Slashdot Mirror
Has Open Source Lost Its Halo?
PetManimal writes "Open-source software development once had a reputation as a grassroots movement, but it is increasingly a mainstream IT profit center, and according to Computerworld, some in the industry are asking whether 'open source' has become a cloak used by IT vendors large and small to disguise ruthless and self-serving behavior. Citing an online opinion piece by Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata Inc., the article notes that HP and IBM have not only profited from open-source at the expense of competitors, but have also boosted their images in the open-source community. The Computerworld article also mentions the efforts by the Microsoft/Windows camp to promote open-source credentials: '[InfoWorld columnist Dave] Rosenberg is more disturbed by the bandwagon jumpers: the companies, mostly startups, belatedly going open-source in order to ride a trend, while paying only lip service to the community and its values. Take Aras Corp., a provider of Windows-based product lifecycle management (PLM) software that in January decided to go open-source. Rosenberg depicted the firm in his blog as an opportunistic Johnny-Come-Lately. "I'm not impressed when a company whose software is totally built on Microsoft technologies goes open-source," said Rosenberg, who even suspects that the company is being promoted by Microsoft as a shill to burnish Redmond's image in open-source circles."'"
I wish I had know about that.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The first thing that crossed my mind upon reading the headline was that some previosly open-source game to rival Halo had gone closed source or the development team walked away..
Silly context, always breaking things.
Can and Will an article that started off with chewing out Open Source vendors who ignore its values and end up bashing Microsoft.
Didnt mean it as a flame..it was just funny reading it.
Rapid Nirvana
How do you tell a GPL advocate? Well, it's someone who reads the GPL. And how do you tell a GPL opponent? It's someone who understands the GPL.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
It's great when Linus Torvalds releases Linux as open-source, even though it's systematically destroying the competitive market for mid-level Unix OS's, because he's a nice, altruistic guy.
It's not as good when Sun and IBM open-source their Java IDE's, because it destroys the market for Java IDE's, because they're laaaarge corporations, and are only doing this to weed out smaller competitors.
And it's eeevil when someone open-sources something on a Windows platform, because they obviously are only doing it for the publicity, regardless of whether they have competitors or not.
But then again, Sun and IBM are directly competing with Microsoft, the most evil of all. And open-sourcing on Windows might mean more software gets ported to Linux.
But wait, we should ignore this benefit, because, again, these are laaaarge corporations and aren't part of the community. Nor are they completely altruistic, because they make money.
But I really do like Eclipse and Java.
(Damn it, I'm confused! Who am I supposed to hate here?)
Oh yeah, Microsoft SUCKS!
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Hold on now. You're telling me that, all this time, HP and IBM participate in open source game for their own financial gain ? How can this be?
Is open-source software being used by vendors to gain advantages? I assume that's what was meant by "ruthless and self-serving behavior." Although I don't agree that gaining an advantage by releasing code to the world under the GPL can realistically be classified as "ruthless" it is self-serving. There is not much that a large corporation does that isn't. They exist, after all, to make a profit for their stockholders.
But let's look at what may be driving big corporations to embrace open-source: Microsoft.
Really, what choice do they realistically have? Microsoft uses dirty and illegal tactics. They leverage their monopoly products to such a degree that even large corporations know that they can't compete. Microsoft doesn't realize it but they are their own worst enemy. They are like the unsuccessful parasite that kills its host and therefore dies also.
The only choice the IT industry outside of Microsoft has is to ban together in a common strategy to slay Goliath.
Given Microsoft's continued anti-competitive tactics I agree. We should all work together to make Microsoft irrelevant. Don't support them in anything that they do. Don't use technologies that they develop. Let the Mono project die. Don't support it, don't use it. Use free (as in speech) technologies to generate active web pages. Never use ASP.net.
The first link was Slash dotted but I have a few comments about the second. It states:
"Imagine, if you will, that it's the late Nineties. A certain software company based in Redmond, Washington has recently released Visual Studio 97--thereby bundling together many of its development tools for the first time. Now imagine that the company decided to release those tools for free."
Microsoft has released some tools for free (as in beer) and have even allowed companies to view their source code with strict "no compile, "no altering", non-disclosure restrictions but this is not the definition of open source.
Free software as defined by the Open Source community is not about money. How long will it take for people to "get it?" Free software is "free as in speech." Is that so hard to grasp? It is free of restrictions of any kind except that the user may not apply new restrictions upon it. At least that was the intent. Microsoft and Novell may have found a patent loophole in the GPL v2 license. (The slime balls) But this loophole will be closed in GPL v3.
Asking the question : What would the reaction be the author states:
"I think we all know the answer to that one. As James Robertson over at Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants notes: "...had Microsoft released Visual Studio as free software 10 years ago, that almost certainly would have been seen as predatory behavior."
