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Ask Eric S. Raymond Anything
This week's Slashdot interview subject is Eric S. Raymond. You already know who he is, and may even know that his new book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, subtitled Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, will be published by O'Reilly in October. We anticipate lots of questions for Eric. Please try to avoid the obvious ones he's answered thousands of times already, and try to ask only one question per post! We'll forward the selected 10 - 15 questions deemed most interesting by Slashdot moderators and/or editors to him Tuesday afternoon. Answers will appear Friday.
Dear ESR:
(No GIFs due to patent problems)
I'm sure everyone at Slashdot is familiar with the internal strife and conflict that can currently be found in the Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified movement, a primary cause of which is YOU and your cronies and your watered-down version of the ideals of Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified, which you laughably refer to as Mae Ling Mak Immobilized and Not Fully Clothed. You've taken what was good and pure about Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified and watered it down so it would be more tolerable and acceptable to conservative blowhards who are afraid to think outside the terms of society's established notions and conditions. This is detailed on our web page (no GIFs due to patent problems!!!) in our founder's document "Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified vs. Mae Ling Mak Immobilized and Not Fully Clothed," so I won't repeat what's already been said.
You state that by changing "Petrified" to "Immobilzied" you placate those who are afraid of the idea of petrification, and by replacing "Naked" with "Not Fully Clothed" you placate those who fear nudity. I SAY THAT THIS IS WRONG!!! The entire HEART of Mae Ling (No GIFs due to patent problems) Mak naked and petrified is MAE LING MAK.... NAKED.... AND PETRIFIED. The nudity and the petrification are the essential elements!
This bastardized philosophy you preach flies in the face of the Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified movement, which you ONCE claimed to support! (No GIFs due to patent problems) Now you've stomped on our heads on your rise to glory with your own hacked-up version of our philosphy. "Immobilized and not fully clothed" indeed! Why, that could be referring to a paralyzed Polish cowboy wearing a bikini for all we know! (No GIFs due to patent problems)
We know what's GOOD for the people, even if the people don't know what's good for themselves. What's good for the people is Mae Ling Mak, naked, and petrified. The people (No GIFs due to patent problems) NEED a naked Mae Ling Mak statue. You can't dispute this. You believe this yourself. And yet you refuse to stand up for what you believe! You say, "Well, maybe it's okay if she's not petrified, as long as she can't move," or (No GIFs due to patent problems) "Well, maybe she doesn't have to be naked, but she could at least take her shirt off or something." You BELIEVE she should be naked and petrified, but you ALLOW other lesser variations on this perfect theme into what could otherwise be a strong, world-dominating paradigm! (No GIFs due to patent problems)
You've sold out to the court of popular opinion. You're a blight on the face of the Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified movement. I hope you enjoy your Mae Ling Mak Immobilzed and Not Fully Clothed movement while it lasts, because guess what, we're going to run you (No GIFs due to patent problems) out of town!
FURTHER (No GIFs due to patent problems) NOTE: Please see THIS COMMENT in which several misconceptions of a person referencing Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified incorrectly were addressed.
Anyway, my QUESTION, is in your official response to (no GIFs due to patent problems) our founder's attack on the Mae Ling Mak Immobilized and Not Fully Clothed movement, you left SEVERAL major points unaddressed.
1. How you expect EITHER of the two Mae Ling Mak immobilization movements to compete with its competitors, the FreeMLM, OpenMLM, and NetMLM movements, with all this silly infighting that's going on.
2. The accusation that you simply watered-down Mae Ling Mak Naked and Petrified not for any real moral reason, or even to make it more acceptable to the general public, but simply to make it more acceptable to big business and help to increase profit potential? (No GIFs due to patent problems) Do I smell the rancid stench of Capitalism on your breath, ESR??
3. Ain't Mae Ling Mak really cute?
4. (No GIFs due to patent problems)
5. Just what's the big idea, anyway???
Those are all the questions.
FURTHER READING:
THOUGHTS FROM MAE LING MAK ABOUT THIS
MORE THOUGHTS FROM MAE LING MAK ABOUT THIS
A MISINFORMED SOUL GETS CORRECTED
A GOOD STATUEPHILE WEBSITE but it contains a GIF so it's bad!!!!!
ANOTHER GOOD STATUEPHILE WEBSITE but it contains GIFs so it has to DIE!!!!
I hope you'll be able to clear this up. Thank you for your time.
I suppose where we disagree is in our definitions of "compel." As you see it, the GPL compels others to make their source code free. As I see it, the GPL merely gives a choice:
1) Use the GPL'd software, and follow its restrictions.
2) Do not use the GPL'd software.
