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FSFE President Urges Community To Strengthen Open Source As a Brand
Georg Greve, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), has an insightful look at FOSS from a brand perspective with urgings that the community come together and strengthen open source as a unified brand. "There are plenty of false enemies to go around. Ironically, the most common form of false enemy is found around the animosity that has built around branding and framing issues, more specifically in the area of 'Free Software' vs 'Open Source.' Name-calling and quarreling on either side is not helpful, and serves to hide the common base and interest in having a strong brand and powerful message. The historical facts around Free Software are well documented and available to anyone who wishes to look them up. But instead of focusing on past insults and wrongs, I believe our focus should be on the future. We should realize that what divides us pales in comparison to what we have in common and that division and exclusion are harmful to us all. So we should rein in the name-callers on either side, and empower those people who know how to build cooperation, corporations, and positive feedback loops."
Refrain from name-calling? What an idiot.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
There was a story in the Firehose a couple days ago that had links to NEC and Panasonic's "source code download" site for their Japanese Docomo phones.
They've been on the Linux bandwagon for years and have been giving away the source. However, they have added the extra stipulation that downloaders need to have actually bought the phone (and require the IMEI to prove it).
This is in direct violation of GPLv2's section 3b which requires the source be available to all.
Anyway, I thought that was interesting and wondered why it never reached the front page (it was orange, so interest was high). And seeing as how the current story is about false friends and false enemies, I thought it appropriate to point out how some of the biggest exploiters of Linux are also sometimes enemies of free software.
From TFA: "One is to believe there was a substantial difference in the software referred to by the terms "Free Software" and "Open Source." There isn't."
This was when I stopped.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Although he insists that there's no difference between "Free Software" and "Open Software", he needs to realize that he won't get far in truly creating a "brand", which he also refers to as "anyone's gut feeling", using a word that the majority of those "anyone"s out there have a "gut feeling" means something other than what he intends it to mean.
To anyone who is not part of the F/OSS movement, "free software" means software that doesn't cost anything, and it always will. Don't try to change people's perception of words to match what your product is, change the words you use to steer people's perception of the product. If it's freedom you want to communicate, then do it with the word "freedom", or the word "open", or something similar, but not "free", which, when placed in front of a product (such as "software"), always implies "zero dollars" to the rest of the world.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
unless you belong to an open source organization, it doesn't seem at all clear
that open source as a concept needs to maintain 'branding' at all.
I don't think so. What is a "brand"? It's a lot of things, but it becomes a unified symbol representing a variety of things to a variety of people. For some it is a symbol of freedom. Good. For some it is a symbol of quality. Not good! For some it may represent any number of other things, but the bottom line is that "FOSS Brand" cannot even think to represent or guarantee all things to all people. Some FOSS projects are good. Others are not good. Some were good but are no longer. Without a central control that says what can or can't carry the brand, the brand itself is at risk of harming everything that carries it.
I understand what is driving the idea and the idealists driving it. But not everyone thinks the same and these idealists need to understand and appreciate that fact. Religious idealists are similar in nature and yet the very ideals themselves become different among idealists. The Catholic Church split and became the Church of England and the Catholic church. They weakened the "brand" of Christianity in a sense. There is more than one branch of Islam as well and yet all sides and factions have moderates and radicals bent on their own individual views some even doing things causes others to say "that's not 'true' [religion]!"
RMS, not everyone will agree with you and only accept part of your dogma.
It is good enough that there is F/OSS as opposed to commercial software just as there are atheists and theists. It does not need further definition than that. Yet, in order to keep things simple, people do tend to want to put brands an labels on things even when they aren't appropriate. It is unfortunate and unavoidable.
Hear RMS' take on this. :D
-- Linux user #369862
But instead of focussing on past insults and wrongs, I believe our focus should be on the future. We should realize that what divides us pales in comparison to what we have in common and that division and exclusion are harmful to us all.
I guess I agree with him in this. There are people on all sides of these issues that are far too concerned about being right and preaching their "Right Way". Name calling and other childish behaviour is counter-productive. What is needed is good debate on the issues and without ad hominem attacks that only detract and distract.
That being said my feeling is that those that idolizes various ways of distributing, publishing or retail of software is becoming increasingly marginalized; which is a good thing. Dogmatic subscription to an ideology is always a powerful activator for the Us Vs Them instinct that seems to run through so much of our public debates and arguments.
The Long Now Foundation
We need a Ribbon!
Open source is a random barbarian horde of software developers. That would be like creating a brand for things you heard from "Some guy at a bar". Oh, I heard from some guy at a bar that open source software needs to create a unified brand. Isn't the open source community sort of intentionally decentralized? Creating a brand to unify this stuff would be actually very deceptive. The way distributions currently brand their components is probably about as honest and accurate as anyone should require from a product perspective.
