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Does Open Source Need Quality Standards?
underpar writes "This Techworld.com article reports that a UK group called the Open Source Consortium is being officially launched today. The article further states that the goal of the group is to respond to claims that switching to open source is more expensive than using Microsoft products and to help smaller companies compete with Sun and IBM for open source contracts. They say they will not compete with other open source groups and they intend to eventually come to the US. The hype-filled about us section of their site says their Quality Standard Certification provides a "simple framework for self-assessment and performance improvement." The question of whether this is useful or even wanted in the US still remains to be answered."
... and rumor has it they're experimenting with this quality assurance idea called 'pier review'
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Be careful what you wish for.
Something "free" or "cheap" might be so for a reason.
I still say best open source is that tied to proprietary hardware then you really cash in.
As for la-dee-dah software, operating systems, etc, I stay away from those.
More to the point, isn't ISO 9001 one of those standards where you prove your ``quality'' by committing to following a process, and documenting that you do indeed follow that process? The inevitable result is that you can commit to shooting your customer in the foot, and document that you have done so, and earn the highest ``quality'' rating for it. That sort of ``quality'' isn't very reassuring.
See what I've been reading.
Certifications like this are often welcome in corporate environments where names and packaging often matter as much or more than the product.
... anything that lends credibility to OSS is, in my book, a good thing. So if this takes off and acts as some sort of benchmark for quality that people can rely on, I say more power to them.
Even if OSS is better in a lot of cases, many managers can't politically afford to introduce it because of the climate that exists in the still largely Windows-controlled world.
Any sort of
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Linux in medical devices should have follow FDA standards
Linux in automotive systems shouldd follow DOT standards.
Linux in voting machines should follow Diebold/MS-Access quality standards..
(sorry for the US-centric examples - for your own country pick your favorite certification organizations)
Scientists wonder:
Do bears shit in the woods?
Is the pope Catholic?
YES !!!
And it needs to stick to them. Microsoft may produce buggy insecure code but I'm fed up of finding bugs in Open Source software and being told 'what do you expect, it's free'.
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
Nothing will stop them. If US companies want to listen to the US Open Source Consortium as you name it, then they will. If European companies want to listen more to another OSC, then they are free to to do so. Is this necessarily a bad thing? As long as there is some kind of control and legitimacy over these consortiums, this can be good. Establishing 15 different consortiums within one country just because some developers disagree would probably be overkill though.
Linux is quality. By having publicly available code, we can all make sure it's up to our standards. If it's not, then you are welcome to (a) not use it, or (b) fix it. So why the concern? Contribute to the community and all is well. There's no barrier to helping (such as improving a country). But seriously, Linux has proven itself worthy of being quite stable and for the most part secure (problems are bound to happen in such a large block of code, but responsible repair is key). Same with the core applications within it. The UNIX model is tried tested and true over and over again. It's still used so commonly BECAUSE it just makes sense... Try that in a windows world (click here, then here, then here... no wait- we moved that feature elsewhere in the latest 'security patch'). -M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
F/OSS needs more unified standards first! (like for packages).
While i could care less about w3c compliant, *if* you decide to put up a link to w3c, checking valid xml stuff, make sure it's actually valid ;)
I can imagine an organized group like this, though, would be excellent at answering issues like corporate generated FUD in an organized and coherent way. That's our big problem, we lack representation (not counting eccentric geniuses with big ZZ top beards).
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Not only an overgenralisation, it is a redundant idea to boot. OSDL already provides a lot of the stuff they publicly talk about - code quality etc. The real purpose of the organisation comes to light when you read deeper into the site.
You need to be skilled in their "consulting framework" and you need to conform to some "financial framework" as well. Their membership criteria are mysterious (hint, you probably need to be a member of their club of buddies) and some of the organisations that are members (and knowing those organisations intimately, they probably are the drivers behind this thing as well) are decidedly dodgy - Open Forum Europe has publicly spoken as "Open Source Representatives" and as such, have signed a declaration supporting software patents. Looks to me like just another group of people trying to corner a market. Anyone remember the Open Group, and the "good" they did for UNIX? (another hint - a lot of the same people are involved)
This is so much the wrong crowd to hang out with....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Good to see "Dumb overgeneralization" modded to +5 right off the bat. Other replies in this thread also deserve "insightful" moderation.
