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McVoy Strikes Back
cranos writes "Fast on the heels of his previous article claiming the kernel is at risk of Bad Things over the BitKeeper fuss, Daniel Lyons has released a new article where Larry McVoy attacks the Open Source movement as non-innovative and dependent on the kindness of corporations. The following quote says it all: 'The open source guys can scrape together enough resources to reverse engineer stuff. That's easy. It's way cheaper to reverse engineer something than to create something new. But if the world goes to 100% open source, innovation goes to zero. The open source guys hate it when I say this, but it's true.'"
"One problem with the services model is that it is based on the idea that you are giving customers crap--because if you give them software that works, what is the point of service?" McVoy says.
...or time. Keep in mind that there are a lot of people out there that have the free time on their hands to tinker with things that they find interesting. This is really how open source got to be big in the first place. McVoy seems to ignore the fact that, in general, open source software is really only gaining momentum and that it has its roots in hobbyist tinkerers; people who do it because they find it fulfilling for their own personal reasons.
To begin with, software these days is quite complex and it really is impossible to have a full-blown operating system with all the applications people expect and not have some sort of issues. Secondly, the vast majority of people out there are not computer savvy and are going to need help regardless of how well built their OS/applications are. Red Hat isn't dead yet so I wouldn't be so quick to proclaim them as such, although their demise wouldn't entirely surprise me.
"The other problem is that the services model doesn't generate enough revenue to support the creation of the next generation of innovative products.
That's one of the great things about open source software; it doesn't have to. Companies like Red Hat are packagers, not necessarily creators. What they provide is a nice, neat package of what others are already creating.
But if the world goes to 100% open source, innovation goes to zero. The open source guys hate it when I say this, but it's true."
Honestly, what is this guy smoking? We are creative beings... It really doesn't matter what people decide to do with their source code, there will always be innovation because it is human nature to think of new ways to do things.
But McVoy says open source advocates fail to recognize that building new software requires lots of trial and error, which means investing lots of money.
But none of them can show me how to build a software-development house and fund it off open source revenue. My claim is it can't be done."
This statement really says everything about why McVoy feels the way he does; he's only thinking about money. He has completely forgotten that open source software doesn't require a profit to exist or be innovative. People write free/open source software because they enjoy it not because it is going to make them rich.
"Nobody wants to admit that most of the money funding open source development, maybe 80% to 90%, is coming from companies that are not open source companies themselves. What happens when these sponsors go away and there is not enough money floating around?
Nothing. I will continue to use Firefox, OpenOffice, X Windows, and all the other software I have come to rely on. This is another great aspect of open source software; it isn't going away because someone else can always pick up a dead project and run with it themselves.
What a great way of reasoning. The more I read from that guy the better I think it is that Linux kernel development got rid of his junk.
that open source/free/libre software is not just about innovation - it's about freedom. I agree with RMS on this one. I would rather have a piece of software that has some features than a closed piece of software that has many.
It's unfortunate that many people - even open source advocates - don't realize that "open source" is a methodology. Software freedom is the goal and the end result of the FSF/GPL.
In fact I think the situation that will kill innovation is one where only one proprietry vendor wins. Without competition there won't be the need to innovate. Bring on software rental and patent protection and then innovation in the industry will die. That scenario will bring about legally enforced vendor lock-in with the vendor able to just sit back and rake in the rentals.
Don't believe me? Look at how Internet Explorer stagnated when Microsoft thought it had no competition. Look at the innovation in Firefox.
True innovation is rare amongst computer software, and none of the big players can claim much. Microsoft and Oracle for example, made their millions from tweaking and marketing the ideas of others. Can anyone tell me if BitKeeper contains any innovations?
It's not a curse of open source, just the way things are made.
Not that these things matter, since Free software is about making good software available to everyone, not about innovations.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The article completely misses the importance if git.
Yes, Linus is a limited resource, and if he takes time to work on a development tool, kernel releases are delayed, but that doesn't mean overall kernel development has delayed overall.
But the importance of git should not be overlooked.
