10-Year Anniversary of Open Source

Bruce Perens writes "Saturday is the 10-Year Anniversary of Open Source, the initiative to promote Free Software to business. Obviously, it's been incredibly successful. I've submitted a State of Open Source message discussing the anniversary of Open Source, its successes, and the challenges it will face in the upcoming decade."

Comments

Misleading use of capital letters

[davidwr]

It's too bad English requires titles to have initial-capital letters in almost every word. It leads to confusion.

While this may be the 10th anniversary of Open Source, it is not the 10th anniversary of open s.

Open-source computer code has been around about as long as computers, and the equivalent to open source in other areas such as blueprints have been around since time immemorial.

Re:Misleading use of capital letters

[dedazo]

In the beginning (around 10,000 BC or so), software was nothing more than a commodity that helped drive hideously expensive computers. Source code was shared freely among everyone (government agencies, universities and companies that actually used computers) and got adapted and improved for whatever task they wanted to accomplish with what little shared time they were getting on their Big Iron du jour. Companies like IBM, DEC and Wang made a killing on the hardware and support, and software was an afterthought at best.

All of this predates RMS, ESR, GNU and everything else. Availability of source code as a principal "right" became important only after the hardware itself was inevitably turned into a commodity and ceased being a shared resource.

Re:Misleading use of capital letters

[that this is not und]

It's sad how few people identify Apple Computer as one of the chief villains and 'trailblazers' in the rise of legally-restricted software. Apple also nearly closed off the GUI concept to own it for themselves. If you search around you can find firebrand essays from RMS condeming Apple's 'Look and Feel' lawsuit against Microsoft. Essentially Apple 'delivered' the GUI to Microsoft and Windows, by suing all the other GUI developers in the competing market of GUI layers for MS-DOS. Everybody but Microsoft they ran out of the market with their legal muscle.

Thanks, Apple.

corrected

[davidwr]

It's too bad English requires titles to have initial-capital letters in almost every word. It leads to confusion.

While this may be the 10th anniversary of Open Source, it is not the 10th anniversary of open source.

Open-source computer code has been around about as long as computers, and the equivalent to open source in other areas such as blueprints have been around since time immemorial.
--
That'll teach me not to use Preview.

Re:10 years - not hardly

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the hell were you years ago. This Bruce Perens guy is acting like he coined the term and started the whole thing.

Maybe if you understood what he wrote or even anything he has said over the past 10 years you would not have made such a silly statement.

Open Source MOVEMENT. read the whole thing before foaming at the mouth.

Re:Correction: free software is the success

[Bruce Perens]

Agreed. Stallman sees deeper than any of us and he should get much more credit than he does. Of course, he'd do without the credit and be happy if you'd just think about the importance of your freedom.

That said, I remember just how little buy-in we had with business people then, because Richard was the wrong guy to promote to them. He doesn't have any empathy with them, this rapidly becomes clear if you discuss it with him. Yes, if we didn't do it, someone else would have. The world really was ready for it, that was clear in how fast it caught on.

Thanks

Bruce

I'm so sick of "Open Source" it's bogus!

[mlwmohawk]

I'm sorry but the "Open Source" movement is a bogus attempt to water down the original purpose of GNU and the Free Software movement.

I've been in the industry for about 25 years and RMS was a visionary. While we we focused on software and what it could do and how to do it, he also focused on the dangers that our own creativity would bring to us and how to protect us from it.

Make no mistake, RIAA, MPIAA, SCO, et. al. are *ALL* apparitions RMS saw over a decade or so ago. The Open Source movement is nothing more than a selfish group of little people with a narrow scope and no plan. RMS has had a plan all along, and while he may seem to be an extremist and might not have been right 100% of the time, in retrospect, he has been right pretty darn close and his extremism seems less and less unwarranted over time.

The truth is both a blessing and a curse. It takes a lot of work to realize the truth and most people will not challenge themselves. Once you learn the truth, however, you are cursed with trying to explain it to others.

Re:I'm so sick of "Open Source" it's bogus!

[replicant108]

The Open Source movement is nothing more than a selfish group of little people with a narrow scope and no plan.

In my experience, Open Source people are mostly Free Software advocates who have modified their terminology in order to make their sales pitch more effective.

Their are typically very community-minded, and un-selfish (by the standards of most people).

They are more interested in driving adoption than RMS, who prefers to focus on promoting an understanding of the principles of Software Freedom.

Generally speaking, Open Source folks have the same goal as the Free Software community, but differ in their preferred means.

Re:I'm so sick of "Open Source" it's bogus!

[Bruce Perens]

You and I don't have to choose between freedom of software and better software for users. It's OK to want both. It will sometimes be necessary to choose which of those we start the conversation with when approaching a prospective convert, and which one we leave for when we've won the argument about the first.

This is not so much about compromising ideals as it is about style of evangelism.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Not 10 years: thank ESR for the lies

[nojomofo]

Of course, the words "Open Source" could have been used that way before then, but we can't find any record

Not to rain on your parade, Bruce, but the comment that you're replying to shows documentation of the term being used in 1990. I know that this isn't news to you, but this "I own the term Open Source" game that you play really turns a lot of people (who would otherwise be very sympathetic) away from your message.

Re:I think you mean "Open Source" - actually Free.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he actually means "Free"; if you read the article he's very careful to be clear that Open Source should be little more than a rebranding of Richard Stallman's ideas and ideals but wearing a sharp tailored suit. It's an excellent document. The only mistake is the implication that companies bigger than 1000 are not at risk from patents. As a person in an engineering company with more than 50k employees, I can really tell you that's not true. Patents are a form of war on those who produce by those who steal.

Scarcity

[XanC]

With an absence of scarcity. A lot of economic rules (not all, but a lot) simply don't apply to software in the age of the Internet.

Re:Big deal

[Bruce Perens]

We just have to figure out which anniversary of the three stated below to celebrate :-)

In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU project after becoming frustrated with the effects of the change in culture of the computer industry and users. Software development for the GNU operating system began in January 1984, and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded in October 1985. He introduced a free software definition and "copyleft", designed to ensure software freedom for all.

- Wikipedia.

Re:What?

[Bruce Perens]

No, my blog is technocrat.net . The link is to perens.com, a site with no ads.

Yes, BSD had the source code and licensing, but no campaign to drive others to create such things. Stallman started that. I canonized the definition of what was, and what was not, Open Source. Raymond and I evangelized to business. Everybody in this picture is standing on other folks shoulders. I'd be the last to deny that.

Bruce