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Programming GNU is Not Unix IT Technology

5th Anniversary of Open Source 189

Posted by timothy from the yesterday-now dept.
Augustus De Morgan writes "Five years ago today a brainstorming session in Palo Alto led to the adoption and promotion of the "open source" label. (You can find references to the label much earlier, however.) For some, it was a dark divergence from the free software movement; for others, the beginning of the adoption of key software principles into mainstream. Here's a growing set of resources and stories about the history of free and open source software, and a lament about the decline of altruism in the open source community."
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5th Anniversary of Open Source More

5th Anniversary of Open Source

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  • Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)

    by duncan bayne ( 544299 ) <dhgbayne@gmail.com> on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:42PM (#5225885) Homepage
    Excellent - lets hear it for less altruism! The more people who write quality Free software because they need it themselves, because they take pride in their own work, and because they want to profit from it, the better. Selfishness is the route to quality in all things, from life to Free software.
    • And once again, I'm reminded that the /. crowd consider (Troll == UnpopularOpinion).
    • The lament makes an insightful point:
      For a field accustomed to explaining human behavior through game-theoretic models of resource-distribution, the willingness of individuals to produce code for little or no monetary benefit is a glaring Achilles Heel. And so not surprisingly, some advocates of open source have gone so far as to paint the movement as a fundamentally new mode of industrial organization, a post-materialist one in which hackers code software simply for the pleasure of doing so. The empirical evidence speaks for itself, these critics assert, and in ways not at all favorable to classical economic theory.
      It is a glaring Achilles heel. With layoffs in many of the tech companies, though that still do work find themselves bringing home work, leaving no time for visions of open source.

  • Does this mean... (Score:5, Funny)

    by CommieLib ( 468883 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:43PM (#5225898) Homepage
    That we should eat a piece of paper with the recipe for a cake written on it?

  • In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:44PM (#5225902)
    Today is the 200th year anniviersery of the term 'democracy.' The idea had been around a long time before in Greece, but this was the first time when the idea had enough clout for an anniversery to be set... as such a great idea *has* to have an anniversery.....

    • Re:In other news... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, according to Merriam-Webster, the term dates back to 1576. That would make it 427 years old.

  • Coincidence (Score:5, Funny)

    by bwalling ( 195998 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:44PM (#5225905) Homepage
    Today is also the five year anniversary of the peak of the AOL stock price. Coincidence? I think not.

  • Altruism.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:45PM (#5225916)
    Altruism is really easy when the economy is flying high and we are all getting rich. Altruism is much more difficult when we are struggling to hold on to or obtain jobs, when VC money doesn't fall of trees, when customers go out of business dragging down otherwise solid companies and so on.


    Altruism is important, but ultimately people make most decisions on an economic basis. And people develop Open Source software for the recognition and geek-chic fame they get, for the opportunity to be the key player in a project when perhaps they are more of a cog in their day job (and it can be a great way to up your perceived value to saavy employers). The fact that economic decisions are behind a lot of the success of Open Source software (do you think IBM supports Linux out of altruism?) doesn't make it less of a good or diminish the positive value it provides to the community. So there.

    • Re:Altruism.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:07PM (#5226105)
      altruism , concept in philosophy and psychology that holds that the interests of others, rather than of the self, can motivate an individual. The term was invented in the 19th cent. by the French philosopher Auguste Comte, who devised it as the opposite of egoism. Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, English contemporaries of Comte, accepted the worth of altruism but argued that the true moral aim should be the welfare of society, rather than that of individuals.

      First of all, their will ALWAYS be volunteers! When the economy sucks, their will be volunteers. When the economy is good their will volunteers. Open source started before the boom. In times of a down economy isn't their more of an incentive to help each other out? I honestly don't care what IBM is doing with linux, as long as people are still helping out freely. So there.
    • Well, maybe IBM is econmically minded, but how about us/me/you, who believe in altruism and develop open-source software? Maybe the country won't have altruism going for it, but their are always still the minor masses.

    • Re:Altruism.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JimDabell ( 42870 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:23PM (#5226232) Homepage
      Altruism is important, but ultimately people make most decisions on an economic basis. And people develop Open Source software for the recognition and geek-chic fame they get, for the opportunity to be the key player in a project when perhaps they are more of a cog in their day job

      The term "Open-Source" was specifically coined to promote open development as a sound business decision. That is the difference between Free software and Open-Source software - there is no "software should be libre" ideal, only "open development can make you more money".

      • Re:Altruism.... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Fwonkas ( 11539 )
        The term "Open-Source" was specifically coined to promote open development as a sound business decision. That is the difference between Free software and Open-Source software - there is no "software should be libre" ideal, only "open development can make you more money".

        I have to agree, though when put that way it sounds more cynical than I feel about it. It always seemed a little contradictory to claim that hackers are motivated by altruism (or status or whatever), while also promoting the money-making opportunities of openly developed and distributed software.

        And in response to the altruism argument and the idea that hackers contribute to open software out of a need to "scratch an itch", as mentioned in "The Fading Altruism of Open Source Development" and elsewhere, it seems more likely to me that people contribute to projects in order to add features (or whatever) which are helpful to that individual. Sure, it might be helpful to others, but how many device drivers were written by people who wanted to get their damn ethernet card working? Granted, developers do implement requested features that may not directly benefit themselves, but chalking it all up to altruism and the need to scratch an itch seems a little unrealistic.

