How Open Source Might Finally Become Mainstream

geegel writes "The Wall Street Journal has a very interesting article on how autocracies are now embracing open source, while at the same promoting national based IT services. The author, Evgeny Morozov, paints a bleak future of the future World Wide Web."

Comments

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I've also noticed that at the same we're getting much better quality open source software.

Re:Interesting

[clang_jangle]

And back doors in proprietary software. Of course countries like Russia and Iran don't want to use software that has the NSA spy stuff built-in. Neither do I!

Re:Interesting

[mellon]

No offense, man, but it looks like you didn't actually read the article—you just skimmed it for something to disagree with. He doesn't say that at all. What he says is that it's likely that national governments, including the U.S. government, will resist purchasing and using software written by companies in other countries. And it's also likely that the U.S. government's attempts to get Silicon Valley companies to put back doors in all their software will feed into this trend.

The bit about open source isn't even the point of the article—it's just the lead-in. He doesn't actually draw any conclusions about open source other than that it may play some role in the balkanization of software on a national level, because it provides a jumping-off point for national versions of software. Frankly, it's a damned good article; the slashdot summary doesn't do it justice.

Re:Interesting

[HermMunster]

I read through the whole article. You need to read the whole article.

It's amazing you can't see that he's claiming that American capitalism looses due to open source because it permits other countries to spend differently and that lack of spending on US goods inhibits Silicon Valley's to compete. He's saying that by giving foreign countries money (because they aren't spending on US products) they get to spend in other countries such as Africa, Russia, Brazil (all of which he mentions in his article) thus increasing their economic clout and influence.

He beats around the bush a lot in his article and he hides behind a facade, but he clearly saying that using open source is bad for the US economy and that it hurts the ability of Silicon Valley to compete and it gives countries such as Russia and China the opportunity to use open source products in ways that defeat commercial software's ability to turn a profit.

He also clearly indicates that doing so undermines efforts by agencies such as the FBI from obtaining the benefit of back doors being programmed into software, because open source software code can be reviewed.

And there's nothing classic about me. My posts almost never get negative mods. In general, I get positive mods.

Re:Interesting

[MindKata]

One important implicit side effect I got from the article is that the influence of governments wishing to exploit open source software will by implication help open source software fight off attempts by closed source companies to undermine open source software.

One big and growing problem the article highlights is that governments are becoming more directly involved in what goes into the software, not least of which backdoors for their own spying. But then the US has brought this to a head due to the FBI asking for backdoors to be put into software, which has freaking out other countries. But it seems all the countries are playing this same game.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of the article is how it highlights how the division between government and business is blurring. This is shown in how money is lent from one country to other countries on the basis they take certain technology from that one country. The governments are playing global games of controlling and influencing other countries, each trying to control resources, such as natural or even technological resources such as communications infrastructure, in the case of China's moves into African countries.

I wonder if the divisions between government and business are really blurring or are we now (thanks to the Internet) now finally starting to see more of the truth, that governments and their businesses are much closer than they would like us to believe and that countries use their businesses as pawns, for their political ambitions to influence other countries. (It would also help explain how governments are voted in by the people yet spend most of the time listening to the wishes of companies (via their lobby groups) and so its businesses and not the people who really influence government. So are we now finally starting to see, in much more detail, what has been really going on for centuries? (Its no wonder the governments want to hide so much from us). I (like a lot of people) have suspected a lot of this duplicitous power games for years, but the Internet is helping us to confirm with more evidence these games are really being played behind our backs by our own governments.

On a positive note, its a fascinating thought provoking article. On a more negative note, its hard not to see the close ties between governments and their businesses as they seek to push backdoors into technology (and use technology as a means of inflence and control) is therefore a pressure that is pushing the world towards an increasingly more Orwellian Authoritarian world, where governments are increasingly trying to watch us all, but as usual we are still prevented from hearing so much about what they do in secret behind our backs. (But then even Wikileaks has been highlighting our government representatives have been repeatedly lying to us and hiding what is really going on (even though with 3 million people with access to that information, all countries are likely to have spies in that many people, so all countries knew what was in the documents, before the leaks. So that means the only people who don't really know is all of us!, the public, who are the only people really kept in the dark!). So this article adds more jigsaw pieces to help us see the global chess moves being played by governments, as they seek to manoeuvre their businesses into influential positions whilst also seeking to prevent other countries businesses from gaining influential and potentially damaging positions in their own countries.