Nobody is *forcing* you to choose #1. You are free to use a similar package under another license (if one exists), to write your own, or to forgo its use altogether. Nowhere are you *forced* to distribute your software under the GPL. You agree to do so in exchange for using that person's code. If this bothers you, don't agree, and don't use the code, and you're not subject to any sorts of restrictions. Similarly, if you're unhappy about the "viral" nature of GPL'd libraries, don't call them from your programs (incidentally, glibc is LGPL, so this particular case isn't a problem).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
So, Tom, how has your "Linux with no GNU software" distribution been coming along? Have you gotten around to writing a BSD-licenced compiler yet?
Or was that big rant you had here on Slashdot a while back just idle ranting with no real substance (or code) behind it?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Recent interest shown by large commericial tech companies (IBM, SGI, Sun) seems to signal a new chapter in the history of Linux. Do you see the participation of these companies strenghtening the linux communitity? Destroying it? Or transforming it into something completely different?
(Not that I anticipate any of this happening, but...)
What if Linux "fails" in the commercial/business sector? (By failure I mean "not adopted in any significant numbers", "a flop".) What if, for whatever reason, the current pro-Linux trend is reversed, and in 5 years most current Linux users have moved on to some other, non-Free/Open OS? If the Linux movement fizzes out, would this be a blow to the Free Software/Open Source movement? Do you believe the future of these ideas are tied to the success of Linux?
Your essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" used fetchmail as an example of open source software development. Given the number of people who have examined the source code, one could argue that fetchmail is now one of the most mature applications in use anywhere.
You have discussed fetchmail's infancy. Is there anything to be learned from its "old age"?
I have a growing concern that some commercial organizations are only becoming involved in the Open Source movement because it is a common front to attack Micro$oft. Once they believe parity has been achieved do you think they will turn on the community and go back to their old tactics (IMHO several of them are just as guilty as Micro$oft in their unethical business practices)? And, if that happens do you think that OSS will have a large enough install base and IT/Enterprise presence to not only survive, but continue to thrive?
Who does your hair? :)
I ask this because most/all of the successful Open Source software (Linux, Sendmail, Apache) have been developed by individuals as a community projects, not by companies with profit as the objective. The companies have jumped on board later (Redhat, Sendmail Inc, etc) when the software has grown popular. Can it really be justified for a company that has spent millions of dollars on a software project to start giving their crown jewel away, especially as "Real Open Source" under the GPL license? Perhaps they could release the source code, just not under GPL, and retain the redistribution right themselves but I just don't see much good in doing that because then the bazaar effect would mostly be lost.
I just don't see any of the four methods, described on opensource.org ( Support Sellers, Loss Leader, Widget Frosting, Accessorizing ) as viable ways to get back the investment for already existing software products.
I'm glad to see that, after a three-year break, the Jargon File has been updated over the past few months. Is version 5.0.0 in the works? Are there any plans to release an update to the print version, The New Hacker's Dictionary, any time soon?
-Stephen
At the Open Source Forum here in Austin a couple of months ago, we briefly spoke about the impact of Open Source on the price of commercial software. We both agreed that Open Source software is driving the cost of commercial software down to something closer to its "true" value than its current benefits-based valuation in the marketplace.
At the same time, "free" (in the beer sense) does not adequately reflect the amount of effort required to develop and test software, particulary software that is thinly used (attractive to a limited user base), and hence would not likely be able to generate a sufficient base of Open Source developers. A few questions:
Is there a "Natural Value" of software to which the Open Source pressures are driving commercial software prices?
Can Open Source development efforts be adequately encouraged in vital but thinly populated user bases?
Fianlly, although Linux and other Open Source projects are improving more rapidly than their commercial counterparts, they tend to lack significantly (and not surprisingly) in areas which require an overall architecture. (An example would be the apparent lack of an Open Source *equivalent* (there are subsets) to Microsoft's Active Directory, which, regardless of one's view of Microsoft, is a pretty impressive piece of technology.) What part(s) of the Open Source community do you foresee as being able to step up to the plate and address the "big picture"?
(I'll air my own views if these questions are chosen...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
With the recent shootings at schools across America, people are calling for further bans on guns. Many people would like to see all guns made illegal. Please discuss your views on this subject.
99 little bugs in the code, 99 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again...
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
What I happen to personally desire -- to wit, a completely free operating system -- is somewhat beside the point of my question for Eric. I hoped through that question to generate a well thought-out response to the somewhat unpleasant but nonetheless important situation of the relationship of the various classes of software currently grouped under the term "Open Source". I'd like to solicit comment on the effects both benign and malignant that these shadings might hold on the development and the business communities. Is this effect changing? Do some versions of "open source" prove more efficacious than others?
Some software currently classed as open source is clearly saddled with restrictions on use. For example, anything that cannot be effectively used in a value-added, commercial licensing situation. This is not unique to code under the GPL, although it is the only one that is particularly popular. Most are related to money. Some licences say no one may make money off licensing. Others say no one but the original author/owner can. Still others are "open" only if you buy the licence, and aren't allowed to resell it.
