Embracing Insanity 99
| Embracing Insanity: Open Source Software Development | |
| author | Russell C. Pavlicek |
| pages | 177 |
| publisher | Sams Publishing |
| rating | 7/10 |
| reviewer | Jon Katz |
| ISBN | 0-672-31989-6 |
| summary | this books explains (to non-techs, esp) why Open Source is important. |
There's a continuing avalache of technical/OS and other books and manuals, but very few that remind us why we should care about this stuff and, better yet, give us the tools, arguments and data to convince others.
"Embracing Insanity," by Russell C. Pavlicek (Linux Evangelist for Compaq's Professional Services organization, and 20-year computer industry veteran) is funny, smart and warm-hearted, something one could hardly expect from a book on the origins, meaning and history of the open source movement. Even though it's written by an OS veteran, it seems to be written mostly for the non-technical who need to come to terms with a movement that is both evolutionary and revolutionary.
Many of the people reading this will know some or all of the material in '"Embracing Insanity: Open Source Software Development."
This is a book to give your parents if they are wondering what you're doing up in your room all night, your teachers if they haven no clue as to why software has political, social and cultural implications, and perhaps as important, your boss, as he or she wonders why they need to understand open source and free software if they really want to do business in the 21st century.
It's not great literature, and doesn't purport to be. It is written with great heart, clarity and authority. "Embracing Insanity" is a history, a primer and a social biography. It explains what to do regarding OS, and what not to do, the sometimes bizarre nature and traditions of the OS culture.This is not a book that will confuse or scare off non-techies with language that isn't explained, or technical information taken for granted. Quite the contrary. It brings OS to life in a way that is completely accessible, explaining it's significance as a business and social model for many kinds of institutions, and its profoundly non-technological promise.
Pavlicek traces the growth of the OS and the free software movement, but he catches the weird (insane, perhaps) history and spirit of this particularly geek-driven phenomena. He sees OS as the liberation of the geek culture, for which he obviously has great feeling and empathy. One of his very neat ideas is that OS software development is "Essential Disruptive Technology," one of a hand of particular technologies that come out of nowhere to alter the direction of technical progress, change the rules, and catch all of the regular players off guard.
"...it is not so much that Open Source ventures onto technical ground that has never been explored before. But it does bring the rules and expectations from one area of technology (large computer systems) into another area (PC systems). And, most importantly, it does so in a way that defies the norms of the computer industry..." OS, he writes, is a new way of thinking about technology and computing, especially desktop computing.
"Embracing Insanity" is an proselytizing book (with a foreword by our own Robin "roblimo" Miller, Editor-In-Chief for the Open Source Development Network (formerly Andover.net). It's clear that Pavlickek has been trying to explain to people for years why anybody should care about OS, so he's written this book to make sure the argument continues and widens. "Embracing Insanity" is the view of a true believer about a movement that is widely misunderstood, and whose commercial and social significance is still lost on much of the non-geek world.
Pavlicek claims that OS explodes the myth of the anti-social geek. In a world where dread stereotypes of geeks pop up on the evening news nightly, nothing, he says, could be farther from the truth. Geeks are quite social, they just have a different set of priorities. The OS community, he says, uses a number of ways to sociall connect with each other, from basic Net tools like email and IRC, mailing lists and weblogs to the rapidly-proliferating OS news and discussion sites (like Linux Today). In the Linux community, bands of people come together all the time to talk about OS software and, in some cases, the free software movement.
Pavlicek covers some well-known OS history, but he also breaks some original ground, including when he talks about the moral values of OS beyond technology and software. One of the key values of OS and its community, he argues, is truth. "In a world where people are constantly exchanging ideas, evaluating concepts, and suggesting enhancements, it is vitally important that everyone speak the truth as he sees it. If someone fails to speak the truth, the process of creating software will be greatly impaired." The impact of anything less in the OS environment is devastating to the process of creating software. "If someone in charge of a piece of code willingly lies about how the code functions to other developers seeking to use that code, that person has caused great harm. Someone who lies to a development team could cost that team hundreds of even thousands of wasted hours of development. In that case, the liar has caused numerous individuals to waste precious hours of time chasing down a dead-end road."
There aren't too many media, social or political movements so dependent on truth or vulnerable to posturing, inaccuracies, hype and blatant falsehoods. Pavlicek explains why out this sometimes ill-tempered meticulousness is deeply rooted in geek culture, where mistakes have consequences, and where patience for fools and dissemblers is short. That could hardly be said of politics or media.