As the old saying goes, "Oh what a twisted web we weave". So much for just make a great product and selling it. All the politics is really an irritating distraction, even without adding in all the growing Authoritarian shit that’s inevitable given their relentless behaviour, as they seem determined to try to find ways to spy and block spying on each other, with all of us caught in the middle and likely to end up spied on relentlessly.

Anyway a very thought provoking article. Now where's the brandy bottle, I need a drink!. :)

Thanks for the compliment

[Amorymeltzer]

At the end of 2010, the "open-source" software movement, whose activists tend to be fringe academics and ponytailed computer geeks...

Here are some opening lines from previous Wall Street Journal articles:

- At the end of 2010, the "global financial" traders, who tend to be morally crippled and calloused egomaniacs...
- At the end of 2010, the "journalistic reporting" newspapers, whose employees tend to be hypocritical parasites and star-struck airheads...
- At the end of 2010, the "United States", whose elected representatives tend to be greedy lawyers and ignorant blowhards...

How fun!

Re:Thanks for the compliment

[h4rr4r]

I like how he mentioned computer geeks and academics, but not Google, Red Hat, IBM or hundreds of other examples of open source in mainstream life.

Like most of the WSJ this article is full of FUD and written to agree with their readers pre-conceived notions.

Re:Thanks for the compliment

[h4rr4r]

He did not have to mention activists, he could have mentioned users instead. This article is written this way on purpose. It is because it fits the pre-conceived notions of WSJ readers. The WSJ has become just another part of the Murdoch echo chamber.

Re:Thanks for the compliment

[h4rr4r]

Mangers and Executives via "Corporate Visions" of course, those other folks just do that trivial crap called actual work.

Re:Thanks for the compliment

[hairyfeet]

Uhhhh...how EXACTLY is this "good for open source" anyway? Isn't this just "TiVoization" on a national scale? i mean it isn't like Putin and Ahmadinjerk have suddenly embraced freedom and caring and puppies and shit, they want open source because they can just take it for free and once they've made sure they can't find any obvious back doors in it lock the holy hell out of it!

So I honestly don't see how this is in any way a "victory" for open source, anymore than bragging the Chinese death van another poster linked to uses open source for the ignition system. Because it isn't like these guys are suddenly gonna start playing by the rules and start acting all share and share alike you know. After all what is RMS gonna do, march into Putin's or Ahmadinjerk's office and DEMAND they follow the GPL?

Re:Thanks for the compliment

[tehcyder]

And what world view exactly do you think something called the Wall Street Journal would have? Collectivist-anarchist? Maoist communist? Revolutionary socialist? Religio-apocalypotic?

FUD as in FUD

[Jane Q. Public]

Open Source, by its very nature, can't be "taken over". It is open for everyone to examine, and for anyone to fix if they find problems.

I do not doubt that governments may try to control the internet and other information access. But if they try to "take over" the software, then it is no longer Open Source, by definition.

I think muddling the issues of control and Open Source together will lead to little but confusion.

Re:FUD as in FUD

[houghi]

No need to crack anything if you own the cloud.
You can easily use OSS without giving away your source. You can even contribute and give back to the OSS community and STILL you have all the info you need. You just don't give back YOUR code.

Re:FUD as in FUD

[grcumb]

Open Source, by its very nature, can't be "taken over". It is open for everyone to examine, and for anyone to fix if they find problems.

Until they outlaw compilers.... 8^)

I think muddling the issues of control and Open Source together will lead to little but confusion.