Sometimes the software is branded as "open", but its terms in fact are actually much worse than any of these. Sometimes it's quite tricky to tell the one from the other. Bruce Perens has to his credit done what to me appears to be a commendable job in separating the wheat from the chaff in these areas.
My own personal suspicion is that the general public doesn't care, and the media doesn't understand. I don't class myself as either, for I do care, and I believe I understand. But that's not the point. I want to know whether this helps, hinders, or both, and if so, whom it so affects.
Now, regarding your personal attack on me. I don't like to any sort of restrictions on the use of code, none whatsoever. That doesn't mean I'm some anarchist who wants to enable others to pretend authorship of what isn't theirs. I simply want to return to those precupidinous days when giftware reigned, back when software was source code and the only letter of the law was "Do as thou wilt."
I do not find software such as gcc, bison, or the Linux kernel to be particularly onerous in their approaches to licensing of those particular programs. I refuse to refer to them as "products"; when programs become notionally products, something vaguely unsettling has occurred, something I admittedly cannot really quite put my finger on, however. In fact, although I've heard people preach to the contrary, I am not convinced that those programs' being GPLed has led to more aggregate harm than good. Certainly if those three programs had been released under a less restrictive licence, a different set of benefits and disadvantages would have manifested themselves. I don't know what those would be, and I don't see that it would do us much good to fantasize about them, either.
In some senses, however, those are all three special cases when it comes to software released under the GPL. The compiler does not pretend to contaminate its own output product when used on your non-infected code, and neither does bison -- both despite obvious potential for infection. Linux does not reach into other people's closed-source, dynamically loaded device drivers and blow them up to the whole world, despite at least one popular but untested interpretation of the GPL which would dispute that. Linus said it doesn't, and it's his code, so that's that. And everyone is happier that way.
My displeasure with the myriad Linux operating systems currently installable is somewhat different. I find each of them that I've tried (only a few compared with the total number, of course) rather less "coherent" than the BSD systems I'm more accustomed to. This includes not just documentation, but rigorous adherence to POSIX standards as well. There's something beautiful about make world that is sometimes hard to explain to followers of a less integrated operating system. The importance of coherence extends to many other areas, including but not limited to documentation and to administration. No version of Linux I've seen does as much here as I'd like to say, nor, in fact, as much as I'm accustomed to seeing.
My displeasure with the FSF is also well known, and quite different. I feel they twist words just like any other self-promoting marketing organization would, be it droves of sales droids or wild-eyed prophets spreading a quasi-religious cult. This is their worst sin, for it is a sin of deception. I can't stand that, and I'm not going to kiss up to them about this mendacity just because I happen to use a program or two from them.
The other of the FSF's major sins is how they immorally try to subject work they did not create to the same onerous licencing as their own work. In short, the GPL bosses people around and tells them what they can do with code that isn't GPLed. This is the sticking point that raises the hackles on so many. It's not hard to understand why. And when the FSF tries to pretend that the GPL doesn't govern use when it patently does, and when they go telling people that mere use of a library API is infective, this blending of their first sin with their second one is quite enough to make any honorable man blanche in disbelieve. I strongly believe they are wrong about a library API, since calling a library is mere use and no more a matter of code stealing than is calling a program. Even Bruce Perens concurs with this, although he does not think people should flout the situation. Perhaps not. But you must call a lie a lie, and not support it, even if its cause is for good. Lying for the sake of good is still evil.
Returning to the original point, no matter what you think of the perpetual virus wars that Richard breeds, that isn't the real point of my question. And no, I'm not going to be dragged into your trolling again after I post this message.
I very much want free software, and do not believe that the FSF provides this despite their claims to the contrary. In fact, were it left to them, we'd be stuck with a lot less non-free software than we now have. But it wasn't left to them, and we're a lot better of because of this. Somehow, "open source" captured far more notice than the FSF ever managed to. We have more giftware than before, and we have more open source than before. And we have a lot more good software that hackers can use than we used to have, and this is not in a small part attributable to the media awareness of open source that Eric and others have fostered.
In short, I wanted to know whether some open source models work better than others to promote software use and reuse by furthering advancing technology and general hacker happiness, and whether there aren't some that merely pretend to be open or free or butterscotch yet instead are really working completely contrary to those goals. I was really thinking more of the commercial forms of quasi-free open software licences as the bad guys here rather than the GNU flavor of quasi-free open software licences.
And I definitely think the religious flames and petty insults hurled between the Big Endians and the Little Endings, or if you would, between the Free Endians and the Open Endians and the GNU Endians, are causing us all phenomenally more harm than good. If you don't believe me, just watch for followups to this posting. :-)
In "Understand my job, please!" you described Bruce Perens's proposal that we have a team of Linux advocates sharing the load as "glib". Could you say more about why you feel this way - isn't it more likely that a job where the load is shared would be more attractive?