"Embracing Insanity" is an argument for OS, but Pavlicek bluntly spells out the business realities -- pro and con -- that underlie open source development. Is it good or bad for the bottom line, good or bad for the consumer, practical or not for everybody else? In addition to writing a primer of OS terms and names, he also dispels some myth and confusion. Lots of people don't know that Open Source isn't freeware, or that OS software isn't the same thing as public-domain software.
There aren't a lot of books coming out of the Open Source movement that you can hand to anyone with an interest in the future of technology -- that would cover a lot of people -- that so confidently captures the spirit, history and potential of one of the most interesting social and technological ideas in the world. OS may have started as a programming movement, but it has mushroomed well beyond that. Pavlicek grasps this big idea, even as many of his more technically-minded colleagues still resist it.
Geeks have had a hard time explaining the significance of OS to the world beyond. Now they don't have to. "Embracing Insanity" delivers on its promise to explain why society should care about this communal movement that seemed to come out of nowhere in response to the looming Microsoftization of the planet. It's almost a cliche in publishing to say a book is long overdue, but that's the perfect description here.
"Embracing Insanity" is the right gift for the people who have no idea what you're doing with your life, but may, for lots of important reasons, need or want to know.
Purchase this book at ThinkGeek.
what is freebds? (Score:2)
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
Story Icon (Score:2)
Re:Story Icon (Score:1)
Sounds good (Score:1)
Open source won't survive the next decade (Score:1)
Whilst it has been a refreshing blip in the current socioeconomic structures to see a movement devoted to freedom (however small its domain) I really can't see that this movement is going to go anywhere or that it will even survive the next decade.
Let's face it, at the end of the day people need to get paid for what they do, and when the current "gold rush" has died down and programmers stop earning the rediculous sums of money they do for their monkey work, they won't have the time or the enthusiasm for "contributing to the community" or whatever BS line Stallmann and Raymond are spouting that week.
Mark my words, open source is not the future.
It's in the icon's contract. (Score:2)
D'you know there's an Internet Explorer icon as well? Makes a change from all the Borg ones.
D.
Helping the imprisoned developers . . . (Score:1)
a little concerned (Score:1)
It is good to try and explain physics and open source to a lamen, but care needs to be taken in how it is done.
Re:Open source won't survive the next decade (Score:1)
It's a matter of how you do it.
I have debian but I'll be damned if I'll just download any old file that comes along. If someone's got a prepackaged w/ manual box at Best Buy's I'm getting that.
At the end of the day I want payment, maybe if it's not just a hack. But I'd rather be getting work done during the day than futzing with the downloads.
Re:Story Icon (Score:1)
enlighten (n-ltn) v. tr. enlightened, enlightening, enlightens. To give spiritual or intellectual insight to: "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day" (Thomas Jefferson). To give information to; inform or instruct.
I dunno, works for me.
Re:Open source won't survive the next decade (Score:2)
>they won't have the time or the enthusiasm for "contributing to the community"
I work as a programmer for a closed source company. I often lack enthusiasm at work because everything we do seems to be driven by making profit and getting code out the door as fast as we can.
In the evenings, I go home and write more code. This time, it is done on my own terms and the focus is on the code working well, and it's much more enjoyable and I am much more motivated and enthusiastic.
Explain how that fits your "gold rush" ideas, and come to think of it, explain why you describe ppls attitude to open source as a "gold rush" if you think it doesn't make money. That doesn't sound much like a gold rush to me.
non-geek world (Score:3)
Gee, if he went for a target audience even a little more specific than that, he wouldn't sell enough copies to justify writing the book.
--
FreeBDS? JonKatz took a little too much LDS. (Score:1)
Acronym watch (Score:2)
PC - Personal Computer, Professional Consultant, Politically Correct, or Programmable Controller (which has since become PLC or Programmable Logic Controller)
then
ATM - Automatic Teller Machine, Adobe Type Manager, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode,
Now we've got:
OS - Operating System, Open Source. I thought it was 'OSS' Open Source Software, which should have little interferance from Office of Strategic Services or Oracle Support Service. Otherwise Linux is an OSOS, and NT is just SoSo.
OS Freeware Freeware OS (Score:1)
What really blows me away is the number of people who deem anything which runs or interacts with an OS product (read OS or any other item) must itself be OS. These same people are then so ignorant to blame companies for not developing more stuff for their pet OS software.
Maybe if its spelled out by someone trusted it may open some of the closed eyes. Open Source advocates are not necessarily open minded.
A book for my parents to read? (Score:2)
If this book manages to demonstrate why software and ideas are different from real-life things (scarcity) and should therefore be free, I'm going to buy it.
