a myth. You might not choose to fix or even look at someone else's code, but you usually can (and, importantly, others are likely to).
All software should be free
There's still a not-insignificant amount of contention on making more libre software & what that exactly means. See numerous licensing arguments of BSD vs. GPL, etc. As for making all software gratis, as the article implies, I don't really hear this too often. Most people in F/OSS are quick to point out that "Free" doesn't refer to "free beer" & will offer numerous F/OSS projects which are sold (a boxed linux distro, for example).
He doesn't really seem to understand the "Commoditization of Software." There are a few different types of applications & F/OSS has pursued most of them & certainly all of the popular ones. Sometimes development is unpaid. In other cases, commercial companies "who get it" or national labs/universities which receive public funding have done the authoring. The thing is that once that F/OSS alternative is out there, it will often develop into something people want to use & want to make better so that others will use it too.
Open Source software is always better than closed, proprietary software
Better in what way? No one really claims that GNU-CAD is yet at the level of commercial counterparts, but it is foolish to say it is impossible for them to get to that level. (I also disagree that Windows has a better GUI than *nix.) For popular projects, the development is usually always better--code gets fixed faster & the number of users often indicates that the "Return on Investment" is better enough that losing some things (compatibility with proprietary binaries often being the biggie) to be worth it.
Scratching the personal itch
The thing is that many developers are end-users as well. Evolution and Firefox are fine examples. It is also very likely that F/OSS will try to satisfy the end user needs--anyone can voice gripes about it. The thing is that many end users also happen to be developers. The other thing is that those who don't want to adopt F/OSS want a 1:1 replacement of the commercial software they've become locked-in to. Patents and some restrictive licenses ma
Kinda frustrating to see people ripping these commonsense points apart one by one. Really, these are all obvious and valid points. If you're all bent out of shape about them, even to the point where you need to rip the author on Slashdot, then you might just be part of the problem. Open Source is a simple and clean concept, but it is very secondary to good application design. "OSS" is not any kind of magic pill, and it certainly isn't an end unto itself.
(And personally, while I'm here, the number one most important tenet of open source should be SIMPLICITY. No one can safely modify code that isn't beautifully clean and understandable.)
Processes are patentable but not copyrightable. The expression of a process is copyrightable but not patentable. The idea of getting from point A to point B in the development of a product for which the process is developed is often not copyrightable or patentable either one (although sometimes point B itself is patentable).
In short, the idea having value is in no way related to copyright. Copyright is about the expression of the idea having merit.
This is why you don't fix bugs in the programs of others.
I think that there are inaccuracies on most of the statements made (not to the point that completely reverse the analysis, but the issues are more complex than they are being made) but point #3 is obviously the impetus behind Neil's questioning "Open Source Myths".
I have seen similar to this quite a bit: "I grew up in the 1980's assuming that I would one day be able to write some really cool software, then *SELL IT*, and make some real money for my trouble." I think that this is *not* a valid argument. While stating a personal opinion and emotional state quite clearly, one could say the same about the farmers who "expected to make a living on the farm" or factory workers who "expected to continue to make a living in the industry".
Efficiencies continue to increase in the world, displacing people from jobs, many times leaving them few good alternatives. Is this good? Surely it seems not to be for those displaced. Yet, few people today would want to be contrained by the living conditions of the early 1900's, or earlier. We live lives that the kings of old would have killed for, by standing on the broken backs of those displaced by efficiencies that were created by new technologies and methodologies. I myself would find it difficult to give up modern amenities while simultaneously understanding the concerns of outsourcing and open source. Hypocrite is one word for it, I guess. At the end of the day, I have decided that luxury trumps a living wage for my fellow man.
So how does this apply to OSS? Simply: we are outsourcing the development of potentially commercial work to *ourselves* and creating the infrastructure for software to be "worth less in dollars spent". If I build operating systems, web servers or databases, I'm pretty sure I would be feeling just like the farmers and factory workers of old: there is a pressure building that is not going to go away, which will sap the monetary reward for what I do.
Does this mean I am against OSS then? Surely not, for I realize that the end result of this change is software development is not the destruction of an industry, but the creation of a bedrock of new technologies and methodologies which will allow me to produce better and better solutions for my customers at lower and lower costs. I can't dream of writing the next "big word processor", but frankly that is an empty dream anyway with the established commercial vendors in place today. The only difference here with OSS is when a type of software reaches a certain threshold of maturity, commercial exploitation of that type of software becomes harder and harder as the OSS packages catch up.
The main difference with our industry is the *speed* at which the effects are felt: it took a generation to destroy the factory worker's job, it took several generations for the farms to be destroyed. We are seeing an industry created and destroyed in one lifetime. Myself, I'm glad I didn't get the opprotunity to get comfortable with the old model and had the chance to learn how to produce viable solutions for my customers using the new model. You see, for every dollar my clients don't spend on commercial operating systems, SQL servers, etc, there is a dollar available for me to apply honest work to solving the problems they are interested in having solved. Where OSS won't work, I'm more than willing to pay the commercial vendors for the parts and pieces I need: because in *those* cases they provided real value for my dollar.
Sig under construction since 1998.
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.
Useability is not the same as learnability, except for the case of a kiosk where nobody uses it twice.
True useability goes beyond grandma using the machine the first time, to grandma emailing the grandkids daily (weekly or however often). True useability may even go so far as to time how long it takes to press each key, and re-arranging the keyboard to save 1/10th of a second. (AT&T did this once for their operators, a case where spending a couple days in training saves money in the long run once they know the new layout the saves the thousands of seconds per person per month)
Linux is very useable if you are a programmer. KDE is very useable if you use your computer daily. And if you have never used a computer before KDE/gnome is just as useable as windows. (each has its own quirks though) If you are an expert at windows linux and the desktops are not as useable at first, if you take the effort to learn them they are at least as useable, perhaps more so depending on what you want to do with them.
As an example: I ran spell check on this post and corrected 7 errors. (there may be more, but speelcheck didn't find them) This is much easier to do in KDE than in any other desktop I've used. However there is something else that you can do easily that I can't easily do in KDE.