Thanks,
--
Xenu loves you!
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
You say you want to live in a world where software doesn't suck. I couldn't agree more. However, do you see closed source software on an open source OS as a step in the right direction, or just likely to be a more stable platform on which to run your potentially bug-ridden software?
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I know these are tough questions to ask.. but the good ones are always controversial.
--
Astute readers know why you've reluctantly taken a position as a Linux evangelist, open source sociologist, and prime target. Taking the opposite approach, is there anything which would convince you to step down, that your posts were no longer necessary?
This is not meant to be inflammatory
Thanks for your time!
--
QDMerge 0.21!
how to invest, a novice's guide
Linux, like all things in the computer world, will eventually become obsolete or maybe just too much work to keep "up to date". Linus (er, Dr. Torvalds) even said in his "Open Sources" essay that (paraphrasing) someone else could come along and write something better which will take Linux's place. How long do you think before someone will have an offering that will obsolete (or at least prove a competitor to) Linux and the BSD's? It certainly won't be the offering of that company in Redmond..
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Why isn't there an entry for "free software"
in the Jargon Dictionary? Was this a
politically-motivated decision?
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Which of the coders working on open source projects do you admire the most? A particular big name like Linus, or someone less well-known?
This has probably been asked before, but I can't recall seeing the answer to it anywhere. What originally led you to write The Cathedral and the Bazaar? -- what I'm interested in is if there was some event or impetus that prompted you to write it down. Obviously you'd have no way of predicting the firestorm that followed, but it's always intriguing to know about the spark that started it all.
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
A while ago, we read from you that being the Open Source advocate you are was wearing you down and influencing your life very badly. Did you cut down on advocating and did it help? In other words, did you get your life back?
Greetings,
Ivo
Intentionally or not, you are a role model for a certain type of kid/teen-ager -- the kind of kid who prefers to write code than to watch TV or play football. [Fifteen years ago, when I was in that stage, it wasn't chic to be a geek and there really weren't contemporary role models...]
Do you get contacted by young people looking for guidance / validation / advice? What's your reaction? Give us some interesting anecdotes. Also, do you have any sort of general words of advice for the young programmers of today? (go ahead, pontificate, here's an excellent opportunity)
Part of the Second American Revolution!
I don't know how to ask this question without it sounding like stirring the pot, but what about the growing chasm between free software (giftware) and GNU software (the viral kind, not the nice LGPL kind)? This is a real issue for some people in some situations. Think about the many BSD resellers and vendors who have custom packaging in highly competitive fields, like video editing? Doesn't the friction hurt everyone? Apple has turned to BSD not Linux, and the GPL is cited as one reason why. This seems to be devisive. There are no end of flamewars on /. and elsewhere, and the heat diminishes the light. What kind of reconciliation is possible? Or is "take no prisoners" just the way it has to work?
Eric, in your papers you've put forward many political, sociological and technical reasons why open source software is a good thing. (For example the gift culture is a political model, peer aclaim is a motivation for some programmers, peer review leads to less buggy software).
Every individual will be differently influenced by these different arguments, depending on their political leanings, emotional makeup, and the problems they are trying to solve. Which justification is the one which is most persuasive to you personally?
Starting an open source project from nothing but people with a common interest is difficult. It's been my experience that it is very easy to founder with a bazaar approach to architecture and design. The issues tend to get confused with religious wars about toolkits and license choice, and just a lot of differing opinions about how to best structure a program, no one of which may be *obviously* better.
Is it essential for individuals to first create a working model, incomplete and buggy it may be, before applying bazaar development? Or what would you suggest in terms of managing a bazaar approach to creating programs from a bare idea?
I know that you are on the board of directors at VA Linux, what does your job entail ? Could you describe to us what a typical work day is work you ? (If there is such a thing as a typical work day).
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
You've always been involved in hacker projects outside of just coding (eg. the Jargon File), but over the last year or so the spokesperson role seems to have grown into a fulltime job. How long is it since you last sat down to write a major piece of software? Do you expect to go back to fulltime development work anytime soon, and if so, what would you work on? How do you manage to cope with the withdrawal symptoms?
Is the friction between Gnome and KDE, BSD and GPL, Free Software and Open Source, and the other sources of flame war a bad thing or a good thing for the movement? Many people seem to feel that the competition is devisive, but isn't it the opposite? We're always preaching that competition is a good thing for the entire market, but then we complain when any of our pet projects are pitted head to head with another. The passion felt by the proponents of each philosophy seems to result in better, more quality work. Isn't this proof that competition is the Good Thing we've been saying it is all along?