        Hell, didn't Linus start what would become Linux because he needed a text terminal to read usenet or something like that?

    • Re:Altruism.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Altruism is really easy when the economy is flying high and we are all getting rich.Altruism is much more difficult when we are struggling to hold on to or obtain jobs, when VC money doesn't fall of trees, when customers go out of business dragging down otherwise solid companies and so on.

      To expand to the more general case:

      Convictions mean the most when you can afford them the least.

    • Re:Altruism.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ortholattice ( 175065 )
      Well, its also possible for the opposite to happen. Several months ago I went to a Microsoft C# users group meeting. Maybe 30% of the 20 or so people were unemployed. Most were "learning C#" to put on their resume I suppose. But it seemed they were doing this by inventing silly make-work exercises they discussed at the meeting. It seemed such a waste - these were seasoned programmers - what better use of their new-found free time than to contribute libraries to the Mono project, and see their name go down in history as well as earning an excellent reference for their resume. And they'll learn C# much better than some silly exercise since the Mono stuff is for real. I suggested that at the meeting - I don't think anyone there had even heard of Mono - and I saw most of them scribbing down go-mono.org. (The MS representative made no comment.) I wonder if anything came of it.

    • Re:Altruism.... (Score:4, Funny)

      by NineNine ( 235196 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @06:48PM (#5226947)
      I'm a big fan of altruism, too. As long as people keep writing software for free, and I get to use it for free, I love (other people's) altruism.
    • I'm a Randite so I can't resist....

      If you like your philosophy lessons short and to the point, I suggest "The Virtue of Selfishness".

      If you'd rather have a plot, I'd suggest either "The Fountainhead" or "Atlas Shrugged".

      The problem with "Altruism" is determining in whose interest you should act in. Lots of people will perform feats of logical prestidigitation to demonstrate how acting in their interest or in their favorite victim's interst is the most beneficial form of altruism. I contribute to free software because it is IN MY OWN SELFISH BEST INTEREST. I have no delusions about my motivations. I get a better product at a lower price and I learn something in exchange for doing something that I enjoy.

      (So there)

    • We are a record label and have been experimenting with open media and this whole debate has influenced our music releasing model... We currently use the EFF Open Audio license to release vinyl records for dance and electronica music...

      LOCA RECORDS [locarecords.com]

  • BFD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Faggot ( 614416 ) <choads.gay@com> on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:45PM (#5225917) Homepage
    I bet something else inconsequential happened five years ago too. Maybe even three or four other totally useless events.

    Come on, who cares when the label was "officially" coined? Six years ago I was using OSS, even though it wasn't "official" yet.

    • Re:BFD (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, it certainly is interesting that an article about the term open source being coined 5 years ago (an article about nothing, then) gets on Slashdot, yet there was no mention of the 5 year annerversary of Netscape going open source [mozillazine.org] (when something really did happen).
      • Yes, but Netscape 'going open source' amounted to the same kind of openness that a fish encounters on the dock. I have come to see 'open sourcing' a formerly closed project as similar to a fisherman 'opening' a fish with a knife.

        It's almost always a dead fish.

  • Fun with numbers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Amsterdam Vallon ( 639622 ) <amsterdamvallon2003@yahoo.com> on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:48PM (#5225947) Homepage

    5 -- Number of companies in the entire world that have actually profitted off of "selling" software at no cost

    4 -- Number of companies other than Microsoft that are still buying ads on Slashdot

    3 -- Average ratio of troll to non-troll posts for the average Slashdotter

    2 -- Number of projects on SourceForge that actually compile

    1 -- Number of *BSD projects that are still alive. It's called Mac OS X.

    Don't forget *nix [starnix.org] either!

  • Id say 20 years for Open Source... not 5.

  • another milestone (Score:3, Funny)

    by trmj ( 579410 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:50PM (#5225955) Journal
    Five years ago today a brainstorming session in Palo Alto led to the adoption and promotion of the "open source" label.

    And thus began the constant complaint stream against Microsoft called "Slashdot"

  • No No No! (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by pyrrho ( 167252 )
    ... the correct term is "cracker" ...

  • Sense? (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:50PM (#5225960) Homepage Journal

    That doesn't make any sense, *BSD has been dying for far longer than 5 years!

  • Do you make your own clothes? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by airrage ( 514164 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:51PM (#5225964) Homepage Journal
    THIS ARTICLE IS SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO BE VIEWED BY ADULTS AND THEREFORE MAY BE UNSUITABLE FOR CHILDREN UNDER 17. THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: PROVOKING THOUGHTS (PT), EXPLICIT SARCASM (ES), OR CRUDE INDECENT SPELLING (S).

    Do you make your own clothes?

    In response to a recent comment of mine, a reader responded with the following: "as long as it is open source, and I have the code". And for the first time, I really understood what he was saying. I mean I had read this comment in one form or another all through slashdot for years, but had never, ever, really understood the underlying context.

    I asked myself, why this fervent clutch on free, open, uncompiled software? I mean do you make your own clothes? Obviously, no matter where you shop, it's much cheaper to make your own clothes (excluding your time, which open source doesn't take into account anyway), so who here makes their own clothes? I certainly don't. Who here built their own car? Cars are definitely closed. It would definitely be cheaper to build your own, because labor is 60% of a car, remove marketing, factory costs, overhead, you could build probably a nice car for a few thousand dollars. Has anyone constructed their own car? We, as a society, accept closed source in 99.999 percent of our lives: drugs (the legal kind), mail, electricity, phone, highways, pornography (bad example).