Re:Story Icon (Score:2)
Go into your preferences and click in the box labelled:
"Supress pseudo-random inappropriate appearance of enlightenment icon?"
And it will stop. If I had a penny for every time someone asks me about the random enlightenment icon....
;-P
Um, excuse me. That potato needs an "e". (Score:2)
Maybe like FreeS&M (Score:2)
No... (Score:5)
Are you kidding? I was doing what any normal, healthy, pubescent boy was doing... and praying like hell that my mother didn't walk in, and that Vivian Hsu [netidols.com] would!!
Re:Acronym watch (Score:1)
Re:Please read what I wrote (Score:1)
when do you see that as being? (not that I neccesarily think that it won't, I'm just interested)
> , the inflated wages being paid out will drop to a reasonable rate.
Of course, but what exactly has that got to do with whether they are programming open or closed source software? It's true in either case isn't it?
Awww... It's turned back into a Penguin. (Score:1)
What was learned here exactly? (Score:2)
The only thing that comes close, it seems to me, is "One of the key values of OS and its community, he argues, is truth." Uh, yeah. Truth is irrelevant in closed development. Or investment banking or lifeguarding. Who cares if the engineers building that bridge are honest and forthright with each other?
As for the rest of it, proving that "geeks" aren't all homicidal sociopaths and borrowing "disruptive technology" from another author don't wildly impress me.
BTW, while doing a Google search to find where "disruptive technology" was cribbed from, I found this definition [fourthwavegroup.com]:
A disruptive technology is a technology or innovation "that results in worse product performance, at least in the near-term...[It] brings to the market a very different value proposition than had been available previously...Products that are based on disruptive technologies are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use. [But, they generally] underperform established products in mainstream markets." (Christensen, 1997, p.xv)
but where's the accountability? (Score:3)
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
Re:Acronym watch (Score:2)
(OT)Slashdot is News for Nerds not Linux News (Score:2)
Your Linux news sites on OSDN are Linux.com [linux.com] and NewsForge [newsforge.com]. Slashdot is just News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
And yes, both BSD and LSD came out of Berkeley.
You are wrong on eighty counts - here are five (Score:5)
Here are just a few reasons why OSS will thrive, even if the supposed end of the gold rush comes (out of curiosity, what do you think will make that happen within ten years?):
1) People have generally the same amount of free time regardless of how much they make. When I was making 40k per year years ago, I had the same amount of free time as I do now - in fact I have slightly less because I fee some obligation to produce a lot for how much I get paid. The only difference is how many things you can buy and how you can spend your free time... indeed, if I was making a lot less I would probably travel less, leaving more time to work on OS projects.
2) There's a lot of interest in OS at the college level. These people already are not making any money, they just do it for fun. Why would that change?
3) If there was a crash, there would be a lot of people who had saved up enough to retire - a number of them might go on to work on OS projects in thier spare time.
4) If you look really far ahead at when current programmers finally retire at about 80 or 90 years old, why wouldn't they take up OSS projects as a side hobby? If you look ahead at what happens at people in OSS now grow older, with new people behind them, is it not really likley that the OSS movement will grow tremendously in the next few hundred years?
5) Trolls are always wrong about future events, being short sighted and ignorant.
While you do have something of a point (Score:2)
Besides, many open source developers DO get paid for what they do.
Re:Open source won't survive the next decade (Score:1)
I've been using Linux for five years and have constantly been told that I am wasting my time. Even now, running a business on it I keep hearing that I should just scrap it and go with
Having said all of that, I realize that I have just been trolled. And yes, I will have a nice day
Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
I am a moron and i love it! (Score:1)
There are a zillion little things that normal people care about that i neglect, i forget stuff, i say confusing things, and while girls get annoyed when other guys wonder what they look like naked, I annoy them by wondering if 3Dfx will ever return to beat nVidia.
So Im different.
Sometimes people tell me to get a life. but why would i do a thing like that? Why should I like zillions of others worry about a stain on my shirt. or about looking good, or being good at sports, or be the "hip guy" at my office or in my school?. Im not hip, im not good at sports, and I don't care about the stains.
In order to become the person I want to be I need to spend A lot of time on it, and maybe just maybe I will one day do some thing great. not because im smarter, just because i didnt spend my time trying to be an ordinary person.
E
Re:Open source won't survive the next decade (Score:1)
Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:5)
Not public domain in the sense of "expired copyright", but public domain in the sense that copyright is supposed to place examples of the art into the public for study and learning. Copyright is supposed to promote disclosure. Publication of object code is not disclosure. It is non-disclosure. Software copyright is a failure in that it grants a monopoly on object code without the required disclosure of the corresponding source code.