Not if they had released the source code under the GPL. Again, keeping the source code proprietary and releasing only a free (as in beer) executable is a very different thing.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I've never used DotNetNuke, which is basically a Microsoft friendly rip off of PHP-Nuke, but the mere fact that it exists and that "Microsofties" are using that as free software to make their lives better just pisses me off.
And all of the "improvements" that Sun has made to OpenOffice.org? C'mon, we all know that it started as Star Office, and even though it's free and it does a great job, I just hate telling everyone about how it allows them to do everything that they need without buying Microsoft office. The stench of corporate influence makes me gag as I make great reports with awesome graphics. I wish that they'd just stop developing it.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Gratis Open-source Killer-app Destroys Demand for Expensive Inferior Products
So according to the articles:
some companies are embracing open source and are profiting from it -> that's evil
open source is gaining mainstream acceptance -> that's evil (linux is still cool, right?)
microsoft shop decides to go open source -> that's even more evil than just being a MS shop
The Open Source Movement becomes less revolutionary and exclusive as its success increases. Reducing the rebellion factor perhaps? some people simply like having the source because of utilitarian concerns, rather than because it has been an anti-establishment movement. Stallman was a crusader because he had to be, he was a pioneer.
But hating big business because it profits from open source makes you a communist, not simply a believer in open source.
Even in my current job, working as consultant/engineer for a business telecoms company who has already migrated their core telephony platforms onto Linux and is phasing out commercial UNIXes for Linux on our telecoms-related application servers, I get the freedoms to experiment with Linux on our platforms at a level that would be impossible on Windows.
Away from work, I can use Linux to build low cost solutions for friends, family members and "friends of friends" with small businesses. I've built them web servers, file servers, firewalls and multimedia centres, secure in the knowledge that I am doing so entirely legally without owing any corporation one penny for a software license.
Even more, I can trundle along to any one of a number of evening Linux computer clubs within driving distance of my house. As someone who "grew his computer teeth" on the Amiga and the BBS scene of the late 80s/early 90s, I've definitely got a feeling of the hobbyist, grass roots movement that just wasn't there in the early days of Windows. And I know of absolutely no Windows computer clubs anywhere, let alone in my area.
And finally, Linux and Open Source has made my computing time fun again. I'm not in a position where I'm "forced" to use a piece of overpriced commercial software that doesn't do half of what it should do. I use MS Office for what I need it to do - hell, I even quite like XP now I've stripped it back to the classic Windows desktop view and stripped out all the stuff I don't need it to run. I can play all my favourite games on it, write a few documents I need to and then switch over to one of my Linux boxes when I've had enough of it.
So David Rosenberg perhaps need to remove those spectacles that only let him see the corporate view of the world and look a bit closer to home because the grass roots movement is still very much there.
And many thanks to Linus - he was right, I am "having fun"...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I think it was inevitable, and here's the reason: Eddie Van Halen, punk rock, hip-hop, horror movies.
Open Source is a pop culture phenomenon. Linux wasn't its first attempt at stardom, but it was a major smash hit. Everybody in the world has Linux. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it free along with samples of Tide. Open Source was rebellious. The neighbors hated when you played it loud, and mom and dad didn't much care for the new friends you were keeping.
Open Source got big just from that one breakthrough, and they earned all these new fans. There were a bunch of people were screaming "Hey man! I knew Open Source before Linux! GNU man! FreeBSD!!!" And yeah, we the new fans said, "Hey that sounds cool, but I'm really into this Linux. Richard who? Was he the original singer?"
We outgrew that for the most part as Open source got really influential. Soon it was everywhere, but like Metallica, Open source wasn't getting the respect it deserved. All of us in our campy t-shirts, messy hair, and our hard-earned pennies; yet we still couldn't get Linux in the stores. We got zero air-time. It sucked. But we didn't care, the music was pure.
Then suddenly, Open Source became cool, and everyone started doing it. They copied it. My sister asked to borrow my copy. IBM put out cute ads mentioning Linux as a principal influence. We got our own books and magazines. We were recognized, and we the fans shared much of the credit. But what about the original Open Source? Well, it matured. It got a little pretenious... a little fat, and somewhat... boring. Like hip-hop, it's so pervasive in everything that it doesn't merit being discussed separately. What's so special about a drop D tuning? What's so controversial about a bloody death scene in a horror movie when ever TV dramas feature them? Open Source got commercialized; watered down in the hands of suits who just don't get it. Sure, they get it. Buy hey man, they don't get it! We were doing it first, man! They're just copying the sound and the look, but it's got no passion, man!
And that is the death of Open Source as a movement. After a while, movements lose steam. Not because no one cares anymore, but because they aren't seen as a challenge to contemporary conventional wisdom. If closed source was the thesis, and Open Source was the antithesis; then what we have now is the synthesis. The only people who should care about Open Source not being appreciated as a separate doctrine are those that still want to focus all astronomical talk on how the earth orbits the sun. We know already.