Seriously, I think this analysis is a pretty overt attempt to sully FOSS' reputation by characterising it as a tool of autocrats, yet ignoring the very characteristics that make it resistant to abuse. The unspoken comparison here is that commercial, proprietary software represents Freedom and the American Way while FOSS is the product of greasy hippies who have once again sold out democracy in pursuit of their Leftist ideals.

Yes, I'm overstating the case, but just because the author used genteel language doesn't make his point any more subtle or accurate.

There are a number of things that Morozov might have fit into the space provided that would have made a more nuanced point. Not the least of which is the ability to, uh, view the source, meaning that even if you are using State-sponsored software, at very least you can see what they're doing. The prospect of removing the nasty bits is also left untouched.

It's possible, even likely, that Russia and others actually do think that they can keep the source open for themselves and closed to others. But that's only because they too haven't thought it all the way through.

Lastly, Morozov's point about a 'walled' web is not fundamentally wrong, but he neglects to mention that there's more movement toward a 'walled garden' vision of the Net from the commercial actors than from state actors.

Re:FUD as in FUD

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There is a pretty clear definition of Open Source, and it does not mean software that your government (or anybody else) locks you into using.

The definition of open source is orthogonal to being required to use the software. If your government (or anyone else, such as your employer) says "you will use Linux," you're locked in; it has no effect on the open-source-ness of Linux itself. OSS has the advantage of being less prone to vendor lock-in than proprietary software does, but that's a separate issue.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[Kjella]

xIn Capitalist America, government works for big business.

Wait, that's still not a joke.

It already is...

[Darkness404]

Open Source is already mainstream. Android has made Linux mainstream, most browsers other than IE and Opera are mostly open source, etc.

Re:It already is...

[Sulphur]

Open Source is already mainstream. Android has made Linux mainstream

2011 the year of Linux on the cellphone.

Re:It already is...

[melikamp]

Android is open-source, but it did not make open-source software mainstream. I would say, it's almost doing as much damage as any iPhone I've seen, directly as a result of Google not giving a rat's ass about what proprietary crap vendors screw on top of it. What we are looking at here is exactly the difference between Apache license and GPLv3. I rooted a new Verizon Android for a friend the other day, and it was like pulling teeth. It was a dirty hack done, I can only assume, by a dirty hacker, bless his heart, and there is no guarantee that it will survive the next big update. If ordinary users are not trusted with full access to their devices, and have a locked (for most practical purposes) computer with proprietary top and zero documentation, talking about the licensing of some software components is moot, and "open-source" is just a feel-good word.

Answer: They will laugh their ass off.

[lalena]

Question:

FTA: How will officials in Washington react when China's Tencent (with a market capitalization of $42 billion, almost twice that of Yahoo) or Russia's Yandex makes a bid for AOL?

Peer-to-Peer?

[Khopesh]

This article is very well composed, but does not mention peer-to-peer solutions, which avoid the big-brother problem. Projects like Diaspora are working on systems that implement this kind of P2P-based web using web-of-trust. I assume that Diaspora apps will be able to facilitate various services, hopefully including things like communication.

The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corporation (Fox News), which is probably why it didn't mention things like MySpace being owned by Murdock's political powerhouse, which is clearly along a similar (if not identical) line. Free Software best combats this with the Affero General Public License, which closes the "ASP loophole" by marking an implementation of the software as the same as its distribution (thus modifications must be made public). Examples include Diaspora (social media), Gitorious (software forge), and Identi.ca (micro-blogging) among others.

"Finally?"

[fnj]

Open Source might "finally" become mainstream? It hasn't been mainstream for quite some time? What strange alternate universe is this?

Re:"Finally?"

[Korin43]

Clearly the fact that Google and Facebook are built largely on open source software is meaningless. Who's ever heard of those? No, it's when foreign governments start using open source software that people will pay attention ;)

Re:more secure?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

How does open source help fight security in the short term?

Fight security? Did you mean improve security or fight vulnerabilities? In the short term it allows them to audit and improve the code, especially if they believe (as many do) that there are backdoors built into commercial, closed source OS's and applications.

