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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."
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!
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.
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-
Except that everything that Red Hat makes is open source. Even its defensive patents can be used by any open source project (Red Hat gives irrevocable patent permission to any OSS project). The guys point in the article was that if I make a customization that isn't pushed upstream then I have to maintain that customization... no shit. That is true of any software or distro. The difference is... the source is open, I can go to Red Hat's ftp server right now and get the source for everything they've got and make as many changes as I want. The beauty is, if the patch might be more general than to just my specific needs, I have the option of pushing it upstream and if it is valuable enough to whatever project then it will be merged. If it doesn't have mass appeal then of course I'll have to maintain it, you aren't going to get the masses to maintain something specific to your company. Even if the upstream patch is rejected, if I damn want to I'll release my own version of the product (just like Whitebox or CentOS took all the source to Red Hat and released their own version). Lets see how fast Microsoft stops me if I take their source using their shared source license, make a change or two and start a new project called "Steve's SQL Server" and let anyone download it for free. This article is nothing but FUD being cranked out by the good ol' MS FUD machine. If they put as much effort into their software as they did their FUD then the software industry would be flipped upside down.
Regards,
Steve
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.
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/