    But the point, my dear brother, is that we keep getting pushed back by the tide of commercialism shoved down our throats. We stand, naked, on the beach in a fierce winter rain, sleeting, and we shake an angry fist. That's the point of open source: "as long as I have the code". Damn right. So we grit our proverbial teeth, and shivering, we slowly take the heel of our foot and draw a line in the sand. We get on all fours, hunkered against the wind, like some Gollum clawing the earth, and make our way forward. Our anger keeps us warm. I'll listen to the music you choose, I'll take your word on what I should view, I'll read only your approved books, I'll pay double, I'll watch all the commercials, I'll carefully listen to all telemarketers, I'll read spam, but I will not, under any circumstances, give up the code which talks to my mouse.

    So why stand firm on open source? I don't believe it's because of some great ideal set forth in the constitution. I don't believe because it's any better, really, than closed systems. I do believe, and I hope I get it right here, is that it's because we've had enough and it's the last vine in the jungle. Because maybe, just maybe, a struggle means there is hope. And hope is a good thing. Maybe it's the hope that someday I could design my own car, or house, or remove the need for a phone, or create my own expressions of art, business, passion, and provide some modicum of balance and power, but only "as long as I have the code". Fuckn'a right.
    • or maybe it's a lot easier to compile apache from source than to make a shirt from a pattern. just a thought.
    • Yes I make my own clothes, as well as jewelry,
      and open source software.

      I have been making my own clothes, jewelry,
      and (for a while) my own furniture. I alos
      make some and have been using open source
      software for about 10 years.

      It can and had been done.

    • It would definitely be cheaper to build your own,
      Producing one car is very very very expensive. That's why cars are "mass produced" on "assembly lines" (familiar with these terms?), because then the marginal cost goes down as number of units cranked out goes up.

      But your "build your own car" analogy isn't totally lost... open source is kind of like the industrial line... more software is produced better/faster/cheaper thanks to the massive parallelisation/de-centralisation of development and the opportunities to reuse and build on the work of others.

      Er, shouting into the wind on the beach notwithstanding (nice imagery though... I think Charleton Heston should get that part).

      • It's only expensive when time is factored in. Look at the kit car industry. It's a small industry, but it's a pretty good analogy.

        With kit cars, you build the car yourself. You get a box of bits and you make it yourself. Typically you'll build a kit car for 50-75% of the cost of a production car. Kit cars are usually lightweight sports cars, so for that price you get something which performs better than any similarly-priced production car.

        It's also usually possible to buy pre-built kit cars, which cost a similar amount to production cars.

        So, the analogy. Suppose you buy a production car. It's OK, it's not got outstanding performance, but it'll do most of what you want. If something goes wrong though, the dealers will charge you a fortune to fix it for you. Many ppl do this, bcos they don't want to (or have the time to) get bogged down in the details of how it works.

        But say you build your own kit car. You understand it at a much deeper level, bcos you bolted the damn thing together yourself. Things may go wrong, but you can generally fix them yourself, or if you can't then there are a zillion kit car clubs who you can consult for answers. And by doing this, you get something which fits your needs better (if you've got long legs for instance, you can reposition the seat to suit) and which will also perform better.

        For the ultimate car-based analogy though, Neal Stephenson's "In the beginning was the command line" is recommended reading.

        Grab.
    • Who here built their own car? Cars are definitely closed. It would definitely be cheaper to build your own, because labor is 60% of a car, remove marketing, factory costs, overhead, you could build probably a nice car for a few thousand dollars. Has anyone constructed their own car?

      A couple of friends constructed their own car, however, the main reason for "Open" cars isn't the small home-build market, but the much larger self-maintenance thing. Taking an automobile to the workshop even for regular maintenance can have a traumatic effect on the wallet. The workshop tends to be time focused so they swp out subassemblies rather than attempting real repairs. If I have the time, I can do most of the work that the professionals do at a fractio of the price.

      The writers of home maintenance manuals have new cars in pieces the moment they get their hand on them. They photograph evrything explaing how to disassemble and reassemble it yourself. Every so often a manufacturer tries to withold information for the benefit of their own dealers, but more often than not, they are slapped on the wrists.

      Ok, why can't I hack around with software in the same way? If I disassemble something and publish the information for the benfit of others, I will be DMCA'ed from here to eternity. If I try to fix something myself, again I can be sued.

    • It might also be because when you have the code you can actually fix problems. I have seen showstopper bugs in open source systems fixed pretty quickly in-house by some solid debugging. When similar things happen with closed-source stuff, we always end up having to work around it, usually to the detriment of the overall system.
    • Obviously, no matter where you shop, it's much cheaper to make your own clothes (excluding your time, which open source doesn't take into account anyway), so who here makes their own clothes?

      Have you actually investigated this? When I looked into making my own clothes, I was unable to find cloth for prices that would beat buying new clothes, even at Wal-Mart. It seems to be a hobbyist market, so the prices are really high.

    • What does it cost to get the latest Linux kernel, X, and KDE?

      Less than an hour with broadband.

      What does it cost to try out a change to an application?

      A few minutes.

      What does it cost to build your own car engine?

      What does it cost to try out a change to an "open source" car engine?

      That's why.
    • hmmm. It is not cheaper to make your own clothes from scratch.
      Where do you get the material?
      The patterns?
      Do you make your own material from the lambs in your pasture or the cotton plants in your field?

