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Open Source Community's Double Standard

Posted by kdawson on from the wax-fecund-and-celebrate dept.

AlexGr writes to point out a really good point Matt Asay raises in his CNET News Blog: Why do we praise closed source companies who open up a little bit, but damn open source companies who close down a little bit? "Deja vu. Remember 2002? That's when Red Hat decided to split its code into Red Hat Advanced Server (now Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and Fedora. Howls of protest and endless hand-wringing ensued: How dare Red Hat not give everything away for free? Enter 2007. MySQL decides to comply with the GNU General Public License and only give its tested, certified Enterprise code to those who pay for the service underlying that code (gasp!). Immediately cries of protest are raised, How dare MySQL not give everything away for free?"

14 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. Human Nature by suso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is human nature and it does not just apply to computers.

    Example: If a girl is a real bitch then people expect her to be a bitch and if she is suddenly nice one day, then people say "Wow, she's so nice today". But if someone is nice all the time then one day gets angry people say "What's wrong with her, sheesh."

    Its not a double standard, its human nature. Nuff said, discussion over.

    1. Re:Human Nature by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not even human nature, it's common freaking sense. If you have a student who averages C- and gets a B on a test you praise them for their achievement. If you have a student who averages A+ and gets a B on a test you ask them what went wrong. If you fail to praise the underachieving student or fail to question the overachieving student then you discourage further improvements by the underachiever, and encourage further drops in performance by the overachiever.

      It's not a double standard. It's a rational standard: Improvement is good, regression is bad. Becoming more open is good, becoming less open is bad. Ignoring this in order to be "fair" and avoid being accused of a "double standard" is just stupid.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:Human Nature by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They didn't write it.

      It's not the product of their mind, not the product of their efforts.

      It's the product of many peoples minds and efforts.

      The administrators of the projects should be appreciative of that fact.

      It is not their property. Laws can say what they want, lawyers and contracts and twisting of justice aside, it simply isn't theirs.

      When open source organizations try to close access and extract money from people, they become malignant, corrupt, thieving organizations.

      Declaring that it's legal for someone to do this doesn't change the fundamental nature of what's going on.

      The misplaced sense of entitlement these organizations display is truly disgusting.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    3. Re:Human Nature by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I just wanted to add to that last post...

      Organizations have a lot of inerta. It takes a concerted effort to restructure.

      When a closed source organization starts becoming more open, it took a lot of hard work and restructuring to make it possible.

      When an open source organization starts closing things up, it takes a lot of hard work and restructuring to make that possible too.

      Which means the people at the helm are working hard to start hoarding things they were given in trust for the public good.

      It reveals that the organization has a poor moral character.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    4. Re:Human Nature by Dahamma · · Score: 5, Informative

      I was really agreeing with you until you said: "Redhat, MySQL, and other companies like them are closing much of their source because..."

      Redhat and MySQL are NOT closing their open source. That would in fact be illegal and unethical, because they did greatly benefit from (and in Redhat's case, built the whole product around) open source licensed with the GPL and contributed to by many OSS developers under that license.

      But in fact, all they have done is start following the strict letter of the GPL, which is basically "you have to make source available when distributing binaries". Not only do they still follow that, but they still support and make freely available a community version of their project as well.

      Based on your post I can't imagine you'd argue with that... I just found it a bit ironic that you propgated misperception that OSS companies are evil for "closing their source" when you seemed to be arguing against that FUD :)

  2. Makes sense by NetNifty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Praise for companies moving towards our goals, opposition to companies moving away from them..

    --
    Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
  3. How is that a double standard? by spun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Shocking. The open source community wants software to be open source, that seems pretty consistent to me.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  4. What? by SIIHP · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "How dare Red Hat not give everything away for free?"

    Why are they pushing this misconception of what open source means? AFAIK, it doesn't mean "give everything away for free" it means "the source is open".