Linus and friends have been making a custom tool designed to fit their hands perfectly and accompany them in the way that they (the developers) work. In the long run, git will be a better tool for them because they designed it to meet the way they work instead of using an existing tool and changing how they work to match the functionality and nuances of that tool.
Look forward to more efficient development in the next year, that's what I say.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
"All the so-called new OSS products are just copies of..."
Maybe you hadn't noticed, but a LOT of the products you're describing -- eg., the browser -- existed in the OSS sphere before it did in the closed-source sphere. Let's list the "killer apps":
Spreadsheet
Word Processor
Database
E-mail
Browser
Of those five, only the spreadsheet and word processor got their starts as closed source. (Well, okay, the database is a tough one; see Ashton Tate v. Fox Software for details.) Regardless, there are damn few ideas for software these days that didn't exist ten years ago. In other words (and here's the whole point, so pay attention) MOST ALL SOFTWARE, REGARDLESS OF LICENSE, IS DERIVATIVE THESE DAYS. Or, in a nutshell, your argument is specious, ill-informed, and simply dumb.
HOWEVER: Larry might be right, but for the wrong reason. The ONLY thing that drives corporate (as opposed to individual) innovation, as far as I'm concerned, is competition. If competition goes away, innovation stops. See myriad Microsoft cases (eg., DOS 3.x vs. DR DOS, IE vs. Firefox, etc.).
I mean honestly, the OSS community has not treated him with any respect, despite the fact that he's a good friend of Linus.
Ya know... he hasn't really said many things lately that deserve our respect. Does being a friend of Linus really demand all that much respect? This guy seems to have his head up his ass so why should I show him anything but contempt?
Sure, the Open Source community is non-innovative.
Let's see... BitTorrent?
Hmmm... that sounds pretty innovative to me.
OpenBSD's pf? CARP?
Hmmm... that sounds pretty innovative to me.
Rsync? SpamAssassin? Encrypted file systems, such as cgd? Zope? Stable journaling file systems, such as ReiserFS and ext3fs? Or even Arch, Monotone and other source management programs?
Well, I guess some innovations come from the Open Source community, after all...
Frankly, big corporations (Microsoft comes to mind) do not 'innovate' either. They slavishly copy whatever worked for the competition.
I think this gentleman is just angry that some people decided to copy his precious SubVersion. But guess what? That is the nature of Open Source. If the 'community' likes something, it is going to copy it, and then improve on it.
And, in the case of OpenSSH (for instance) the copy actually is better than the original. I rest my case.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Oh Yea. . .Necessity is the mother of invention. Had he remembered that then he would realize that the source of innovation in a 100% Open Source world would be new things that are required and not some desired cash as things stand now. Personally, I would rather see things being innovated because I NEED them, not because some company wants to put a "New and Improved" sticker on a box to justify a price raise.
His claim is that the profit motive is required to drive innovation. But a simple fact refutes his claim: UNIX preceded Windows. A large part of the original Unix OS was open source. From the link:
Later, Doug McIlroy would write of this period [McIlroy91]: "Peer pressure and simple pride in workmanship caused gobs of code to be rewritten or discarded as better or more basic ideas emerged. Professional rivalry and protection of turf were practically unknown: so many good things were happening that nobody needed to be proprietary about innovations". But it would take another quarter century for all the implications of that observation to come home.
There really are other motives besides money!
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
I'm taking notes here. There's lots of good stuff to really get under people's skin:)
So, he should be treated with respect just because he's a friend of Linus? Regardless of the fact that he acted like a whining and annoying brat during the whole BK-debacle? His behavior was downright moronic, and he kept changing the license under wich BK was released. then he pulled the BK-license for OSDL, because one independent contractor of OSDL happened to Telnet in to the BK-server.
Linus and McVoy might be friends personally. But that does not mean that McVoy should earn respect because of his professional activities. Just because he's friends with Linus does not mean that he's a great guy. This whole debacle has shown that he is in fact a grade-A asshole.