There is no "official" open source organization. It's a concept.
Can we also empower those people who know the difference between the words "reign", meaning the possession of power or authority, and "rein", which is the strap that you use to control a horse?
Then maybe we could rein in some of the worst abuses of the English language.
Branding is what corporations use to add perceived value to merchandise. People will pay more for "Disney" brand shoes than the same shoe with "Bob" brand. Disney might not even sell the shoe, Bob may have paid Disney for use of it's brand.
Alternately, Bob could make better shoes to add value to it's shoes. Unfortunately, the consumer can't always see this value. People won't pay more for unperceived value. Unless Bob wants to build his brand as a high quality product, he can make more money paying Disney for their logo
This would be difficult to apply to "Free Software", because there's so much of it out there, of mixed quality. If it ever took off, and people began associating "Free Software" with quality, anyone could misappropriate the brand, and it's perceived value would fall.
A new brand is in order. Something like LibertySoft(tm) or FSFsoft(tm) that would apply to projects that met certain levels of quality and had a free enough license. Some organization like the FSF would have to own the trademark, and police misuses of the brand.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Then let's hope the Open Source Initiative's days of calling free software activism "ideological tub-thumping" are behind them. I don't see branding as a means of teaching people about software freedom (the very thing the OSI doesn't talk about in their belief that businesses don't want to hear about user's freedoms), but I'm happy to learn about branding efforts that explicitly teach people about supporting software freedom for its own sake and defending it for future generations so as to build and maintain social solidarity. My experience is that efforts aimed at branding something typically aim for narrow commercial interests: convenience, ease-of-use, and reliability. These things are not bad but they are insufficient for teaching people to value the freedoms to run, share, and modify computer software; those values were chosen to meet the needs of proprietors—the people and organizations that don't respect software freedom.
When it comes to teaching freedom, I don't have the trouble some say they have. I used to host a call-in radio show talking about free software and related issues. I didn't have problems explaining the philosophical difference between free software and open source nor did I have objections to playing various talks by people who went into the implications of this philosophical difference. More recently, I find that the essay "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software" to be an excellent and not at all insulting essay on the philosophical differences between free software and open source. One of the essay's points that comes up repeatedly is how people who identify with each movement react in the face of powerful proprietary software. Open source advocates would go along with the proprietor, free software activists would reject the proprietor and work on something that would do the same job but respect user's software freedoms:
I have to wonder what message any brand sends before I can agree to go along with it. The FSFE essay doesn't make that clear, despite the call to action in the third paragraph from the end.
Digital Citizen
Who started the bickering over the FS vs OSS terms? None other than Richard Stallman himself. It's his brands he wants promoted at the expense of other brands. There is no Linux, it is instead GNU/Linux. It's not Open Source it's Free Software. He has started both those controversies and continues to fan their flames.
So be careful with your heresies, or the FSF may excommunicate the FSFE.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
not going to happen, people are going to critisize software on occasion, and there are going to be forks, and rejections, for example slackware discontinued including gnome, Torvalds bad-mouthed it and later started using gnome again and now dislikes kde4.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Look at the Open Source Definition and compare that with the Free Software Definition. I'm using the definitions from OSI and the FSF because, for all intents and purposes, I think that they have a reasonable claim on defining the corresponding term.
There are some licenses that are OSI-certified but not Free Software Licenses (according to the FSF). These include:
* The NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3
* The Reciprocal Public License
I'm also a bit wary of this part of the OSD:
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.
So that's saying that a license could be Open Source and not allow the distribution of patched files? That seems like a bizarre restriction. Their explanation doesn't really sell me:
Rationale: Encouraging lots of improvement is a good thing, but users have a right to know who is responsible for the software they are using. Authors and maintainers have reciprocal right to know what they're being asked to support and protect their reputations.
Accordingly, an open-source license must guarantee that source be readily available, but may require that it be distributed as pristine base sources plus patches. In this way, "unofficial" changes can be made available but readily distinguished from the base source.
The problems with this is that "distribution" can mean any conveyance. So that could mean that to install a program under such a license on a system, you might be required to patch and then compile the code on the actual device. Woe betide anyone who distributes code cross-compiled for a very low power handheld device that doesn't have much in the way of dev tools or system resources. Forget about checking your patched files into a publicly-accessible repository. And if you want to have a web viewer to look at the code, you better be using client-side javascript to do the patching or face the prospect of being in violation of "distribution" laws when you send a pre-patched filed across the Intertubes from your server to the user's browser.
