Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Survey
Ken Coar (Apache
Studmonkey and author of Apache Server for Dummies) has
written in and asked us to complete
A Survey
on Open Source Involvment and Usage. He wants to use the
data to help explain this whole thing to IBM. If you've
got the time, I'm sure that the results will be very helpful
to those suits out there.
With the recent squabblings over the Open Source trademark which really DO look pretty bad to our pointy hairs, maybe they're just trying to distance themselves from the Open Source not-quite-trademark and all the bozos associated with it. I know that any license on anything I release is going to have no mention of the term.
Quick! Everybody fill a wishlist bugreport for Apache on this! Let's slashdot them till they agree!
IBM definitely needs as much education as it can get. I work for a company which gets some funding from IBM, but is also forbidden by IBM from using any GPL'd code in our product. It was explained to me that this ban also covers the LGPL, not because of any good technical reason, but because IBM doesn't feel like it needs to research the license well enough to understand it, and it's easier to just issue a blanket "THOU SHALT NOT" commandment.
The LGPL (which GNU uses to license its libraries) is what you are looking for. It is a nonviral ("noncontaminating") version of the GPL.
With regard to the issue of "accidently" basing IP on GPL'd code, there are two sides. On one hand, you have RMS, who firmly believes in his heart of hearts that proprietary software is evil, and he will use whatever dirty trick he thinks he can get away with to harm those who make or make money from proprietary software. On the other hand, *most* of the open-source community would have no problem at all with proprietary code benefitting indirectly from GPL'd code like this, and they are increasingly regarding RMS as a psycho who should be taken less and less seriously. I don't think you'll have much trouble from him.
The issue of IBM's IP "leaking" into GPL'd code is thornier. Ultimately, however, this rests in the faith IBM has in the employee's willingness to uphold the terms of their employment contract. There is no difference in terms of risk to leaking IP between working on GPL'd code on the job and working on GPL'd code anonymously at home. IBM can make it illegal for their employees to do the latter, but they cannot practically enforce it, and therefore they cannot stop it from happening *if* it is happening. If it is not happening, then there is no reason at all to not work on GPL'd code in-house; it does not increase the risk or opportunity to leak IP. If anything it permits IBM to establish a system of checks whereby all code generated in-house gets screened by other engineers for "cleanliness" (Cygnus already does something similar) before it leaves the walls of IBM and is passed on to the open-source community.
Hey, IBM seems to be/is doing some cools things these days, but I am browsing in computer lib/dream machines these days and it wasn't that long ago that they were the evil empire, not ms.
I hope their work re free software is real and lasting.
A Nony Mouse - the raggeded
I thought the survey was very interesting, but it brought up a question I have been struggling with for awhile.
I would love to participate in Open Source development, and I have watched it grow since '93, yet according to the contract at my place of work, all IP I develop while employed here is the property of the company. How I can contribute without conflict?
(Excuse me in advance if this question has been asked here too many time before)
You can run a mailing list. This involves getting
rid of dead addresses, stopping spammers, and
stopping mail loops. If you also run the server,
you do all the normal admin tasks.
You can answer questions on IRC, in the
newsgroups, or right here in the Ask Slashdot
section. (Eh, they own your answer?)
What exactly do they own, letters to your Mom?
If they only own code, you can write or translate
documentation. Maybe you could do web pages.
You can be an FTP site maintainer.
Ask the people at metalab.unc.edu if they
still need extra help.
Where do you get the idea that LGPL is "non-viral"? Have you read it?
This is valuable information and it's probably worth a lot of money. What is IBM going to do with this? Hire people? Sell personal information?
Of course you should read the waiver:
Waiver
By responding to this survey, you grant permission for your anonymised responses to be published, in whole or in part, in any manner or form, without notice or recompense, by the surveying individual or organisation. You also grant permission to the surveying individual or organisation to contact you for purposes of clarification or additional questions. If so contacted, you are under no obligation to reply or cooperate.
Posting this on Slashdot gives them something of an advantage too...
thanks. cool.
IBM is very, very big -- it employs more people than the population of some countries. Different parts of IBM have different very strong opinions (or no opinion at all) about open-source, and there is no authority within IBM with the power to pass down a mandate that everyone should or should not "like" open-source. Expecting different departments in IBM to agree about open source just because they're both in IBM is akin to expecting the Democratic and Republican parties to agree about abortion, just because they're both political parties in America.