      A car that costs a few thousand dollars from scratch. Ever tried to make a rubber tire? How about a fuel pump? Where is your mine to get the fe, al, etc.

      Also, you dismiss time as a non-factor? Think again.

      Open source is great, but your 2nd paragraph is just wrong.

      I am trying to decide if you are just clueless or a troll.

      • The car thing is an anology, no more. Consider the resources you need to design your own car a symbol of the resources you need to design your own computer/program. Sure, linux is open-source and in-house developed (I think), but you still need to get the computer, or the parts for said computer, somewhere. I believe that it was linux.org that explained that nothing is zero cost in a similar manner.

    • Re:Do you make your own clothes? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by micromoog ( 206608 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:26PM (#5226260)
      Or for some people, maybe it's not some big fucking political stand. Maybe we just like good software we're allowed to analyze and tweak.
      • Or for some people, maybe it's not some big fucking political stand. Maybe we just like good software we're allowed to analyze and tweak.

        Or like having good software that if you don't feel like tweaking it, or don't know how to, someone else probably will if the need is there. After all, we can't ALL modify the code to every program we own. But I am glad that others are able to.

        potential sig: My Windows machine is more secure than my Linux machine. My Windows machine is powered off 90% of the time.

      • Yah, for people like this the ideals of the Free Software movement upon which 'Open Source' was built is just something to be discarded when necessary and the virtues of community and ethics with it.

        People like this are entirely capable of Microsoft like tactics and ethics and this makes the 'Open Source' movement only a little different than Microsoft's Shared Source initiative. Make no mistake, Microsoft could have been an 'Open Source' company and exhibited all of the shitty business practices and questionable ethics it has become so famous for ... it just wouldn't have been nearly as successful in doing so.

        That is where the Free Software movement shines ... Microsoft could never have been a Free Software company by it's very definition.

      • Re:Do you make your own clothes? (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Wanting to be "allowed to analyze and tweak" it, is a pretty big fucking political stand.

    • Re:Do you make your own clothes? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:30PM (#5226292) Homepage
      A better analogy would be, do we DESIGN our own cloths, automobiles. And, as a matter of fact my mom has made lots of cloths. She used to run the sewing machines a lot. Now she knits. Man she knits up a storm. Every night I sleep under these incredibly warm afghans lovingly made while she watched TV. Most of those cloths and patterns were, however, purchased plans, kits, etc.

      Anyway, It's not at all inconceivable that a group of Ford engineers, in their spare time, make a 'dream design' automobile THAT THEY SHARE WITH ANYONE WHO WANTS A COPY. Say they work by day to earn a living, but are unhappy with the 'cost reducing' and shipping lousy products because of a n agressive marketing deadline. So they get together at Billy's Bar and Brainstorm and dream up the ultimate street rod, draw up plans most any shade tree mechanic can follow and publish it in Hot Rod, sell plans for mostly cost of reproduction. Sure, why not.

      DO I Make my own recipies? Sure, I like to experiment in the kitches. They are usually derivities of someone elses (someone better at it than me!). There's plenty of 'do it yourself' people around.

      To me it's all a matter of being independant. The thing that scares me the most is becoming dependant on some greedy a$$hole, with no alternative but to pay what they demand or die. They do want to enslave you, and freedom is a constant struggle, because there has always been greedy, domineering, petty tirants, in business and government, just like there have always been obsequious sheep ready to follow them to the slaughterhouse.

      • To me it's all a matter of being independant. The thing that scares me the most is becoming dependant on some greedy a$$hole, with no alternative but to pay what they demand or die. They do want to enslave you, and freedom is a constant struggle, because there has always been greedy, domineering, petty tirants, in business and government, just like there have always been obsequious sheep ready to follow them to the slaughterhouse.

        Why not just buy software, and use it? Why would you ever *have* to "pay what they demand"? If you like it, but it and use it. If you don't, don't. I don't see where slavery comes into play.
    • Katz? Is that you?

    • Re:Do you make your own clothes? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by markbthomas ( 123470 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:34PM (#5226319)
      Whilst I don't make my own clothes, I expect to be able to darn my socks when holes develop; I expect that changing my shirt won't cause my pants to fall down; I expect to be able to by a hat from one company and shoes from another and be able to wear them at the same time; I expect to be able to turn up my trousers if the legs are too long; I expect to be able to dye a t-shirt if I get bored with the colour; I expect to be able to give my old clothes to second hand stores without having to provide proof that I own the clothes; and I expect not to have the Federation Against Clothing Theft strip searching me on a monthly basis to check whether I own the clothes that I am wearing.

    • Re:Do you make your own clothes? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lenski ( 96498 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:39PM (#5226375)
      I am Not an economist... I AM a longtime software developer...

      Moore's law has allowed, for what may be one of the first times in history, the de-insdustrialization of a major economic product: Computer software. When I started 30+ years ago, computer access was for the dedicated geek (this I know... :-) ). A DEC PDP-8 cost 10 grand. Its 2.5 Mbyte RK05 was an additional 9 grand.

      Today, just about anyone can afford a crappy little out-of-date 400+MHz, 256Mbyte, 20+gig system, which can make a single individual developer economically productive.

      Coupled with The Internet, such people can virtually gather together to be economically more productive.

      This has caught all sorts of people by surprise, and those who are accustomed to simply "managing" or "owning" the means of production have been caught flat-footed by this sea-change in the possession of economic productivity. (I think this is why the OSS/libre software movement is critically important for the developing world, and why I wish that I had enough savings to stop working for money today in order to make a real contribution...)