Over 99% of the people who purchase a novel will do nothing more with it then use it for entertainment purposes. However, the remaining tiny percent of the purchasers are the next generation's authors. They will read the novel, and from it, learn the art of writing new novels.
Software doesn't work that way. No amount of study of Windows 98 will teach you how to write an operating system. That's because Windows 98 doesn't come with source code. You can use it, but you aren't allowed to understand it. This is no accident. It is the express desire of Microsoft that, in spite of their receiving the benefits of a copyright monopoly, that no one be allowed to read (the technical term for reading object code is "reverse engineering") their copyrighted work. Says so right in their license. Says so, with very few exceptions, in every single license of every single piece of proprietary software on the market.
Imagine if a young student expressed interest in becoming an author, and was told: Ok, but you will have to learn how to write from scratch. There are no examples for you to learn from. You cannot read pre-existing novels. You will have to learn plot development, character development, plot twists, all from scratch -- from textbooks. You must make absolutely sure that you never, ever read someone else's novel, because that would "contaminate" you, and you could never legally write a novel, because you could be sued by the people whose novels you had read.
I don't think that the result would be a "progress" in the art of writing novels. Why should we think that by making every potential software developer "start from scratch" leads to better software?
Now substitute "software" for "novels", and "reverse engineer" for "read", and you will get a statement that most legal departments of software companies would quickly agree with.
No wonder Free software and Open Source software are considered akin to a revolution. For the first time in the history of software the doors are thrown open. People are finally allowed, and encouraged to understand software instead of just use it. The fact that over 99% of the people who use Free and Open Source software will never modify it is irrelevant. What is important is that the tiny fraction of young people who are curious and want to learn how software works so that they can write their own, finally have the opportunity to examine and play with full fledged, working, professional quality software. And in the case of Free software, they have the right to reuse and redistribute their own work -- the modified code.
Free and Open Source software are revolutionary because they transcend the political limits of copyright law, and create what copyright law should have created, but failed to. A way "To promote the progress of science and useful arts."
I.P. (Score:1)
This post was made on company time.
Re:Open source won't survive the next decade (Score:1)
Are you one of those people that feel that Linux is Red Hat (or Red Hat is Linux)? I'm picking that up from the 7.2 reference (if you were going from Mandrake it's already out).
It will be a long, long, long time before we see a 7.2 version on the kernel. But, since you were also hitting on the old trollish "Linux is communist" line, I'm could assume that exactly what you meant.
BTW, are you one of those idiots that hangs out in COLA (comp.os.linux.advocacy) with about four hundred different personalities? You seem an awful lot like a guy/girl/thing that goes under the name steve/claire/amy/heather/./ and about a million others.
Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
Re:but where's the accountability? (Score:1)
So what you are saying is that all
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:1)
The only argument against this post, is that we live in a capitalist world where business methods, source code, contact, etc. are all valuble and are to be kept secret.
The failure of open source (if it ever happens, and I really hope it does not), will come about because there is no real value to MAKE in embrasing it. Face it, everybody wants to make "value" in the form of money, which is a sad fact of humanity as we know it today.
Re:Acronym watch (Score:1)
And while on the subject, the letter "X" is getting really confusing, too. There was X Windows for UNIX (I'm relatively sure that the X was just a cool letter.) Then Apple came out with OS X, the X being for ten. But OS X was also based on a lot of UNIX code, so I for a while thought that it ran X Windows. And then Microsoft realized that it was missing out on the fad and created the "X Box". ;-)
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
Enjoy the Irony (Score:3)
"Russell Pavlicek, Linux and Open Source evangelist, has written an impassioned little book that purports to explain to the non-geek world in particular why they should care about the Open Source movement and the success of OS systems like Linux and FreeBSD. "
From ThinkGeek store:
List Price: $29.99
Save: $6.49 (21%)
Our Price: $23.50 (On Backorder)
I enjoy the irony that a book explaining and extolling the virtues of Open Source and free software must be purchased.
So, is there an open source version of this book, available for free download?
Perhaps there's an online version where people can edit and contribute new chapters, for the greater good -- many eyes creates better writing, no?
:)
-----
D. Fischer
List Price (Score:3)
Re:I.P. (Score:2)
LetterJ
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:1)
I don't know if I fully agree with that. Didn't the KDE and Gnome projects learn how to design a desktop environment from Windows (among other sources)? Just like the GIMP developers learned how to write an image editor from Photoshop, Eazel and the Konqueror team learned about file browsers from IE...
Re:Enjoy the Irony (Score:1)
You seem to be confusing "open source" with "free". Open source does not necessarily mean free. Please review the difference between free and open source [fsf.org].
