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Open Source Not That Open?
mstansberry writes "At the Open Source Business Conference last week, Microsoft's Shared Source mouthpiece Jason Matusow argued the point that open source isn't really open. He said you can't just go changing code on supported Linux offerings without paying extra to companies like Red Hat or Novell. So as Linux is commercialized, it becomes less open. While Matusow made good points during his presentation, many in the open source community are skeptical of the idea at best."
...if you're running something like RedHat Or Novell. Of course, for those running Gentoo, or Debian, or Slackware, or Peanut, or whatever, it still holds.
libertarianswag.com
His entire argument is that if you make changes to the source code, Red Hat support won't debug your modifications for you as part of their basic support package.
I can do whatever the hell I want with GPL'd open source, short of refusing to share my changes when distributing binaries to other users. Microsoft has all these licenses, but AFAIK they've released nothing of worth under any of them. I can't view or modify any significant Microsoft source without signing an NDA and paying millions of dollars, or risking serious prison time.
The key word here is "supported", you can't expect Redhat, Novell or even Microsoft to support your modifications.
If you don't want official support from any vendor, you modify away - and support it yourself.
It's open. You just can't force someone else to change their codebase. If you really want to change it you make and maintain a patchset or your own seperate version of the codebase. Look at how many different kernel sources you can get, yet very few of those patchset ever get applied to the "real" kernel at kernel.org.
The point is you can do whatever you want with the code, but you can't force someone else to use it. I mean think about it. Imagine a code repository where every developer could write anything and it was fully open. It would never build. Code that is good enough usually gets accepted upstream, that darwinistic process helps open source, not the opposite.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
You joke, but a lot of people believe just that.
"But if a customer modifies the source code, [Red Hat] can't help you [without charging you extra]. They have to lock things down to provide value," Matusow said. "As open source becomes commercialized, it becomes less open."
Perhaps. But even so, the end user remains free to make changes. Even if the license (oddly) prohibited redistribution, supplying the source code to software with the software itself will always be better that not. Closed source is a dead end. End users have no choice, they must rely on the vendor to issue security patches and fix software.
This is not to say that every user will be tempted to change his/her software. The majority of users will be content with what is, and may not even be aware that the source is available. The freedom still exists, however.
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Many distros only come only with open source programs by default. Which you can go yourself and change without paying anyone anything.
And the Linux kernel is also open. Just don't expect your changes to necessarily go into effect on the 'official' kernel. Just like the MS's shared source code will have 1 official version and then whatever the customers changed out there which they can't even share with each other because they signed NDAs and whatnot up the wazoo just to see the code. Unlike Linux.
MS, stop attacking Linux and mind your own business. You have less and less credibility when you keep attacking Open Source in general with your FUD and your customers are catching on. It's better to salvage what dignity you have and shut up. If and when you stop spreading FUD, your credibility might go up and you can stop spending billions advertising yourself and attacking others. But then, that would totally go against the grain of what is a marketing company, not a software engineering company.
That's a new meaning for the phrase "lock things down" that I hadn't heard before. I don't believe redhat locks anything down. The customer might be responsible for fixing problems with their own changes, but that wouldn't affect the support that redhat provides (i.e. so long as the problem was not caused by a customer change).
In effect, it's more FUD from M$. They really appear desperate now, grasping at any possible argument against Open Source. I didn't see the M$ spokesman telling the audience that Microsoft would support its own software which had been altered by customers.
So Mr Matusow, please explain again, how a license which allows customers to do more than your license allows is bad for those customers? That's like the RIAA claiming that 20-more years of copyright post death of author is good for the consumer.
If your paying for support, which the article implies, then of course if you customize your kernel and system over a standard patch level, then yes, the support should cost more.
AFAIK, one can still get those distros without having to buy a support contract.
That's not really the point. First of all you CAN alter the source if your need is desperate enough. Thus if some app needs your change you can weigh the pros and cons of blowing support vs getting the enhancement. - CHOICE. Secondly, if Red Hat dies and goes broke you have the source. Thirdly, you can make your enhancement and submit it to the maintainer and with a bit of luck it will come out in the next version of RedHat as the official supported version. Fourthly, somebody else might scratch the same itch and submit the patch which comes out in the next version.