      One of the points (in my opinion) that we must remember is that there are people and/or organizations what want to return to the days when the few could control the resources required for economic productivity of the many.

      FYI, I am using agricultural societies (exemplified by feudalism, as observed in places like Europe) and industrial society as basis for this thinking.

      I am not a communist, but I will refuse to ever allow someone else to take away my freedom to code, and additionally, to team up with others of like mind to satisfy our needs for information systems productivity.

    • Do you make your own clothes?

      No, but sometimes I sew my buttons back on.

    • I don't repair my own car, and I suspect that most of you don't. So why this insistence on hoods that can be opened by the customer? Why shouldn't we accept that cars are locked up, and only the company that you bought the car from has the key? After all, they know the car best, and should have the right to protect their valuable intellectual property.

    • Wow, +5 drivel!! Does this guy 0wn an account with moderator points or something?

      For god's sake, people. This message is just random phrases strung together. I can't believe you are actually composing serious replies.

      -a

    • I'm Very Happy With Open Source Clothes (Score:4, Funny)

      by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @10:06PM (#5228152) Journal

      I wear Open Source Clothes, but they have no zippers or buttons. Just frog-type fasteners because the people that make the OSC believe that's the "best" fastener.

      Of course I have access to needles, thread, a copper smelter, and various machine tools which give me the wonderful freedom to spend days fabricating a zipper for my Open Source jeans. I also make contributions to the Open Source Zipper project which has promised that they will have enough funds to purchase a zipper-matic manufacturing system in a few years.

      Nevermind the fact that we don't drive the kids to soccer practice or eat out anymore. The time we spend cutting patterns has made us a stronger family even if my youngest boy has declared "Dad you're an idiot, I hate you, and the first thing I do when I leave home is shop at the Gap".

      I wouldn't be caught dead at the Gap. Those families go there "enjoying" themselves and "saving time". If only they knew what slaves they are. I'd say more, but there's weaving to attend to, and I have to hit my daughter with the strap to make her do it because she can be so insolent at times.

    • We cling to it because we're geeks, nerds, or "software engineers" if you want to be politically correct about it. It's what we do -- and we consider it easy, and are frustrated when source isn't open. We see an obvious bug and it frustrates us, because we beleive we can fix it ourselves but must rely on another company to fix it.

      That's our niche though. You think hard-core mechanics like "closed" cars that require equipment to get simple diagnostics out of? No. They'll bitch and swear all over when they see ass-backwards engineering from auto companies. They're no different than us software geeks really. I have a family friend that's an auto mechanic that swears by GM -- because he feels they're easier to work on in the long run. It's no different to me than me saying "run Linux" to family friends; at least from my perspective.

      I disagree with him, in reality, because I drive a Volkswaggen. It "just works" for me. Sure, they all admit that it's got a good engine, but say to me, "Good luck when it breaks -- hard as hell to find the problem."

      Same with my world.. "Sure, NT's got a good kernel, but good luck when it breaks. Have fun trying to find the problem."

      My car doesn't break that often though, and if it ever does I know I'll have to pay to get it fixed, but it happens rarely in my life.

      Same with him -- sure, his computer works almost all of the time, but somebody can fix it when it does break, and for much less than my car would cost really.

      For me, I see computers act up (Windows ones) a lot, and hate to have to fix them because it seems like there's a much better alternative out there for people.

      To him, he sees non-GM cars break down and has to wrangle with them just to figure out what's wrong and fix them. It happens to him all the time, just like I see Windows break all the time. But, I rarely see a Ford or a VW break down in my life, and he rarely sees Windows break down in his life. We have different perspectives.

      So, to sum it up. That's why we software geeks hold onto our open source world -- we can control it, love it, and follow it. It's the same reason this guy owns GM car after GM car and replaces just about every single part on them himself if they break. He can fix his brand of car, and I can fix my "brand" of software.

      I'm sure there's more applications to this analogy, it's just the most apparant to me at the moment.

  • A Great Moment As Well (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <<kt.celce> <ta> <eb>> on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:52PM (#5225977) Homepage Journal
    The day that open source became something that RMS couldn't control. Where the war of Free Software is not Open Source Software. The day that Open Source strayed away from Free, when not making mention of BSD (who did open source right from the get go). Open Source means that it's a decision not a forced dictatorship of tainted code with no freedom except for everyone else.

    The Open Source movement made it acceptable to an individual who wanted to give the source openly, but didn't want to give in to the propaganda of GNU/FSF.

    Think I'm a troll, then ask yourself with such a wonderful model of GPL, why was Open Source neccessary?

    • Re:A Great Moment As Well (Score:4, Insightful)

      by crush ( 19364 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:52PM (#5226506)
      Think I'm a troll, then ask yourself with such a wonderful model of GPL, why was Open Source neccessary?

      Errmm....that'd be for the stated reason that the term Open Source was introduced: namely that there was a fear that businesses would be scared off by the usage of the word "Free"?. There was nothing wrong with the FSF model and oodles of Free Software is in use by business. Not everyone is a moron that needs to be tricked into doing the right thing. Surprisingly (for the arrogant and disdainful OSS model of "business people" as being cretins that need to be deceived) Free Software has been hugely succesful on its own terms.

      Beware tricking people into doing something, you'll attract people under false impressions and they won't be the ones you want to attract. You'll fail to give them the chance to educate themselves and they won't behave in an educated manner.