It's not a survey about Open Source(tm) Software, at least not anymore.
From the page:
This survey originally used the term "open source", which is a registered mark of the Open Source Initiative. Since the OSI definition didn't have the same meaning we intended to convey, I've changed all occurrences of "open source" to "free-source." Here's a more complete (though not exhaustive) explanation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
> Our apologies, but our server is currently coping with a traffic peak,
> probably due to the
> in about 10 seconds. If the condition persists, please send us mail
> at the address below, including any details you think relevant.
Yep, that's the page displayed when the server is overloaded and can't cope with the submission.
Oh, and about the IBMers who work on free source? They generally don't wear suits, and they're not the ones for whom this information was originally being collected. However, the results are interesting enough that now they're for us, not a specific audience.
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
Posted by The ULTIMATE Crippler:
Oh, and about the IBMers who work on free source? They generally don't wear suits, and they're not the ones for whom this information was originally being collected.
I work in the same complex as a lot of the Apache guys and one thing that needs to be made clear. The IBM of today is not the IBM of ten years ago. It is very uncommon to see people here in suits. Even the management folks several levels above me are rarely seen with ties. Down at my level, and one or two levels of management up, it's pure casual clothing.
I personally wear denim bib overalls to IBM from time to time. T-shirts are the rule. I am not even involved in the Apache group though we do share some bundling in common.
> It looks like the authors don't know the
> meaning of "free software" as it has been
> used by the GNU project for more than a decade.
It looks like the FSF thinks everyone uses their terminology. Bzzzzzt. Of the millions of people relatively new to the 'Net and its culture (through the emergence of the Web and ISPs), I suspect that many think "free software" means "something I can download off the 'Net without having to pay." Which includes things like binary-only games, lobotomised demo packages of tools, and Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Ask the being-in-the-thoroughfare, "Is Internet Explorer free software?" If you think the answer will universally be 'no,' I think you're mistaken. And no, you can't prime it with definitions. :-)
> The "free software" part of the name of the Free> Software Foundation is about freedom and source
> code, not "free beer". The survey authors are
> actually talking about "freeware" here, not
> "free software".
The survey authors are talking about exactly what they say they are: software for which the source code is freely available. Notwithstanding what various groups may think, there is no lock on these terms, no one 'correct' definition -- regardless of the degree of militancy any particular group may have concerning their particular interpretation. Each of the terms means different things to different sets of people, so we were careful to define our usage explicitly, using a non-overloaded and uncontroversial term, to avoid confusion.
> Please -- if you are making a survey in support> of "open source" software, make sure you
> understand the terminology. Not understanding
> the terminology is often an indication that one
> does not understand the relevant concepts.
It's not a matter of not understanding the concepts or the terminology. It's a matter of recognising that the terminology is multi-valued and describes different concepts to different people. Please re-read the free-source definition page on the site, after putting yourself into the shoes of (say) a hardcore Microsoft developer, or script-kiddie, or suit, or anyone who has not lived and breathed the FSF for years.
The OSI tweaked us when we naïvely used "open source" in the survey, because they claim they own the definition. So we changed the offending text, and now someone is tweaking us because we didn't use their preferred phrase. {Sigh} Please, can we just deal with the thing itself ("software for which the source is freely available") without arguing over what to call it?
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
(Re comments by sterwill ):
Well, I'm sorry you interpreted things that way, because that's not how they were intended. Your first interpretation was what was meant.
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
Oh, BTW -- thanks for the note; I've changed the wording to be 'software for which the source is freely available and modifiable.' I hope that addresses the issue..
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
Nope. This questionnaire was inspired by some questions I was asked at/by IBM, but that's it. They (IBM) are free to do whatever they like with the published answers -- just as anyone else on the 'Net is, which is part of the message of the waiver. No-one sees the identity information (names, email addresses, age, &c.); they won't be published to anyone. Not IBM, not anyone.
The waiver is to ensure that anyone who responds has been informed that its answers will be published, can be quoted in email or other communications, and will remain anonymous.
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
This is the second note I've gotten about this problem with Squid. The reason you're getting rejected is as it states: either the request is reaching the server without a User-Agent header field, or else with one that's in our list as being used by robots that ignore robots.txt and the RES.