In the meanwhile, those who know and care will buy the best option available, while looking at historical data for reliability, TCO, and ownership experience... and then laugh at those who run the American software/vehicle upgrade treadmill.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The point of contention is open source vs. standardized distribution. Once you make a modification, your code base is no longer the "standard" distribution, be it RedHat, gentoo, or Slack. Therefore you really can't get support for it, free or otherwise (what, are you going to post on a forum "well, I tweaked this and this..."). So as Linux pushes towards standardization effectively the open-ness is still there and available to you but is marginalized in the sense that once you make changes then you aren't standard anymore.
It's not a distribution thing its a philosophical thing.
To make an allusion to a situation I have at work: we use a framework for development, and I have a tweaked copy I use for a pet project. But I don't dare ask for support on it, because I made modifications to the code beyond the specifications of the code. I can do that, because I am a developer and have rights to the codebase, etc. but then its no longer a standard. I can't expect it to support other applications built for the main framework and vice versa, etc...
But in truth he makes a point - the core of the OS in general doesn't need to be messed with, most tweaks and alterations do/should occur at the application level.
Just my 2 cents worth,
-everphilski-
I'm an MSCE, and I want to slap THAT MSCE who said that to you. Seriously, who the fuck cares. Software use should always be about the right tool for the right job. The moment you start putting "faith" or "cult" into judgement, we start to have a serious problem!
Life is not for the lazy.
By reading those comments I get an odd sensation that Microsoft is trying to use "developers, developers, developers" like a bunch of highly exploitable hippie enthusiasts.
diegoT
And i suppose its possible to change the code for a small fee in Windows then? Not? STFU then.
Ofcourse RedHat cant support somebody elses code, the programmer changing the code might as well be a monkey and there is no way RedHat can magically fix things if an idiot sits down and hits the keyboard with a pillow. What you can do is send those fixes upstream and if the fixes are good it will get incorporated into the next release.
HTTP/1.1 400
Redhat wont go the extra mile to support some code that they have supplied and I have modified.
Wow that's preposterous.
What next? Ford wont honour my new vehicle warranty if I modify the engine?
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
This is what it boils down to: Microsoft does not understand that the free in free software is not necessarily free as in beer; and, yes, it may cost more if you decide to go willy nilly on a coding spree and expect your changes to be supported.
A blog about stuff.
This is really nothing more than another Microsoft expression of arrogance.
I mean they do have the singularity OS....
I couldn't agree more. Use what you need to to get the job done. People who are militant anti-MS, for example, really end up shooting themselves in the foot since they cut out the possibility of MS software solving a problem of theirs. They often make more work for themselves just because they're holding themselves too strictly to some unfounded ideal. But they feel "above the rest of [you peons]" so hey, whatever floats your boat.
If you go with Open Source, you have the option to spend time/money to fix things. If you really need to fix things, that's what you do.
If you go with MicroSoft or other closed source products, when you are up shit creek, you are relying on them to give you a patch. Maybe you don't really matter to them (or whatever vendor sold you the stuff) -- in which case, you can go jump in a lake.
Sometimes the problem isn't that there's a bug in the closed source stuff, but that your stuff is interacting with it in a way that makes it misbehave. Perhaps the system is documented, in which case you need to read a thousand pages in the reference manual, hoping to find the requirement that you've failed to meet -- thereby causing the failure.
Or you call the vendor:
You: "it's broke."
Vendor: "Why? What are you doing? Nobody else has this problem"
You:"Well, I don't really know."
Vendor: "Thanks for calling. Please get back to us when you have more info."
On the other hand, if it is open source, you can fire up the debugger, find the problem, and work aroudn it or fix it -- all of that is perhaps faster than going through the support process. If you do a big project, the odds of you encountering a roadblock like this approach 100% percent. If you are pessimistic about the vendor and believe you can fix things, you pick open source.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
From my point of view this really puts the blame on the comercial vendors. The fact that they only support one configuration on one specifik platform makes the OSS alternatives look much better from a customers view.
I do alter source code pretty often infact. It has been invaluable to me at work since i can find an error, fix it and continue as nothing happened. I have had problems in commercial software that hasnt been fixed for years and could do nothing.
HTTP/1.1 400
GPL licenced Open Source Software is the only kind there is.
[sigh]
Microsoft knows full well of BSD licenced software. They just prefer not to mention it since it would make their bullshit clearly that.