  • 5 years is great news. However, in order for opensource to become more than a gimmick for geeks like us, more companies will have to adopt it into the mainstream.
    Brendan

  • Why we write open source (Score:5, Insightful)

    by magic ( 19621 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @04:58PM (#5226031) Homepage
    The "lament" paper seems to miss a fundamental aspect of hacker culture: Engineers like to make things. There are probably some engineers who work only for the money, but I believe that most engineers work because they enjoy the process of creation.


    We work in companies because they will pay us for doing what we love, and because we can create larger projects when we work together. We work on open source for many reasons that derive from this. Here are two. First, open source projects offer fewer restrictions than corporate ones. Second, open source projects are less likely to be killed for non-technical reasons, like projects at a company. In other words, our utility function is being maximized by participation in the process of creation. The economics of whether creation is funded or unfunded are a red herring.


    -m

    • you have it 100% correct.

    • Engineers.... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by wowbagger ( 69688 )
      There are probably some engineers who work only for the money...


      No. You had it right in the previous sentence:
      Engineers like to make things.


      Somebody who paints, but cares not how what they paint looks, and only cares about the money is not an artist, even though they may call themselves an artist.

      Somebody who designs things, but cares not how their designs work, and only cares about the money is not an engineer, even though they may call themselves an engineer.

      Engineering is a calling - you either are called or you are not. If you are not called, if you are not driven to design, to create, then you are not an engineer no matter what you would label yourself.

      Just as true artists create their art even if they are not paid for it, true engineers create their art even if they are not paid for it.

      Free Software is just one expression of this. The geek who helps you wire your house for (sound|Ethernet), the guy who helps you fix your car free of charge, the guy who gives you tips on how to mitre a doorframe at Home Depot are other expressions of this.

      Ben Franklin gave away the design of his stove. George Washington Carver [nps.gov] would give you full plans for any of his inventions for the cost of a self-addressed stamped envelope. They were engineers.

  • altruism needs help (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:06PM (#5226092) Journal
    altruism - Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

    Taking the welfare of others may be a problem when one can not secure their own.

    I've heard some people suggest programming is not a real occupation ie. hobby programmers are all we need, and others have reportly suggested programmers should wait tables to make a living while continuing to code in their free time.

    I've noticed that funded open source projects do best, while unfunded projects usually don't usually become a force in their market. This goes for open-source and proprietory software equally.

    altruism and open source should not be seen as the same thing. Some projects are started because the programmer had an alruistic motives, but unless that/those developer(s) have some source of funding/resources, it becomes very difficult to spend the 3+ hours it takes sometimes to get a decent size project of the ground.

    Ask yourself can you, are you, spending that about of time serving the needs of others outside your family in anyway? Without anything in return?

  • Erm. Limited to KDE, Gnome, and Linux kernel? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:07PM (#5226107)
    That's all the high-complexity projects he feels are linux successes?

    What about NetBeans, Apache, JBoss, Mozilla, PostGres and OpenOffice to name a few? All the applications that Linux worth using.

    Yes, several of these have corporate investment, but still.
  • yeah, i kind of think that while OSS has only been actively promoted for five years, the concept has been put to use for far longer [kernel.org]. (:

  • The Decline of Altruism and the Triumph of Busines (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 6 ( 22657 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:13PM (#5226152)

    If the recent Linux World Expo in new York is any example then the revolution is over and the Stallman's of the world have long since lost.

    Reading Stallman's writings [gnu.org] I come away with a sense that the ultimate over riding goal of the free software movement wasn't to see the code, or even to be able to share it with one another. It was to create a space in the software world where community could exist. Or to paraphrase Babylon 5...

    The Gnu project was our last best hope for not being co-opted by business...

    It failed.

    Wandering the booths at expo it was astonishing to see a nearly endless series of suits all groping for the flavor of the week to sell to. The actual, "community", relegated to a small corner of the show floor off the beaten paths where they wouldn't scare financial analysts.

    .

    I work for Microsoft. I have no problem with there being proprietary software, OSes, Apps, services etc etc. What does bother me is the wholesale co-option of our public spaces into corporate agendas. Such is the fate of Linux. Go to work for Redhat, or any other "open source company", and you will find you have to sign the same non-disclosure agreements and non-compete agreements as anywhere else in the industry. You will find you must censor yourself on public forums and avoid giving away the trade secrets of the new product.

    It's not so much that I question the goal of making a buck, or even the observation that open source produces better software. What I question is the end result. Once again the best and brightest of the hacker community are locked up in the same corporate structures and goals that destroyed the AI lab community and Linux's agenda is being set in corporate boardrooms.

    I have always thought of free software as being analogous to the Boston Commons. A small refuge away from the bottom line values of the rest of America. With the change of goals that open source represents it's as if we have invited the land developers into the commons. Sure a multiplex and a Starbucks are nice. But I miss the park.

    • Re:The Decline of Altruism and the Triumph of Busi (Score:4, Insightful)

      by crush ( 19364 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:45PM (#5226436)
      Reading Stallman's writings [gnu.org] I come away with a sense that the ultimate over riding goal of the free software movement wasn't to see the code, or even to be able to share it with one another. It was to create a space in the software world where community could exist. Or to paraphrase Babylon 5...

      You should really go back and do some more reading again then. It's quite simple really:

      1. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
      2. The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
      3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
      4. The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.