It makes perfect sense to say "If you change this, you can't use our official name for it." I mean, if you bought a can of vegetarian beans and mixed in beef fat, you couldn't just turn around and sell it with the original packaging as you'd be misrepresenting the product. Similarly, if you take the MediaWiki codebase and mix in a few lines of your own code you can't tell people it's stock MediaWiki code. You can tell people that it's based on that codebase, or that you've only change 10 lines, or any other factual statement, but you can't misrepresent the item.
A much more sane rule (which is perhaps still too restrictive for Free Software) would be to request that distributors of modified code offer people the ability to see the diffs as well as the final (changed) code. That way you could take any code and change it and distribute it, but if a user asked for it, you'd need to show them the diffs between what you got from upstream and the changes you made. This would be especially important if the upstream distribution point disappears. For most FOSS projects today, people are using distributed version control like Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, etc... , so anyone can trivially get the diffs by just checking out the repo and looking at the patches.
coding is life
In bicycle racing oftentimes a group of people zoom out ahead of the pack (the peloton) and try to race to the front.
The only way those people can even hope to get to the end before the peloton is if they work together and share the aerodynamic load of breaking the wind. Sometimes they work together harmoniously right to almost the very end--then they race it out between themselves.
Most times though, for various tactical reasons, they get squirreley with each other and refuse to cooperate evenly to maximize speed. While they're squirreling around, the peloton bears down on them and swallows them up.
BSD and GNU are on a breakaway from closed source software. They each want an ecosystem where sharing and cooperation are the primary values. They each take different routes. BND is not as radical as GNU, but GNU does more to hamper closed software. Nevertheless, they are each in a breakaway from the closed source peloton.
Mindshare gains are to not accomplished by wasting energy squabbling with your logical ally. AFTER sufficient mindshare has been won from closed source--then squabble and be stupid if you want to! But meanwhile--cooperate on the breakaway!!!! It makes for a better race!!
FS and OSS developers and users come together just fine developing and promoting FOSS, don't they?
Like the PFJ, the JPF and the Popular Front, they may be a divided bunch ideologically, but does it really matter much in the case of FOSS?
(Unlike with the fictional or non-fictional leftist groups, where a divide certainly has hurt their common cause.)
Any anecdotes or anything to show how the divide actually hurts?
(If there's examples in the article, I apologize for not reading it)
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
I think it's pretty clear what RMS would say, and (hopefully) why.
What's more interesting is Bruce Perens' take on it. Bruce founded the Open Source Institute with Eric S. Raymond, but Bruce himself has stated that "it's time to talk about Free Software again" as opposed to Open Source, due to the unintended conceptual dilution that Open Source has been exposed to.
This guy makes some excellent points that will no doubt fall upon many deaf ears.
And to be honest its safe to ignore people like this if you are a hobbyist and don't care whether you will continue to have hardware support for your hobby machine. After all, you can just have some fun reverse engineering the drivers you need.
The only reason to care about branding for open source and free software is if you actually expect businesses to embrace it and invest resources in developing things that work with it. You know, to enable doing the kinds of things people have come to expect to be able to do with a desktop computer.
I remember a time when it was a fair challenge to get much more than vga out of xfree86 due to lack of drivers, and when many modems and ethernet cards simply didn't work in Linux. Printers same thing. Forget about a scanner or digital camera. It was a pain in the butt for anyone with aspirations to actually have a desktop useful for much more than tinkering with itself. This has always been a limitation of open source. Things have gotten much better. And for things to continue to get better, the community should put some effort into thinking about others' perceptions of open source and trying to improve them. This is how people (including executives with very little technical interest or knowledge) make decisions end up impacting our community.
"Somebody please tell RMS to StFU."
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
But there is a brand whether or not it's intentionally created. The output of this "random barbarian horde of software developers" all falls under a single label, "open source", and therefore has the "open source" brand. He describes a brand as being "anyone's gut feeling". In other words, what is it that people think of when they hear "open source software"? Well, that's the brand. It may not have been shaped by anyone intentionally, but it still exists. So, he wants to shape it.
He also makes the point that the de facto brand is actually shaped by those who compete with open source. Microsoft, for example, shapes the open source brand through its marketing. Therefore, by not making a concerted effort to shape the brand in a positive way, the community is effectively allowing it to be shaped in a negative way.
All of that sounds to me like a substitute for evaluating the merits of all of your available software options and making your own decision based on your needs.
There's only one problem, one fatal flaw: there is no substitute for that. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
there are a lot of real enemies around. ranging from patent trolls to derelict distribution companies buying legislation. we can stand united against them. we have to.
Read radical news here
Open source is a random barbarian horde of software developers.