He started to whine when others tried to "reverse-engineer" his precious BK. Well, too bad for him that reverse-engineering is allowed. Looking at his comments, it seems to me that he wanted BK to have similar protection a patent would give him. Of course he couldn't say that he supports software-patents, so he started bitching and moaning and being a real jerk hen people didn't like his constant license-changes and *shock and horror* tried to reverse-engineer BK.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
This is ridiculous. Sure, I can pick and choose open source projects and say, "They're not innovative." I can do the same of a billion commercial apps. Is Word innovative? It depends how you define innovative. Is Linux innovative? Again, it depends how you define it.
There are truely innovative apps that began as open source. But there are also a lot that have been created specifically to provide an alternative to commercial equivalents. Every new application is not meant to be about innovation. It's meant to fill a need. Clearly open source fills a need, otherwise it wouldn't exist.
This guy's an idiot.
We'd all be consultants.
Seriously.
That's the IBM model, and why they're so eager to support OSS. Don't pay money for licenses, just our army of Global Services.
-Stu
Almost all the software written in the world
Anti-OSS idiots (that's you) think that the world revolves around the shiny boxes whereas the rest of us know that the first two are an order of magnitude more important
As long as the middle one exists then people will need
components - this is the OSS stuff : apache, libgtk, mozilla, linux
customisers - hey that's me, unless I'm too busy flipping burgers
The idea is that any customisation done to apache, libgtk, mozilla & linux are shared with everyone and, by this token, everyone wins : as laid out in the GPL.
If you want to build a bespoke web server, feel free.
If you want to pay for IIS, feel free.
If you want to feel free, use one of Apache, thttpd, etc.
It is in the interests of larger companies to have in-house developers for the components and likewise in their interest to offer their changes back to the pool.
For the life of me I can't understand why so many people confuse this simple principle. It is almost self-evident !!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I think that people in SW industry (or in IT in general) believe that 'get paid for time you spend working' is not good enough for them. Do they (we) identify themselves with big CEOs like Gates od Dell, or they just believe that current SW business model (develop once, sell n times) is God-given to make them instantly rich? What about good old 'working per hour, at defined rate'?
I believe that software is service. This guy complains that if you make some program easy to use, most of the users will never call you for service. Ok, they will not call you, but how they hurt him? They use his software, but does that takes money from his pocket? Did they burned his house using his product?
Let us make some example. Guy 'A' spends 1000 hours making some program, for general purpose. His software is somewhat complicate to use, so his user base is 1000 people, but every 10th has to call him to for some kind of support. It makes him, say, 100 x 2h x(his rate) per month of possible income. There is second guy with his own program, which is better, so only every 100th user needs some support. But as a result, his user base is larger, so he may have 100.000 users, so he may get more consulting hours. We cannot say for sure, but it may also happen to him to have actually less consulting hours comparing to the first guy. But as a result (not taking into account initial investment of time spend for writing code[*]) both of them get paid for time they spent working.
What's wrong with that concept? Why should I expect for someone to pay me for doing nothing? When they spend an hour for their costumers, costumers pays them. Is this guy McVoy too noble to be paid per workhour?
[*] Initial time investment could be significantly decreased if you use open source development model, as we know.
No sig today.
... but I'll give it a shot. I think that there is plenty of room in the world for both OSS and commercial software. FOSS will continue to develop free alternatives to commercial products. One of the things that drives people to create FOSS is the wish to have an alternative to commercial software. That is a good thing.
Commercial software has a niche, as well. Sometimes you need a pile of money to develop a new idea. In order to get that money, you usually have to promise some kind of return to investors. So you need to make profits. That's cool too. I don't mind paying money for things like games and innovative applications. I want software engineers to live comfortably since I'm married to one.
Down the road, I think we'll see that OSS will takeover the common applications. It will be used for the OS, obviously, basic productivity applications, software to run governments and schools, voting machines, security applications, all the kinds of applications where it makes little sense to duplicate effort and where budget constraints are tight. There will continue to be commercial applications that introduce new ideas, but eventually, those will also find their way into FOSS, as they should.