--
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:2)
This is NOT "...the first time in the history of software the doors are thrown open. People are finally allowed, and encouraged to understand software instead of just use it..." People (especially young people) tend to forget that computing did not start in 1981 with the IBM PC.
Before that, I came from the world of minicomputers, specifically the IBM S/34/36/38 line that eventually became the AS/400. Almost all major products (such as an MRP system) came with the source code, and once you had that you modified it and shared it with other users of the software. Even IBM's software went this way and did so with their (at least tacit) blessing. Vendor's user groups were in part designed to make code sharing easier (I know, I helped to form a couple of them, and the vendors strongly supported us.) I'll bet somewhere in the USA there is still someone using one of my tweaks to IPICS or the original MAPICS packages. Now I'm stuck with a closed-source ERP package running on an NT network and it's pure shit that I can't fix because I don't have the source. (Actually, I'm not sure I want the source. What on God's Earth convinced them that Visual Foxpro was a suitable programming language for something like this? And what was I on when I agreed to buy the damn thing?)
Actually, in the world of application software at least, I belive that one could make a decent argument that the disease of closed source began with the IBM PC in 1981, and the world is just now beginning to come to its senses, not the other way around.
mjs
Re:Enjoy the Irony (Score:2)
"The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
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. "
Aren't these two freedoms implied by Open Source, and aren't they denied by the by-purchase only distribution of a copyrighted book?
-----
D. Fischer
LOL (Score:1)
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
Re:Acronym watch (Score:1)
PCMCIA = "PC Memory Card International Association"
Also, I believe XWindows grew from an earlier project named "W", but don't quote me on that or anything.
Obviously! (Score:1)
-------
CAIMLAS
Re:Open source won't survive the next decade (Score:1)
Some people say not to feed the trolls. I say, feed 'em till their good and fat. I hear they taste really good if you feed them lots of candy.;-)
People like you used to make me sick (back in my younger and more idealistic phase). Now, it just makes me want to laugh. That people with so little brain power can still muster up the commands in their mind to "breath in, breath out" is amazing in and of itself. Have fun playing with yourself Bob. I'm sure that it's quite enjoyable for you. And obviously, it's all your capable of.
Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
Re:I.P. (Score:1)
But it turned out that I was an exception, as I had been with the company longer, and the older contract I had signed only gave the company rights to "ideas and inventions", and software is neither - it is an "expression" of an idea. So as long as I had put my programs on the company BBS before they came up with a solid contract that you now had to sign before posting, and I had not gone back and signed off retroactively, those programs were still mine.
Of course, there was still a Catch-22. Since the company was in the software business, if I tried to sell my programs (even as shareware) I was competing with the company! Hence it was a conflict of interest, and possible grounds for dismissal. I could give the programs away for free, or I could hang on until I left the company and then sell them. Four or five years later I took an early retirement/buyout, and guess what? Those programs were totally obsolete! I'll give you a great price on a program that lets you mount a 720K 3.5in floppy on your PC-XT. Or one that lets you control the color palette on your EGA display.
I guess the moral is, check out stuff like this before you start work, and if it's that important to you, take a different job.
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:3)
However, IBM stabbed its users in the back when it went Object Code Only on VM. Even though they eventually reversed themselves, and started re-releasing the source code (or at least the output of the PL/X compilation), a lot of damage had been done. There was a turning point when a lot of people realized that having source code available at the whim of a corporation was simply not acceptable. I promote Linux at my workplace because I don't ever want that to happen again. We lost a lot. We had to withdraw popular features from our system because we simply couldn't support them anymore without access to the source code. The axe fell earlier this year, and just a few months ago, a salvage team came in, cut up our three-processor 3090 and had it hauled away for scrap. It's a shame, because VM has some great features that never made it to unix -- CMS pipelines for one.
The difference here is that groups like SHARE were only for IBM customers. You had physical access to the source code, and IBM's implied consent to share your modifications with other IBM customers, but it was all under the control of IBM. The breakthrough of the GPL was in creating a structure where the source code cannot be "recalled" if the "strategic direction" of the company that licensed the source code changes along with the management.
So yes, there have always been small user communities clustered around licensed source code, but this is different because the community is the general public, and the license to use, modify, and redistribute the software is permanent.