Software should be held to whatever quality standards the customer requires, regardless of it's proprietary or open development process.
For products where quality IS important, published documentation, including source, code-change-history, published test-cases and results of running those tests cases, etc. can help ensure quality. Commercial outfits typically rely on outside auditors or "trust us" to show that they probably ship quality code. At best, they publish their test cases and the results of those tests. If we are really lucky, a few outsiders have reviewed the code and pronounced it good.
For projects where quality isn't important, well, nobody cares but the authors.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Free software is known to deliver quality software without stupid standards. People just program whatever they feel like programming. They do it because it is fun. Not because some stupid idiotic manager who thinks he's hot schitt because he has an MBA is breathing down your neck and yelling at the programmer for not making quality software fast enough and cheap enough. They don't understand anything about software and they think they can make stuff better by making up quality standards.
Not only do they expect the impossible in a shorter amount of time and they don't give you the TIME to make up good software, but then they make up quality standards as if to add insult to injury.
That is why F/OSS is so much better than this commercial garbage. Because F/OSS makes everything better without the need for any of this stupid management crap. F/OSS. Because friends don't let friends use commercial software.
I tend to think of OSS as a war between different developers to see who's idea will be favored by the market. For too many years, implementation of ideas was up to some PHB. The problems of that system are starting to show. The idea that "well, it may not be the best way to do it, but at least we can all agree to do it this way" goes against the idea that the best solution will come out on top.
I think developers should continue to try new ideas and do it their way. If nobody likes their idea, their software won't be used and it won't matter.
The market will adjust. It may not be elegant or convenient to juggle several different packaging systems, for example, but people are doing it. Eventually, the best packaging system will come out on top because people chose to use it, not become some standards organization decided it was best.
These past few years of OSS have shown some pretty neat ideas in a short amount of time. I think it's going to improve at a faster rate in the next few years.
I'll give you that, but for every binary decision, you're going to piss off roughly half the people.
:)
There are security analysts who do spend time looking at the kernel, but it's a big job. As with most of these projects, they usually start becomes someone pays a security company to spend millions auditing it (ie: a government wanting to use it for sensitive data or voting machines). If only we could get every linux user to do one line of code *smirk*
BTW: FHS is an attempt at getting some standardization.
You mention 'designed for linux' and 'interoperability' which I think are tough ones. The big difference I find between Linux OS and Windows OS is that one company merges the GUI, kernel, drivers, shared libraries of 3rd party applications (DLLs), and (sadly) web browser into one. Linux, while having folks like RedHat producing distros, has no consistancy.
Now of course, I'm not saying anything you (or anyone on Slashdot) doesn't already know. But the key factor is that I can make my new audio board 'designed for linux 2.6', but the actual installation is different on every system. Some want a kernel compile, some store modules in one place, others will scream that the kernel is tainted when you load them. So how can one ensure that their board will work properly (and easily)?
There are a few attempts at standardizing hardware (as you mention linux hardware). The most popular thus far is DKMS: DKMS stands for Dynamic Kernel Module Support. It is designed to create a framework where kernel dependent module source can reside so that it is very easy to rebuild modules as you upgrade kernels. This will allow Linux vendors to provide driver drops without having to wait for new kernel releases while also taking out the guesswork for customers attempting to recompile modules for new kernels.
See http://linux.dell.com/dkms/ for more information.
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Seriously, if a programmer can't even put forth the effort to make autoconf work on more than one platform, then they won't have the time to spend on "quality standards." I've seen professional programmers spout "best practices" out of their asses for a long time, and, when it comes time to produce something, they are just as fast and loose as anyone. The reason: talk is cheap. quality is very hard.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
My company has looked at Open Source alternatives for some technology. We are subject to stringent certification process for our aviatoin software. The quality of Open Source code (programming habits, style, algorithms), the comments, the organization, makes use of Open Source a no-go.