Sounds to me more like a cost savings move than a security move....

It sounds to me like both. Also, open source allows them to move development to their own country and build up a strategic reserve of programming talent versed in the software the government uses and able to make security improvements and fixes, rather than being reliant upon foreign programmers that may or may not be available and may or may not be agents of a foreign power.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[endymion.nz]

They are both jokes, but unfortunately they are also true.

Re:Stallman Would Be So Proud!

[Surt]

It's sadly true. The technology for implementing fascism is getting better every day, and the US is sadly headed very rapidly in that direction.

Open source is a good thing all around

[C3ntaur]

I'm encouraged to hear that major organizations are finally seeing the light.

To use a (yet another, sorry) car analogy: Open source is like being able to buy a service manual and replacement parts at your local auto shop, and then doing the work yourself -- or paying a mechanic of your choice to do it for you. Closed source is more like buying the car with the hood welded shut, and any attempt to modify or service it yourself not only voids the warranty, but is actually criminal in some situations and jurisdictions. Moreover, the manufacturer is under no obligation to disclose or repair defects or "undocumented features" -- such as logging your travels and selling it to the highest bidder.

Re:Open source is a good thing all around

[benjamindees]

Actually that reminds me, on the subject of autocratic regimes and welded-shut hoods.

I recently did some work on a Ford that was having acceleration issues. It turns out, the problem was simple: the air flow sensor needed cleaning. Unfortunately, the air flow sensor is held in place by two "tamper-proof" Torx(TM) screws.

Now, as every self-respecting geek should know, there is really no such thing as a tamper-proof screw. In this case, it's actually just a "really expensive to remove" screw, because the special bits are patented and only sold through "restricted" channels (Sears). And thanks to that ridiculous Supreme Court case making such things legal, there are probably lots of contractual obligations attached. At Sears, the only option was to purchase an entire set of bits for $40. So, apparently, the strategy for making these screws "tamper proof" was to prevent the poor and people unaware of Sears from removing them.

A set of knock-off bits, shipped all the way from "autocratic" China, was only $2.

BIND, Apache, Firefox..

[19061969]

Good grief! Open source becoming mainstream? Have these people not heard of BIND? Apache? Firefox? PHP? Perl? Since when have these been marginal? Anyway, the article is mostly complaining that open source software might be put to bad purposes but that can happen with any software. Quoth: "The embrace of open-source technology by governments may result in more intuitive software applications," I wonder if the writer has ever used govt mandated software. Intuitive it ain't. The writer's other point about (eg) skype failing because of different systems being used - how many non-Chinese people here have ever heard of QQ? These differences exist already.

Logic fail

[starfishsystems]

"The embrace of open-source technology by governments may result in ... domestic alternatives that would provide secret back-door access"

Oh really? And how exactly is that going to work, given that open source is by definition not secret?

(I get that in a complex code base it may be possible to insert malicious code. But this is true of any code base, hardly a defining characteristic of open source.)

Missed the big point

[Noughmad]

How will officials in Washington or Brussels react when China's Tencent (with a market capitalization of $42 billion, almost twice that of Yahoo) or Russia's Yandex makes a bid for AOL or Skype?

What will happen once Russian or Chinese firms seek to purchase a stake in companies like Google (a contractor to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency) or Amazon (which caters to nearly 20 U.S. government agencies through its Web hosting services)?

The real problem here is not software, it's money.

too bad democratic politicians aren't as nervous

[t2t10]

It's just too bad that democratic politicians aren't also nervous about wasting tax payer dollars on proprietary software, becoming dependent on the capricious whims of software companies, and become concerned about backdoors in their software.

Perhaps this difference in nervousness can be explained by the fact that democratic politicians are more susceptible to the financial and political pressures of corporations, while autocrats don't have to give a damn?