Re:Enjoy the Irony (Score:2)
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:1)
Re:Whoa FreeBDS??!!? (Score:2)
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:2)
Re:but where's the accountability? (Score:1)
Re:Story Icon (Score:1)
Re:Acronym watch (Score:1)
A quote from RMS (Score:2)
Perhaps the Icons, but what about... (Score:4)
But what about learning how to design a a great colour correction algorithm? What about learning how Photoshop works efficently with files much bigger than availiable memory? In the case of IE, wouldn't it be nice to be able to see and learn from its rendering engine? Mozilla couldn't and had to build one from scratch.
Algorithmic and structural aspects to a program are one of the most important things to learn from, and knowing what other people have done can lead to someone else coming up with even better ideas in future products, or even in exisiting ones.
Re:Acronym watch (Score:1)
Leave the Free Software snobs to themselves and join the Open Source revolution. It may not be "pure" but it's a happy world of acceptance.
Re:A quote from RMS (Score:2)
That's a good summary of what I had in mind.
I don't mean to harshly criticize the author nor the open source (or FSF) group. But I do find it amusing that a book promoting open source is most likely not "open source" itself.
I think the key issue, as someone else pointed out, is that the original author should have the discretion over the circumstances under which his/her work is copied and distributed.
Still, if someone promoted the idea of taking friends out to dinner, but never actually treated his friends to dinner, you'd have to wonder if they they truly believed what they espoused.
If code is language, as some Open Source advocates claim, then the methods by which software is created and distributed ought to be applicable in some cases to the creation of written works. But if a prominent OS "evangelical tract" does not follow the practice it promotes, I think non-Open Source people may well cry "foul"; I think that would be a reasonable assertion too.
Just something to think about. (And sorry about all the butchered metaphors) (And I like free software, and have contributed some minor free for PHP stuff. So I think that a pseudo-OS approach to writing texts is viable in some cases.) [faqts.com]
-----
D. Fischer
Re:PCMCIA (Score:1)
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:1)
I am starting to think that RMS wasn't all that far off [gnu.org]
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:1)
Going back to the analogy to art, artists don't need to fully document all their brushstroke techniques, and authors don't explicitly catalog every device to be eligible for a copyright. That level of documentation is required for patents, though. Maybe software patents are the answer?
I'm just being a devil's advocate here. The initial post is one of the more interesting ideas I've seen on Slashdot (certainly when compared to more jabber about "geeks" and pronouncements that truth is uniquely important in free software development). I'm just trying to poke at some soft spots to encourage debate and fine-tuning.
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:3)
And that's another reason why software has become so unreliable: when every user had access to MAPICS or RMS source, we often fixed the bugs and sent the fixes back to the vendors for inclusion into the next release. Can't do that anymore, either: now all you can do is try to get someone's attention off the next marketing-mandated feature long enough to at least acknowledge that a bug exists. It's very frustrating for those of us used to providing software which actually works as expected.
Please understand that I'm not arguing against open source: I think the model is right even if I'm not entirely sure how masses of developers are going to be able to support themselves if everything went open. I was just pointing out that the concept isn't brand spanking shiny new; we have prior experience with at least one form of it before and it had some pretty compelling advantages even in ancient times.
mjs
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:3)
Ah, yes, but are you forgetting that Apple took people to court over issues of "look and feel?" The overt "expression" of a program is now copyrightable (or at least litigatable). The Free Software Foundation was formed partly in response to Apple's inexcusable lawsuits.
Atari (back was it was owned by -- surprise, surprise -- Warner Communications) was a "pioneer" in this thinking; that the overt expression of software could be proprietary. Atari had purchased from Namco the home gaming rights to PacMan; rights which, prior to that point, never existed ("Hi, we're going to invent a new form of property out of thin air and then sue you for 'stealing' it"). Atari then went after boatloads of PacMan clones (nearly all of which were running on platforms Atari refused to support), the best known being the Apple-][ clone by HAL Labs.
Sierra OnLine did score a court victory when Atari lost its suit against them over JawBreaker, but Sierra later caved in to their demands when Atari threatened to clone Sierra's entire product line (an empty threat, IMHO; Atari's software offerings back then were mediocre, at best, with very rare, if conspicuous, exceptions).
So, I regret to say that, as the rulebook is currently written, the KDE and GIMP guys do in fact have something to fear. Yes, the public outcry would be massive if Micros~1 or Adobe tried to quash these projects but, given attention spans these days, the impact to their revenues -- the only thing that really matters to them -- would be negligible.
Schwab
(In a bitter mood.)
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:4)
Good post, BTW.
The fact that over 99% of the people who use Free and Open Source software will never modify it is irrelevant. What is important is that the tiny fraction of young people who are curious and want to learn how software works so that they can write their own, finally have the opportunity to examine and play with full fledged, working, professional quality software. And in the case of Free software, they have the right to reuse and redistribute their own work -- the modified code.