I've updated the page to include the actual UA supplied; if you try again, send me (in private email) what the result is and I'll take a look at it.
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
This turns out to be a Squid problem, in that this particular usage of Squid doesn't send a User-Agent field. Since that's also a characteristic of several RES-ignoring site crawlers, I block such requests. The HTTP/1.1 spec says clients SHOULD provide this field, anyway.
Hopefully Squid will be modified. I'm not going to open up my server to rude robots, particularly not right after being slashdotted. :-) Been there, done that, performance was the pits. Slashdot traffic I welcome, since it serves real people, but gate-crashing clients can show some ID or continue getting the bum's rush.
#kenP-)}
Ken Coar
Posted by The ULTIMATE Crippler:
I am a small cog in the big blue machine known as "IBM". In our internal Linux forums, the major debates about Linux seem to be legal issues regarding the GPL.
If we have developers work with GPL'd software, are they now intellectually "contaminated" and if so does that mean that they are now useless (legally) to move back to prorpietary products like AIX? I mean, what if said programmer accidentally bases some proprietary code off of what he learned from GPL'd code?
And what mechanisms can IBM put in place to ensure that intellectual property of IBM's is not compromised via GPL coding efforts?
I know many people here think that IP is bad, and personally I'm not a big fan myself, but IBM makes literally BILLIONS off of patent royalties alone and does not want to lose that significant source of income.
Most folks seem to think the problem is convincing the PHB's that they can make money off of free software. That's not the problem here. The problem here is legal issues for a company that has a lot invested in IP and how does it keep from contaminating GPL or proprietary code with code from the other?
Good thing too, since I will be there soon and it would take 1000 heavily armed men to get me to wear a suit and tie.
-Rasmus
Thanks for the tip about the "free source" definition. I had briefly scanned over the definition of this odd term and had missed the redistribution and modification restrictions statement. I have seen "free source" used to mean the same thing as "free software" before, as a sort of compromise between the vagueness of "Open Source" (What is open? If I can see it is it open? If I can change it is it open? Can I sell it?) and the double meaning of "Free Software" (beer vs. speech). This time it meant "freeware" and having no cost is hardly very special to me. Bits are inherently cost-less, as is light from the sun, but I don't enjoy them because I'm not paying for them, I enjoy them because they're useful--I can make USE of them.
I had filled out lengthy answers, accounts of real-life experiences and real software. I listed the projects to which I can remember contributing. I filled out every field as best I could, but with the misconception that "free source" meant I cared about. It didn't at all; I don't support software that can be had for no cost but doesn't allow me the right to change it. I should have read more closely.
Realizing I have never had any specific motivation to encourage others to prohibit modification and redistribution of anything, I removed all my comments. I support free software, call it "Open Source" if you wish--the useful stuff.
I wasn't clear. If I can't redistribute it, it's not worth the time to modify it. What time am I saving if everyone else has to do the same work to get the same results when the associated cost of replicating my work is zero?
No, people don't get "contaminated" from reading GPL'ed code. It is pure FUD. Ask the people who come with that ridiculous idea, whether they also want to forbid hiring people who worked at GPL'ed code as students.
You can only get "contaminated" by signing a NDA, not by reading any published code (GPL, proprietary, whatever). What you can't do is _copy_ the code into your proprietary products. That is what _copyright_ law say. Ideas and algorithms can't be copyrighted.
Although I definately dislike the idea of dressing in a suit and tie every day, sometimes it's nice to dress up in a suit... I feel all purty and stuff.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
I filled out the survey and the first time I submitted got an error. The next submission made it through, however. Keep trying, kids, or come back later. bradley dilger@nwe.ufl.edu
Looking at the answers for the "Why aren't you involved" field,
answers semantically equivalant to "I can't code (much)" were pretty common. How do we get hold of these folks
and get them doing stuff like beta testing and submitting bug reports, writing documentation, that sort of stuff? There's PLENTY of non-coding stuff that open-source needs!
Unless the developer cuts and pastes from GPL-ed code into proprietary code, I don't see why this should be a problem.
Maybe I'm wrong, but perhaps the lawyers have too much time on their hands...
...richie - It is a good day to code.