I guess while Microsoft slogs it out with "Linux", Sun and Apple, this will make BSD the "meek"?
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
An IT manager may look at this argument and conclude there is no advantage to open source solutions, in that there is no point having solutions that are not supported. The manager may conclude closed source is a better choice; while no self-modifications can be made, at least the system is supported in its entirety.
At the end of the day, your average IT manager needs to desperately separate him or herself from the technology. Otherwise, they get completely snowed under doing technical work that should have been delegated. When there is an option to pay for support, most will take it. The argument is powerful in that it contends as there is no option for support of changes, so there is no ability to make changes. So why buy open source as opposed to a fully supported Microsoft product?
Very smart implication, I think anyway.
The thing to remember is that not EVERYONE needs to change the source for ANYONE to benefit, ONLY one needs to change the source for EVERYONE to benefit.
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
Few if any competent companies would expect that they can modify the source willy nilly and then expect direct support on what _they_ have done from the distribution vendor. I mean, if you have an understanding of the process of software development and have spent 5 minutes reading about the Open Source movement, then you'll understand that it is a completely impractical, if not irrational, way of working.
When has this approach ever been promoted by the Open Source community? This sounds like only something a PHB could arrive at, following a methodology of gleaning an understanding of OS while walking by the cubicle farm and overhearing casual conversations.
Seriously, to me it seems like Microsoft sat around a table brainstorming for potential negative aspects of OS that they could market to suitably gullible people. I guess they feel sufficiently threatened to roll with even the weak results of that session. I hope the audience laughed at the guy, and told him to go back to counting the cash piles back at Redmond.
In other words, they're setting up a strawman (by claiming that open source is something it is not), and then attacking that. Very clever, given that few people outside the scene (and not even everybody in the scene) know what open source really is.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This is something I've seen come up a lot... it's part of open source that a lot of people are confused about.
Just because you have access to the code, and can change whatever you like, DOES NOT MEAN that you will be allowed to contribute to the official project code yourself. Firefox is a closed development house. They keep strict control over what code goes in, who's allowed to touch it, what features go on the UI and how they're organized. If they want to keep it that way, they're perfectly within their rights -- and given the quality of the product, it seems to be a good idea. If everyone were allowed to drop in code, or tack things on to the UI, the project would soon be a total mess.
But just because they keep a tight reign on the project code doesn't mean they aren't following the ideals of open source. You still have access to the code. You can go in and change whatever you like, fork the project, release your own competing version based on the original codebase, etc. That's where the true value of OSS comes from. If the Mozilla foundation ever went away, the community could pick up the code from the last release and run with it. If your company wants to release a custom version with support for some weird proprietary graphics format that Mozilla would never in a million years devote time to, you can. That's what open source is about.
Allowing everybody with even a vague interest to contribute to THEIR fork of the code, however... was never any open source license. At some point, once you get past the warm fuzzies of releasing something Open, you still have to sit down and actually code the project. And keeping an invitation only group makes a lot of sense, from that perspective.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
The thing that really bites about the article, and the reason I disagree with it, is attitude. The open source world (by and large) is about sharing intellectual horsepower. We make something, we share it. Some guy can make it better. We can all get the added value of development. Coherent groups create open source software products (yes, I said products) like Firefox or OpenOffice, and individuals go and toy with the code.
The Microsoft presentation says something very different.
"Matusow said opening up software can add value, "but you need to understand why you want to open certain software. We are building intellectual property into software and trying to sell it. We throw code over the wall for the community to build on it.""
They throw code over the wall?
It's very patronizing. Instead of regarding the people out there as brainpower with a positive contribution, they regard their internal direction as higher than external voices. I guess this is why ultimately Microsoft is dropping the ball. They just don't listen. You NEED to listen. The world has changed since Win95, or even WinXP. We need more, we need it faster, and we need it to work with the Mac laptop and Linux server.
Basically, the surge in open source is driven by the fact that it's answering so many of the productivity, communication and search questions of the marketplace. Even Apple realize that, and this is why their baby (MacOS X) is largely available as Darwin (open OS code).
Just my two cents.
Shane Coughlan
Project Leader
Mobility http://mobility.shaneland.co.uk/
I think what the MS guy is complaining about is that once you make your own personal changes, then the product is no longer supported by the vendor. In a nutshell that means that there is no reason to pay for support on an open source piece of software over a closed source piece of software.