    --
    I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
    1. Re:What? by negative3 · · Score: 5, Informative
      Exactly what I thought. Unless I completely misunderstood everything, MySQL is not becoming "closed source", the enterprise version is just not going to be free as in beer any more. You can pay for the enterprise version, and you'll have access to the source code...that's free as in freedom. What is so hard for people to understand about that? From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html:

      Selling Free Software

      Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.

      Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.

      The word "free" has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of "free software", we're talking about freedom, not price. (Think of "free speech", not "free beer".) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.

      Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless of the price, because users have freedom in using it.

      Non-free programs are usually sold for a high price, but sometimes a store will give you a copy at no charge. That doesn't make it free software, though. Price or no price, the program is non-free because users don't have freedom.

      Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it.

      Free software is a community project, and everyone who depends on it ought to look for ways to contribute to building the community. For a distributor, the way to do this is to give a part of the profit to the Free Software Foundation or some other free software development project. By funding development, you can advance the world of free software.
      --
      "Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation." - Richard Feynman
  5. Why do we praise slave states by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    who open up a little bit, but damn free states, who begin forced servitude little bit?

    The issue is not a "double standard" unless you use the current "mainstream media" Orwellian definition of "fairness."

    The predjudice is for freedom, openness and opportunity. When you compound closing of source by the inclusion of earlier community contributions, testing and evangelism - you then reduce freedom to a marketing tool.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
    1. Re:Why do we praise slave states by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you ignore the stupid /. editoral and read the blog

      Wouldn't that be cheating? I bet you're the kind of guy who reads the instruction manual before putting the widget together.
  6. Someone doesn't know what a double standard is. by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A double standard is when you are inconsisent.

    There is nothing inconsistent about praising people for opening up a little bit, while condemning those that close down a little bit. We praise ANY move towards openness, and condemn ANY move away from it. How is that a double standard.

    Allow me to illustrate using the oft neglected fruit analagy:

    I gleefully watch my strawberry plants grow little fruit that ripen into perfect sweet strawberries, but watch me complain when my delicious strawberries start rotting and become ever less their original strawberry goodness.

    Why oh why do I praise the things as they become ripe, but criticise them as they rot! I am such a hypocrit. Hmm.

  7. The blurb is actually pretty accurate by hummassa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (I normally RTFA before posting)

    The problem here is: IMHO (and RMS's opinion) non-free software is unethical, because it's basically a scam: making software is a service with value; making copies of software is of (marginally) zero value. So, the GPP is right on the mark.
    If a company that makes (unethical) proprietary software starts making some (ethical) Free Software, it is (1) improving its act and (2) contributing to the pool of Free Software.
    If a company that makes Free Software starts making proprietary software, it is (1) starting to make unethical things and (2) contributing less to the pool of Free Software.
    So, that's the reason why we praise non-free-software companies that open um and we boo free-software companies that close down.
    Putting it like the GPP: would you praise a country that permitted slave labour and then passwd a law freeing some of its slaves? (like mine did in 1871...) And would you protest a country without slaves that passed a law allowing for some to have slaves?
    HTH.

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  8. Mod parent up please by crush · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It makes an absolutely crucial point: there may well have been howls of protest, but they were from people that either wanted to spread confusion or else were completely ignorant. There's another point: Fedora is the basis of RHEL not the other way around. Fedora is a very aggressively moving distribution that tries out new technologies. Red Hat looks at how succesful those are in Fedora and rolls any that work out well into its supported product: RHEL. It's in a good position to do so because many of the engineers that it hires are involved in the Fedora Project and so know intimately what features are stable and easily supportable. It galls me that Red Hat as a company is so open, adhering in both letter and spirit to the ideals of Free Software, makes money from selling support for that software, re-invests the money in hiring top-notch hackers that contribute Free Software for everyone and then are shit on by people that know that they're doing this work and yet a company like Canonical with a non-Free "launchpad" are fawned over. Feh.