      5. Your FUD about Red Hat or anyone else is meaningless because they release their software under the GPL which guarantees those freedoms. I'm not surprised that you're confused about this with all the talk of "Open Source", but don't worry, it's all really "Free Software" and there's nothing you can do about it.
      • There is a difference between 'Free Software' and the 'Free Software Movement'. The Open Source movement is just the subset of the Free Software movement devoid of the ideals and ethics of honesty and community that so many of us care about. It is entirely possible for an 'Open Source' company to behave as dishonestly and corruptly as Microsoft has done in the past. The same can not be said for a Free Software company as this implies an understanding and respect for the Free Software Movement.
    • When I first started looking around at the parallel universe of BSD, it was quite an interesting experience. In the Linux community, I was quite disgusted by the numerous commercial entities that used available code freely, but found ways to bypass the GPL when it came to their own innovation, as well as their attitude of "we distributors know better then you programmers."

      Well, BSD doesn't attempt to force companies that use its code into open-sourcing it or providing it for free. Which means that those companies who do are the type you want on your side in the first place, because they *believe*.

      By the way, to Anonymous Cowards waiting with baited breath to perform a repetitive action involving a certain Netcraft article: Try performing a repetitive action involving your genital areas instead. It's much more intellectually rewarding.

      • Re:The Decline of Altruism and the Triumph of Busi (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Do anti-GPL folks sit around thinking up these things? What a bizarre point you just made!

        Let me get this straight: The BSD license doesn't "force" companies to release their code, therefore you can spot the "believers" by the ones who release the code voluntarily? And who are these companies, by the way? Apple? Do you also have a list of BSD-using companies that DON'T release the source, so we can compare?

        The point is not to play "spot the happy fun companies", the point is to make your life and job easier and better by having lots of free software available.

        • the point is to make your life and job easier and better by having lots of free software available.


          The point I was trying to make was that the original goal of the Free Software movement wasn't, "to make your life and job easier", but was instead to endeavor to recreate a social space that was destroyed when industry co-opted the hackers of the media lab.



          The point being that by changing the goal to making your life and job easier inherently results in being co-opted by business interests and in the end produces the same effect on the hacker culture.



    • The Gnu project was our last best hope for not being co-opted by business... It failed.

      Come on, this is nothing new. I visited LinuxTag in 2000 and noticed that even then, most companies viewed GNU/Linux as just another platform for which they can sell proprietary software. There wasn't much talk about GNU, the GPL, or Free Software outside the Free Software Ghetto.

      Fortunately, all this didn't dilute the GNU or Free Software label. "Open Source" can be applied to everything which runs on a UNIX-like operating system, irrespective of license and geek factor. I'm sure we'll never see a GNU Award for Free Software Excellence given to e.g. WebSphere, unless WebSphere is actually Free Software.

      Of course, the initial momentum of the Linux and Open Source movements has mostly ended in the corporate graveyard. But I doubt that it's harder to work on Free Software for a living than it was at the beginning of 90s, so it's probably not a big deal.
  • > For some, it was a dark divergence from the free software movement;

    +1
  • "Next year we hope to show a profit!"

  • Earliest occurrence in google groups? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:21PM (#5226216)
    (You can find references to the label much earlier, however.)
    That link points to something from 1993, but there is at least this from 1990:

    http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1990Dec4.1100 45.13335@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG [google.com]

  • What should come next... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CaptCanuk ( 245649 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:31PM (#5226300) Journal
    Open Specifications and Open Documentation. There has to be an organization maintaining a list of specifications and documentation for hardware/software. Software tends to be better at this but I always hoped that product manufacturers would give out more specifications on their hardware instead of just assuming that their people can produce the best drivers. At the very least, it would allow for individuals to create new drivers for Operating Systems/Environments the company isn't providing drivers for.

    I understand that some companies want to maintain a competetive edge but how about releasing documentation on hardware from their previous rev?

    Plus a central repository for all of this information would be nice instead of looking at each company's site or going through dedicated external developer liasons.

  • After reading the first few sentances of this article, it seemed to me that I remembered reading this some time ago. This article first appeared on /. on Dec 12, 2001.

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/10/1845 22 9&mode=nested
  • Well, I see a lot of skeptics, but I'm happy to say that I think the open-source movement is still alive.

    Now, at the end of that feel-good statement, I would like to add that communism got screwed up... open-source could be next..

  • In the lament:

    "Linux, an operating system begun in 1991 in order to provide a free alternative to commercial UNIX systems, is the most prominent example. The second-most so is undoubtedly GNOME, a free graphical-user interface (GUI) for UNIX-compatible systems begun in 1996 to compete with the partly privately-owned K-Desktop Environment (KDE)."

    Is GNOME really a bigger project than KDE? I always thought it was the other way around. Technical merits and flames aside, KDE got a year's head start and a toolkit on a platter, so it would be rather pathetic if it were behind GNOME. Can anyone confirm this?
    • A lot of applications with a 'g' in their name seem to be classed as part of the GNOME project, even though they have had no communication with other GNOME projects. The same happens with a lot of alledgedly GNU software. I blame agressive Stallmanism.
    • >and a toolkit on a platter,

      and what per chance is gtk? gimp tool kit, yes, but it largly goes hand in hand with gnome.

      And are you absolutly sure kde came first? I sort of though GNOME was first.

      And yes, GNOME is bigger
      • And yes, GNOME is bigger

        In a way, yes. Gnome users have bigger egos. Gnome has bigger proprietary companies backing it. Gnome has a bigger political agenda.