*nod*... I'm busy learning C at the moment, so I'm far from making a coding contribution, but I have some experience with testing non-free software, and I can certainly understand the general structure of a program to make detailed bug reports. when I encounter a bug in a program I'm using I'll send a bug report, but I'm not really involved in any testing at the moment. I'd like to though :-)
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
If we have developers work with GPL'd software, are they now intellectually "contaminated" and if so does that mean that they are now useless (legally) to move back to prorpietary products like AIX? I mean, what if said programmer accidentally bases some proprietary code off of what he learned from GPL'd code? Hmm... I don't know. The same thing that would happen if programmer X on the AIX team took something he wrote from work from some AIX product and incorporated it into his own fledgling product he's working on on the side at home in his off-time? Or the same thing that would happen if someone accidentally included some closed code in the GPL code tree, or any other code tree, or caused it to become available to competitors?
The questions are standard, the answers are not; read them!
The comments are about who we are, it's the neatest bunch people,
not some bunch of "social misfits" but a bunch of articulate interesting people.
For some reason this survey has striped the veneer of anonymity away.
It's very cool.
"Think of it as evolution in action."
I don't like to be a nit-picker, but I think this nit is important.
At this location ( http://Web.Sourcery.Org/eh.html) the survey authors write about their choice of the term "Free Source." Although I agree that this term may be necessary to make clear their meaning that
I am a bit surprised to see that they do not know the generally-accepted meaning of the term "free software": It looks like the authors don't know the meaning of "free software" as it has been used by the GNU project for more than a decade. The "free software" part of the name of the Free Software Foundation is about freedom and source code, not "free beer". The survey authors are actually talking about "freeware" here, not "free software".Remember when everyone got mad when Linux was called "freeware" in the press rather than "free software"? Has the (relatively young) "open source" movement gone so far that people involved with it have forgotten that the origin of this term was to mean exactly the same thing as "free software" but to be more marketable to corporate types? Has it gone so far we are forgotting that the Open Source Guidelines are actually taken almost verbatim from the Debian Free Software Guidelines?
Please -- if you are making a survey in support of "open source" software, make sure you understand the terminology. Not understanding the terminology is often an indication that one does not understand the relevant concepts.
Distancing themselves from this dispute may be a wise political move. But they should know what free software is (and isn't) just the same, and they should not add to the confusion in their attempts to avoid it.
It is a small point. I don't disagree with your post. I wish you well in your efforts (for instance, IBM "getting it" would definately make it more likely that I would want to work for them when I finish grad-school :). I agree with your use of the term "free source" in this case. But if I put myself in the shoes of a hard-core Microsoft developer (ouch -- they don't fit very well), I would get the idea that "free software" meant "freeware" (in FSFish terminology). This will make them more likely to misunderstand what free software programmers and advocates (e.g. me) are talking about if they decide to investigate further.
I don't want to tell anyone what term to use -- I think the term you use is a good one, and "free software" is obviously the wrong term to use for your purposes. However, I think it would cause less confusion if "freeware" was used instead of "free software" on your page in its current context/sense.
After all I read during the discussions and flamewars during the "birth" of the OSI, I had the impression that FSF's definition of "free software" as codified in the DFSG was pretty-well accepted by all sides of the community who understand the concepts that are involved, including those who prefer not to use it. If you don't have the same impression (I can't fully tell from your reply), then you obviously won't agree with my posts so you can ignore them and I'll shut up.
It is just this kind of confusion, especially from newbies (like those you aim to influence) who get caught in the libre/gratis trap), which lead SPI/OSI to make a new term and trademark it, and then be so anoying about defending it :).
Do you seriously think that IBM needs any explanation about this? The guys who pretty much made the computer world what it is now hardly may be unaware of any notable concept about anything related to computers and software.
But this is where a lot of folks will start to look into FreeBSD. It has the gains of Linux without the constrictions of the GPL. I personally hate that because I am afraid that a lot of companies won't give back after they take.
However, IBM has proven faithful so far with apatche.
Romans 10:9-10
Interesting point...
I was going to suggest that a ``clean room'' environment could be created but that would make changing positions within the company very difficult, if not impossible, without getting into problems. You'd need to institute something like a ``non-compete'' clause but for positions within the same company. Which, IMHO, would suck big time.
Anybody know of companies that might be doing this sort of thing now?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I find it very interesting, and it certainly applies to me personally, that the number one response by a very wide margin to Q1 (Why have you not contributed to a Free Source project?), is I don't have enough time.