I think it's important to emphasize that nobody knows ahead of time who that 1% will be. Sometimes the best code can come from the strangest little corners; from unexpected people.
When code is Open Source, we (as a society) get the greatest chance that somebody out there will get some insight from existing code, and come up with something else brilliant. Those flashes can potentially advance the state of the art.
Peer != preview. (Score:1)
Re:Acronym watch (Score:1)
Re:Acronym watch (Score:2)
Re:Acronym watch (Score:2)
Re:Acronym watch (Score:2)
Great in principle, unimpressive in practice (Score:5)
"If anyone had told me back then that getting back to embarrassingly primitive UNIX would be the great hope and investment obsession of the year 2000, merely because it's name was changed to Linux and its source code was opened up again, I never would have had the stomach or the heart to continue in computer science."
-- Jaron Lanier
Linus created Linux because he couldn't find a decent UNIX that he could get for his PC. It's not that he thought UNIX should be the future, or that UNIX is the ultimate operating system. Realize this. Somehow we've gotten ourselves all wrapped up in UNIX again, thinking that we're oh so cool, but we shouldn't have to be subjected to this nonsense. I think many technical gurus are similarly horrified that we've started a revolution that's given us exactly what we were trying to get away from (Jamie Zawinski and Rob Pike, for example). Stability, pre-emptive multitasking, memory protection, yes, they are all good things. But this doesn't equate to "Linux over Windows."
The bottom line is that it's a shame Linux and FreeBSD are the crown jewels of Open Source. Sigh.
There is a definite need..... (Score:3)
You don't need to tell me about the value of OS, but I am a small fish in a small sea...
Re:Please read what I wrote (Score:1)
When will this happen? I can't see this happening all that soon. The need for programmers is only going to go up, and yet (in this country, at least), the desire towards such a career is nowhere close to matching that.
Re:Awww... It's turned back into a Penguin. (Score:1)
First one reaches enlightenment, then one starts to use the penguin.
Correction (Score:1)
So, therefore, saying that BSD came out of Berkeley is like saying that Redhat "developed" Linux. Both might be instrumental in spreading the word about the respective product, but neither developed it.
Re:Um, excuse me. That potato needs an "e". (Score:1)
open source is the answer to everything
open source slashdot's admin passwords and let the users fix the problems
Re:There is a definite need..... (Score:1)
Re:A book for my parents to read? (Score:1)
I think Fatbrain has a short excerpt online. Otherwise, perhaps you should suggest that your local library obtain a copy and then check it out when it comes in.
The book is meant to be an explanation for the uninitiated and a tool in the hands of those who seek to promote understanding of Open Source.
Re:Will this book help me? (Score:1)
If it does help, it might qualify as the strangest side-effect of anything I've ever done in my life! I doubt it will work, but go ahead and knock yourself out trying! 8^}
Re:Great in principle, unimpressive in practice (Score:4)
So what would you suggest instead of Linux or FreeBSD?
Not so long ago, I would have suggested an updated version of the Amiga OS. I still think simplicity and modularity are the way to go, something Amiga had in spades, and Linux still lacks. However, even saying the word "Amiga" gets people groaning or giggling.
There's a lot to reocommend BeOS. It's quite modern and innovative, but I don't see the breadth of Open Source projects for it as I do for Linux.
I think the reason Linux "won" the Open Source mindshare wars is because, though it's kinda ugly when compared to Windoze^H^Hws, UNIX is powerful . Out of the box, UNIX lets you:
In short, UNIX lets you get started on whatever you want to do faster than anything else. It's a rapid prototyping environment at all levels. This is why I think it's such a success, since it rewards experimentation so quickly and consistently.
So, if you want something other than UNIX to "win" mindshare, it must enable rewarding hacking right away, so that people will want to hack on it more.
IMHO, of course...
Schwab
Re:What was learned here exactly? (Score:2)
The role of truth in the community is far more central than in the common culture. Note the context: we are talking about a culture, not merely a pursuit as you describe in your reply. The centrality of truth in the culture makes for a different priority in values and inevitable misunderstandings between Geek culture and common culture. I work through this point at length. Try getting the book at your local library and read it for yourself.
Oh, and of course the term "disruptive technology" was used by Christensen. I never suggested that I invented it.
Re:Please read what I wrote (Score:1)
Re:Please read what I wrote (Score:1)
No programmers who want to have time left with other people they care about are going to spend time working toward a dead end.
They're not the managers. They're not paid to design the application this industry really need. In fact they don't get much of a say to that effect.