In any case, the whole article sounds like a smear campaign, trying to associate open source software with communism and "autocrats"; in fact, a number of democracies have also seen the light on open source software and also mandated its use there.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[NotQuiteReal]

Not JUST big business.

Ironically, Government works for Big Labor too!

This is about non-cloud software and systems

[Khopesh]

Clearly the fact that Google and Facebook are built largely on open source software is meaningless.

This article is mostly about desktop software rather than web services. The WSJ author doesn't look at web apps and phone apps and the fact that they're going to obsolete the entire desktop software industry. Instead, the story focuses on servers and applications in general (think of Stuxnet's impact on Iran's nuclear reactor program and Skype's supposed back-doors). The cloud is another issue altogether and (outside of the protections afforded by the AGPL) tangential, in a longer-term scope of the problem. We still need short term solutions to tide us over.

With cyber warfare looming on the horizon, governments need to be ready. I'd be surprised if another GhostNet-like system doesn't currently exist, and even more surprised if there weren't a few governments --and corporations-- developing identical projects. Microsoft and the AntiVirus++ flavor of the month can't be expected to be able to fully defend, so the answer is to diversify.

Don't use the dominant platform and you won't be hit as hard. Make sure that the platform you choose is very well supported, and not exclusively supported by a group or company that might be aligned with "the enemy." For China, Russia, Iran, and many others, that means getting the hell off of Windows and MS Office and banning things like Flash and Silverlight. For major players that aren't tightly aligned with China, Russia, or the US, I suspect OpenBSD might be preferable to Linux (yeah, the example to give is de Raat's email about OpenBSD's compromise, but I'm pretty sure things like that will target the Linux kernel in the future).

In that short term, end-users will win. In the longer term, at least within this scope, the article pretty fairly outlines the kinds of walled worlds we're headed to. ... Don't forget that companies like Facebook are independently erecting their own walls (e.g. Facebook messages already trump email with teenagers). Diaspora and other P2P systems might be one of our last chances on that front (which I noted earlier).

Re:In Soviet Russia

[mikael_j]

Wait, are shareholders not people now?

Sure they are but legally they are only entitled to one vote per person, not ten thousand times the political influence of the average voter by virtue of being a major shareholder in a corporation that "owns" a bunch of politicians.

And have we revoked the right of people to associate as they see fit, which implies the right to form corporations to pursue common business interests?

Well, you are free to hang out with anyone you want to but maybe it's time to return the corporation to its roots, when the purpose of a corporation wasn't "maximize profit for the shareholders regardless of legal or ethical implications" but rather to provide a product or service that would be beneficial to the community.

Exporting freedom is good. Covert action is bad.

[FoolishOwl]

The most astonishing thing about this atrocious article is that not only does it not question whether it's legitimate for US institutions to undermine and manipulate the political and economic institutions of the world, it actually, openly proposes that openness is a threat, because it inhibits covert action.

The point of free and open source software is freedom. That is not the point of US power blocs and their covert operations.

levels

[Tom]

First, aren't these people right in distrusting commercial US-developed software? It's not exactly as if backdoors, or US secret services influencing commercial entities, or the combination of both were an unfathomable, never-seen-before idea. On the contrary, if I were leader of a country even just friendly with someone who once knew someone who is related to someone who is currently on the US shitlist, I'd consider that a healthy dose of caution.

Two, isn't that what the concepts behind Internet technology were designed to do? Provide everyone with the same protocols, so they can have their own implementation of them? As long as my mail server is speaking SMTP, I can write it myself.

Re:Stallman Would Be So Proud!

[Darfeld]

Nazism stand for National Socialism.

Fascism seems to be mostly a far right thing, but can occasionally be on the left of the political spectrum... The original Italian fascism promoted a corporatist economy. And it's not "a modern form" of communism, as it is far from modern and has nothing to do with "communism or not". It just happened that you can have both fascism and communism at the same time. If you're confused by the distinction, please don't write bullshit.

Re:Stallman Would Be So Proud!

[Magada]

The technology for implementing fascism was available to Mussolini, many decades ago. What is your point?