        I'm not knocking the Gnome developers, I'm knocking the twisted religion that's grown up around it.
      • If I know my history correctly, KDE was started as a free and better alternative to Sun's proprietary CDE in 1995. It was based on the then non-free Qt toolkit, though I believe Qt was "more free" than the alternatives of the time (such as Motif, of which CDE was based).

        GNOME was started a year later by GNU as a counter-project to KDE, since many free-software purists were unsatisfied with KDE's dependence on a non-free toolkit. As no truly free toolkit existed at the time, the GNU project had to make their own. Thus, gtk was born, based on the work from GIMP. Gtk and GNOME then evolved into the desktop that it is today. In 2000, Trolltech released Qt as GPL, thus both KDE and GNOME are free software by today's standards.

        I'm positive KDE came first, you can check the books. I'm not quite so sure about gtk, but it was my understanding that it didn't exist until the GNOME project started. Otherwise, wouldn't KDE have choosen gtk?

  • What is it really about? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Aviancer ( 645528 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:50PM (#5226484) Homepage Journal
    This thread quickly made it's way into the "what is OSS really about?" One contributor put it nicely "Engineers like to create things". I think it goes beyond that. I mean, here are all us /.ers here, giving away our keen insight and wit -- for what? Why, of course, to be a part of a community. That's all it really is... Humans are social animals (even those of us stereotyped as "antisocial") and we end up gathering in groups of folks getting together and doing stuff we like. Cheers

  • If you are not a rock... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lodragandraoidh ( 639696 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @05:57PM (#5226547) Journal
    I was loading slackware on my 486 in 1994. When you see a good (right) thing you know it (or should if you aren't a rock).

    And a comment on the 'Lament':

    What a load of horsepucky. I build and release open source into the wild because, 1. I have something I want done that is not being done, or done well enough to satisfy my personal need, and 2. I have the hubris to think my solution may appeal to others, and so share. The writer of that article seems to think people are puppets of their desires, not knowing their true inner intentions. I also gathered that he is wearing some rose colored glasses when it comes to considering things outside of the realm of his own discourse.

    I wouldn't pretend to know the complexity of any person's motivations, much less a whole community. He shouldn't either.

  • Altruism (Score:5, Funny)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @06:08PM (#5226635) Homepage
    > ...a lament about the decline of altruism in the
    > open source community.

    Don't worry. Some of us still aren't making any money from it.
  • perhaps he should read ESR's "The magic cauldron" before he talks about how HTN and CATB dont hold up to real world economic analysis.
    • "The Magic Cauldron" was okay but HTN only made me mad. That was not who I was, that's not who I am. It could be a portrayal of ESR more than anyone else - then it would be okay - but that wasn't how it was launched.

  • The next step in Open Source: "Open Ideas" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bobwyman ( 175558 ) on Tuesday February 04, 2003 @06:42PM (#5226913) Homepage
    On this "anniversary" of Open Source, we should be thinking about what has been accomplished and what needs to be done next. For instance, while the OS community has proven the value of providing open implementations, it is now time to start protecting and defending the community's right and ability to create those implmenations in the future. The best way to do this is to start pursuing "Open Ideas" or "Open Patents."

    In recent years there has been an explosion of patents and patent applications by companies that seek to monopolize the exploitation of ideas and methods in software. With every patent granted, the scope of future OS projects is limited just a little bit more. Without going into flame wars about the patent system, I can say that there is something useful that we can do today to protect OS in the future.

    A patent can be prevented if one can prove "prior art" exists that describes the method that the filer wishes to patent and, the USPTO [uspto.gov] accepts "Internet Publications" as prior art [uspto.gov], using the "posted date" on messages as the date of priority. Thus, if people with good ideas document those ideas on the Web, from the instant that the description of a method is posted, then all future patents on that method are blocked forever unless the inventor can prove that they came up with the idea before the posting on the web. Thus, by adopting a discipline of identifying and posting ideas that others might try to patent, we can establish a collection of "Open Ideas" or "Open Patents" that block others from monopolizing the methods in the future.
    It would also be useful for those in the OS community to become active in reviewing new patent applications as they are published by the USPTO every Thursday, and use the established procedures for "third party filing of prior art" [uspto.gov] to ensure that patent examiners don't issue patents on ideas that should remain Open.

    Open Source isn't enough. We need Open Ideas to enable the Open Source of the future.

    bob wyman

    See: http://www.pubsub.org [pubsub.org] for more info.
  • Altruism is used to describe selfless acts. But most acts are not selfless, even if there is no obvious immediate reward for the person in wuestion. If a programmer writes code to gain esteem from his "hacker" peers, although not as tangible as a paycheck, that is not a selfless motive. Even something like love is selfish. People don't fall in love with people they dislike, but rather people that have qualities they like, so even love is a give and take relationship. If you're only giving and not getting something out of the relationship, most people would consider this unhealthy, although that is the definition of altruism. Even if you give money to charity, which is thought of as a sacrifice, if the act of giving makes you happy to know you've helped someone else, that happiness is a selfish goal in giving to charity, so even this act isn't entirely altruistic. The only example of an altruistic act that comes to mind is killing yourself without reflection for a stranger. Then you have time to enjoy the thought that your sacrifice helped someone, nor was the sacrifice motivated by a selfish motive to help someone you know and love. However, this example is not commonly found in the realm of OSS coding.

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