You might find it hard to believe but people get sick of making vapor for someone else. And it's not even a question of some useless altruism. It's a question of sanity. That's all. There's a point where the buzzwordphiles make it impossible to get any bearing on where the company is going what they are developing and whether the developers really have a future. The hype becomes unbearable. Put simply the lack of any direction is disorienting and nauseating.
Re:Um, excuse me. That potato needs an "e". (Score:1)
Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I think this needs to be said. We shouldn't have to point out the typos, because they shouldn't be there in the first place.
I'm endlessly frustrated by the lack of care people show for proper spelling and grammar. So often do I hear my peers saying that they don't care about spelling, and that people know what they're writing about anyway.
I don't understand how intelligent people can be so careless about how their writing represents them. A piece of writing littered with unchecked typos and incorrect grammar (obscure constructions aside) gives me the impression that the writer didn't care what was written. If that's the case, then why should I bother to read it?
It could be that I'm just a stickler for correctness, in programming as well as in writing style, but I do know one thing that's true: a lot of people who do care about these things read Slashdot. To those people, the typos stand out like sore thumbs, and lower the respect they have for the content on the site.
If you want to give the impression that you have the writing skill of a third-grader, by all means, do. As for me, I'll proofread.
-larsps. No, I'm not an English teacher. I'm a systems administrator--a computer geek like many of you--who happens to have a great respect for language.
---
"What makes you think tearing my head off would kill me?" -captain bo-tard
---
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:1)
Re:Will this book help me? (Score:1)
Re:I am a moron and i love it! (Score:1)
Dive Gear [divingdeals.com]
Re:Um, excuse me. That potato needs an "e". (Score:2)
Along the same lines, let's all (even /. writers!) try to remember that "it's" is the contraction (meaning "it is") and "its" is a possessive pronoun (like his or hers -- not hi's or her's!). I try to be tolerant of this kind of typo, but it really gets to me when a single writer uses both forms within ONE SENTENCE to mean the same thing!!!
Re:It's in the icon's contract. (Score:1)
Yeah, but they found out that displaying it crashed Netscape.
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright (Score:1)
Yeah, but... Many years ago I found myself working for Company X, which was in need of new Enterprise Requirements Planning software. They'd taken their current platform/software as far as it would go but the company had grown and there wasn't much wiggle room in the current software to grow with it. So they migrated to new software on a new platform (RMS on an S/38, if you really want to know.) The vendor of the software, Professional Computer Resources, sent their customers the source to their software when you bought it. As a result, they had hundreds of customers writing their own bug fixes and enhancements and distributing them, via the vendor's user group, to all of the other customers. The software, specifically designed to make it easy to plug new stuff in, eventually grew to an incredible richness, PCR was acquired, making a lot of people reasonably wealthy, and the software is now, 20 years later, still in widespread use, still a profitable offering from its current owners. I can't seem to find a loser in that. Source code -is- knowledge and as such its value increases the more widely it is spread.
mjs
Re:Great in principle, unimpressive in practice (Score:1)
I disagree, but unfortunately I can't find a pithy quote to support my position.
Re:No... (Score:1)
Nice link. Nice pix of Vivian. (Now I know what she looks like with clothes on!)
Re:Open source won't survive the next decade (Score:1)
If a person is only programming because they're getting paid, they probably ought to have a career change. Money isn't the end-all motivational factor.
In that sense, the people who work on and contribute to open source projects represents the "Artists" of programmers. These are the people who really do care about technical details, the cool "hack", the enjoyment of having a mastery over your environment, making stuff "better" than something else, discovering new ideas etc.
Thats what "freedom" in "free software" means to me. You don't have to like it, you can do something else. For the people who do, they now have a means of expressing this "art". Closed source "black box" paid-for software might be fine for many users, but it restricts others (the artists of programming).
That freedom is important.
Odd (Score:1)
Re:Please read what I wrote (Score:1)
You're talking (mostly) about dot-coms. When I talk about the need for programmers, I'm refering to the fact that almost everything is becoming computerized these days, and I'm not talking about programmers just pounding out web applications or even store-shelf software. I'm refering also to programmers who write the code on embedded systems chips that actually do the driving in new cars, the chips that can be found almost everywhere these days. I'm refering to programmers, yes, at the dot-coms, but also at the large respected companies with a good vision like Sun, HP, Microsoft, and Apple (and sure, why not, RedHat too).
Disillusion in the dot-com world? Sure, I'll give you that. But the real reason people aren't jumping into the field is society's disregard and even disdain for "nerdy" professions. By the time teenagers grow out of that phase, they can be stuck in a non-technical job with no technical skills.
Why "Insanity"? (Score:1)