I personally understand that there are advantages of the open source model, primarilly in that if the company you had support from goes out of business or stops supporting that software you can still go out and find someone else to support it or even manage the thing internally, while with closed source software once the software vendor stops support you are forced to upgrade or switch to a completely different package. But Microsoft probably doesn't see that as a significant advantage, or at the very least doesn't want other people to consider that as an advantage.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Probably Unix users. Even the early versions of KDE were much better than, say, CDE. For those already familiar with Unix, moving to Linux would be no big step. Maybe it's more workstation than desktop, but that's not always a bad thing.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
When you interface Red Hat through the support organization it is just about impossible to get changes to the product. They simply say:
"We will post your changes / suggestions to the developer community and if they are introduced into the codebase we will support it."
The issue is really *how* you interface with your distribution. Most larger companies have not gotten thier minds around doing internal development work on the OS's that they run. (And for good reason - it is not what they do.) So they interface with "Linux" problems like they do any other software product; through the support contract that they paid dearly for (in the case of Red Hat and SuSE).
When they call these organizations they get little or no ownership of the problem that is seen in "traditional" offerings.
That is really the point of the Red Hat and SuSE license / contract (in my opinion) to map the traditional model (call vendor for support) to the open source model (read the code solve it yourself / post online / etc...). It is a difficult task, and each does lousy job of dealing with bugs. They may be helpful during installation and integration, but once you find a problem in the code they tend to be next to worthless in getting a fix to you.
How I know:
I have worked in the industry for years so have had some experience working with (other) tech support. In my last position I was responsible for evaluating and making recommendations for the support my enterprise customer was purchasing from Red Hat and SuSE.
Dang. That'd be a great business model.
Why didn't we think of that?
Oh, wait...
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
So, to stick with the car analogies, you expect your car dealer to fix your car if it breaks within guarantee, although you've modified the motor, and exchanged the breaks. All at no cost extra.
Sorry, but this is plain stupid. It does not work like that in non-FL/OSS industry, and noone claims that it works like that with FL/OSS. You just can't buy a service contract, do whatever the heck you like to the software, and then expect them to support your own code without giving them extra money for the time they need to analyse the changes you made to their software.
So please stop making such braindead comments.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
"An IT manager may look at this argument and conclude there is no advantage to open source solutions, in that there is no point having solutions that are not supported. The manager may conclude closed source is a better choice; while no self-modifications can be made, at least the system is supported in its entirety."
With Open Source you can.
A. Modify nothing had have full support
B. Modify somethings and have support on what you have not modified.
C. Can fix problems or ad features yourself and get them added to the distro.
D. Support yourself if you have the staff since you have the source.
E. Find an other vendor that will give you the support you want since Linux is "multi sourced".
With Windows.
A. You can not modify or enhance Windows and you get the support that Microsoft will give you at the cost they want to charge but only as long as they are willing to provide it.
It was traditional that "Big" companies would avoid single source products like the plague. That is why back in the day Intel would let other companies manufacture Intel chips. That is how AMD got in to the X86 business. The fact that Linux is not single source has got to be a big deal. If Red Hat does you wrong you can go to Novel. If Novel isn't your cup of tea then jump to what ever Mandrake is called this week. Choice is good.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Outstanding link! I actually heard sometime ago (at a lecture) from a molecular Biologist (and well respected and accredited in all their journals) who began speaking out about Irreducable Complexities (and the existence of them). He was soon branded a heretic by the Evolutionist Church (and his colleagues) and pretty much excommunicated from their journals (much akin to doctors' JAMA and the like).
/. It's like sifting through garbage most of the time here, but stumbling upon a post like yours is like pulling an unscathed pristine novel from the heaping smoke and ashed ruins from a Nazi book burning.
It's a shame Science has "evolved" so far these days from it's purely Philosophical origins, when you just asked "why?" (in the innocent pursuit and unbiased interest of understanding), instead of "why should I?" as is common in most fields today.
Thanks for the refreshing and intellectually honest opinion here at
thx.
p.s. Ah! I've just seen you've been modded a troll. lmao. Now you know what Petrarch or Gutenberg of the Renaissance felt like while helping their peers migrate from the Dark Ages...