The number of "does not apply" responses, indicating that individual does contribute, is way down there. Something like 1-5% from my guesstimate. I'd very much like to see some statistical analysis on this survey.
Actually it says to answer "does not apply" or similar. In any case if a respondent does answer Q2 (what projects have you been involved with) you have a handle to seperate contributors from non, even if they leave Q1 blank.
The results viewable on the website don't show blank responses, but the blanks are intact in the database. Thus meaningful statistical analysis is possible, assuming the analyst has access to the database.
I have the anonymizer function of Squid on, but I do let it pass through cookies and such, but still, this site gives me:
Access Forbidden to Rude Robots and No-Bots
We don't permit access to Web clients that are either known to be rude robots or that fail to identify themselves with User-Agent request header
fields. If you think this shouldn't apply to you or your client, feel free to send a message to our Webmaster at the site you're trying to reach.
Am I a rude Robot?
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Considering the fact that the survey specifically says not to answer Q1 if you have contributed (I think blank responses are not shown on the results page), the answers to Q1 would NOT be a good source for statistical analysis.
Our apologies, but our server is currently coping with a traffic peak, probably due to the /. effect. Please try your request again
in about 10 seconds. If the condition persists, please send us mail at the address below, including any details you think relevant.
Regardless of whether "suits" get anything out of the survey, it certainly does answer the questions: who uses free-source and why are people involved in free-source.
:-)
It's neat reading through the responses, too.
Good show!
--The more you know, the less you know.
This is odd, IBM has several people committing stuff to the Apache source tree, their work was even recently voted by the Apache Group as the basis for the next Apache (2.0?). Those IBM'ers post a lot to the Apache dev mailing list.
As for the survey... 500 Internal Server Error.
Looks like someone should read CGI for dummies, or something.
This seems a bit of a red herring. The issues with
working on GPL code and working on any third party
vendor code are identical. An IBM employee reading
Linux code, or code from a book is in the same
situation and the legal issues are clear and simple ( by intellectual 'property' law anyway).
Similarly the reverse is also true. Companies
already tend to have agreements with their
employees in their contracts about what may be
released by whom and when.
Amen.
Even among those of us who do code (for a living,
even) some people have extra experience with,
say, documentation or testing issues, which can
also be lent toward the 'free-source' project of
your choice.
Just answering posts on usenet is a big help to
the community - provided they are clear, concise,
well-researched posts. Things like, "yeah, I had
that problem too, and doing this fixed it".
Part of the Second American Revolution!
AFAIK, you can legally examine GPL'd code and create a proprietary product that is similiar. It all depends on how the phrase "based on [gpl'd code]" is interpreted as explained in the derivative works section of the GPL. If you look at how apache works and create a proprietary web server, is it a GPL violation? Hell no. It only is a violation if you use GPL'd code. Variable name changes and small algorithmic changes are AFAIK derivative works also. You can only use the basic idea and generic algorithms. How you define "basic" and "generic" is up to the judge though. Ultimately it requires faith, since a developer could independently come up with the same code as in a GPL'd counterpart. How many different ways do you really write a for() loop?
--- A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.
I think that's the first time I've ever seen a "503 -- Server Too Busy" page that specifically mentions the slashdot effect.
/. effect...."
:)
"...this server is experiencing a peak load, probably due to the
Can we get that shipped as a default 503 page in Apache? It'd make Rob a legend!
"503 -- Server slashdotted. Please contact the site administrator and advise him to take this site off the quad-Xeon and put it on something more suitable -- like a 486."
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Tell whoever has the authority at your place of work that you wish to contribute to such-and-such a project in your own time and that the results would be GPL (or whatever) and ask whether that'd be okay. If you want the extra safety, try to get permission in writing.
If the project isn't related to your work they should be okay about it, at least if they've got the sense to want to foster goodwill with their workforce.
IBM has all kinds of people -- many of the techies
are strongly pro-Linux, but many of the managers
are clueless. Unfortunately, the ones who make
the decisions are not the techies, and the Pointy
Haired Bosses want documentary evidence to cover
their a**es before they make any decisions.
I love apache... I'm running it on at least 10 systems... (some even public... some personal, some for work)
Load balances really well with the Linux Virtual server project.
-
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