Okay, there's your brand, "Barbarian Horde". Someone else suggested "Hippyware". For some reason, I find myself thinking of gypsies. All of which suggests not that the thing is unbrandable, but that it's really challenging to come up with a brand that would appeal to business and normals. It would be nice if it also appealed to counter-culture types, but that just makes the problem even harder.
Loose lips lose spit.
We should realize that what divides us pales in comparison to what we have in common and that division and exclusion are harmful to us all. So we should reign in the name-callers on either side, and empower those people who know how to build cooperation, corporations, and positive feedback loops.
Ok. You first. Muzzle Richard and get back to us on how well that goes.
Thanks
What restrictions? I said that the GPLv2 does not prevent further distribution, ie does not impose further restrictions - your comprehension skills suck.
God: An invisible friend for grown-ups.
no one I've spoken to has ever misinterpreted Hippyware. People either know what it means, or they ask. They never walk around thinking it means one thing when it means something else, a problem that both Open Source and Free Software share. Software Libre also works, but Hippyware rolls off the tongue a lot better
There aren't going to ask, they are going think that you are stoned. Which strikes me as a perfectly normal reaction to geek-speak.
Software not in the public domain comes with restrictions on its use and distribution. Free-as-in-Beer.
But not truly free in any larger or more significant way. It's just distribution under another form of private or public license.
Software Libre is the bumper sticker. The political pin.
The rallying point for your cause. That the passer-by in Hyde Park hasn't the slightest idea of what the hell it is you are talking about no longer really matters.
You are totally and happily self-absorbed.
Freed software, it's Free!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
You have no idea how anatomically correct your metaphor is don't you?
Both Linux and "warez" are free. How to change things? Everyone indeed gets bogged down in details, petty issues, etc, and fail to focus on the common objectives and the big picture, still working very hard, thereby accomplishing lots of things, but not the end objectives. People still continue to prefer Windows, reformatting their preinstalled Linux machines with "free" windowz gamez serialz warez? How to change that? "Because they're ______." Not helpful. Even in places where Linux would be favored for the price, people still are tempted to run Windows, whether paid for or not. It's familiar, available, runs the software they want, bending the law a little has no practical consequences. Should Linux techs become friends of the BSA, and start collecting US $1M piracy snitch rewards?. Does gnu/linux/bsd just need more open-source games? Exchange and Outlook clones? Instant messengers? Training programmers and sysadmins? Or just users? Or would a Linux distro with the ability to run Warez better than Microsoft gain so many users and gain X% installed base? How much installed base does microsoft gain from users who never bought anything? How will standard Linux APIs for voice, video, graphics, 3d, and a developers kit come about? However, rather than ponder these difficult questions, a great many will resort to bashing the use of the word "warez", creating more fighting over nothing and accomplishing just that.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I agree, I use "linux" as the brand, people recognize it. I describe Open Office, Firefox, and Tremulous as being "from Linux, but ported to Windows". It's enough. The problem, as I see it, is that they _are_ available in windows, and so nobody has any real need to use Linux. In other words, what does Linux do for people, that Windows cannot? Why would they need Linux? To shield them from the illegality of their software? Provide them with more functionality? Which? Torvalds has it right - Linux is, still, in need of more drivers. But I also think it needs to ship with more "fun" apps - games, webcam apps, instant messenger and phone apps, etc - things Windows doesn't come built-in with. Wubi also could be used for a lot more, as a base to a quick-boot linux to run these apps, or others.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Proprietors are quite ideologically pure. It's their way or the highway.
The software isn't just a "tool", thinking that way is a trick proprietors use to get you to forget about freedom concerns or dissuade you from learning about software freedom in the first place. For proprietors the goal is to get you to depend on them forever so they control how you use your computer. This is both profitable and valuable for control (both ends unto themselves).
As we see more and more with DRM, proprietors want more and more control over every aspect of one's computer use even if it won't make them money. The trick for them is to find out ways to exert that control over users without users noticing the bad sides (cooking the frog slowly), particularly in comparison to the freedom-respecting older technologies (like books).
Proprietors don't want their would-be customers comparing the old with the new: people might learn that eBooks aren't as freedom-respecting as regular books. Anyone who "just wants to watch the movie" or read the book is disappointed to learn that they're on the wrong side of the tracks (which the proprietor knows via GPS unit data) and the proprietor has disabled their movie from being watched in that area. Or at that time (via a clock in the watching device). Or for users who don't type in the right code, or pay the rent on time. Or based on any other restriction the proprietor deems worthy.
So this is properly a fight for one's freedoms, and the "hotbed" you describe has existed all along. It's just a matter of making people aware of these political concerns and getting them to understand the consequences of proprietary control/user subjugation.
Digital Citizen