Attacks on either system are silly. Just as it makes sense to have competition in products, it also makes sense to have competition between ideas. You can't have a good democracy if everyone has to march in lockstep. We should all welcome new ideas that move us forward, regardless of where they come from.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
Surprised? Check the job listings. Take a good look at the companies that employ the majority of programmers, and try to work out what software Vodafone, Verizon, GM, Ford, Nokia, General Mills, Philip Morris and Kraft Foods, First National Bank, Progressive Insurance, Capital One, Samsung, Comcast, Accenture, Visa, (continued on page 94) actually sells.
The vast majority of programmers do not work in the software industry. Our programs are used by millions of people, and are never found on the shelves of Circuit City or Office Depot. And we'll be needed whoever writes the software before us, because no matter whether it comes from Microsoft or the Apache Foundation, it'll never do exactly what our employers need.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Only 15% of the programming jobs in the world are involved with commodity software, the other cool 85% of us work on custom apps. Open source can not replace the custom apps, because they are, well, custom. Even if all the commodity software ever gets replaced by open source, it's only 15% of the job market anyways.
He was never a friend of opensource and only in it for the $$$$. I will put our ideas against any company. What as M$ created in the last 15 years??? I can't think of one thing that wasn't a knock off of something else.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
This point can't be emphasized enough. Most programmers do not make their living working at software companies. Instead, the bulk of software is written in-house, for applications specific to companies that make and sell other products. One of the greatest moments of my career was when I convinced my boss to let me go with a F/OSS solution for our in-house IT, at a time when I was the company's only DBA -- which has scaled with our growth from a tiny company barely getting by to a good-sized one making a healthy profit, and which saved us enough money to hire a considerably larger in-house development staff than we could have otherwise. Tell me this doesn't spur innovation.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
But McVoy says open source advocates fail to recognize that building new software requires lots of trial and error, which means investing lots of money. Software companies won't make those investments unless they can earn a return by selling programs rather than giving them away.
Software companies don't make those investments at all. The institutions that make those investments are the government and a few large private research labs. Almost all the software and almost all the innovation you see around you ultimately comes from those sources.
People like McVoy and other self-proclaimed innovators are adding little gimmicks and tweaks on top of that massive, publicly funded innovation. The question we should be asking is why we should let people like McVoy continue to leech off the investments that taxpayers and a few private labs are making.
His hostilities are because he is getting customer backlash. I bet he is losing customers due to this mess.
I have no problem with commercial software. I think it's a good thing. I think ol' Larry was just absolutely stupid for the way he has handled this whole thing. The guy is obviously a smart and innovative programmer, he is just business stupid. It's why you keep real techie types out of the board room. (most of the time anyhow)
It's like when all those companies release versions of products for other countries not realizing their logo, trade mark phrase or whatever else is "inside" is insulting to that culture. Larry wants the OSS community to use his product. His view and OSS view didn't line up. instead of working to get something worked out (beyond the half assed attempt made) He insulted the OSS community and he is getting burned in the process.
Cause and effect Larry. "Think before you speak" isn't just a word jumble. It's how you are supposed to conduct yourself.
I probably continue at my work, getting paid to write Open Source software. And some customized stuff based on our OS tools.
No, it is not a way to make millions. But an all right living, and some extra job satisfaction.
In Murphy We Turst
However, McVoy says it took him five years to create an industrial strength version of BitKeeper, and he thinks Torvalds will find it difficult to create a full-fledged replacement.
Git's done. Linus thinks it needs some polish, but he calls it "Feature Complete". If Linux can do in weeks what McVoy took 5 years to do, just imagine how mature and innovative BitKeeper could be.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
We use money as an instrument to guide what is made and where we should spend our effort. Money in itself is useless. If Free Software can make the same (or equivalent) software than Microsoft, but cheaper, that is good. It means that our economy as a whole just got more efficient.
Yes, thay may mean less money for programmers and computer scientists (I am one), but on the other hand, we all benefit from the additional efficiency (Ford can make cheaper cars, as it spends less money on Word. Wal-Mart can drop prices as their database backend is cheaper. Microsoft....ok, dies ;-).
Stephan