It's Not the 15th Birthday of Linux 261
Glyn Moody writes "There's been a spate of celebrations of Linux's 15th birthday recently. What they're really marking is the 15th anniversary of version 1.0. But do version numbers matter for free software? The 'release early, release often' approach means there's generally little difference between version 0.99.14z, say, and version 1.0. In fact, drawing attention to such anniversaries is misguided, because it gives the impression that free software is created in the same way as traditional proprietary code, working towards a predetermined end-point according to a top-down plan. So how should we be choosing and celebrating free software's past achievements?"
Yeah Yeah Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Free software isn't developed according to the same models as proprietary software. We get that. It's just backwards to complain about how people take the time to celebrate the achievements of free software developers.
LK
"Release early, release often" (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always thought "release early, release often" is a terrible idea. That just means all your end-users will see the crap you're working on before you do the testing, and get a bad impression of your software right from the get-go. It makes sense to do that *after* you hit 1.0 and have a pretty clean product, but why would you want people forming their first impression of your software from untested development releases?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Usenet post? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the most logical Linux birthday when Linus first posted his code for others to improve upon? If memory serves me correctly it was a Usenet post?
Re:"Release early, release often" (Score:4, Insightful)
Because waiting YEARS for Vista sucked, and the end product sucked even harder after all that wait... that's why.
Re:"Release early, release often" (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, announced before it was begun, released before it was stable, out of date before it was fixed, over-priced, under-supported, and just plain crap !
Me, I'll choose evolution over revolution because it seems to work well for other complex systems too.
Re:Ummm yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Right... the masses... Lets perform a psychology "experiment" here. Ask any non-geek what version number of any piece of software they are running. Hell, ask them for the name of that software. Most cannot answer either. Generally, "the masses" only know a couple things "this is my internet", "this is how I type stuff", "this is how I email", etc.
Re:"Release early, release often" (Score:3, Insightful)
At least it worked. That's better than most "released early" open source software I've tried.
Re:"Release early, release often" (Score:5, Insightful)
In Korea (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a different way of counting.
You can consider software (such as Linux) beginning as the first line of code is written, or when the idea was first conceived, or when it was first on the internet, etc. Most people consider version 1.0 to be more of the official "birth" of software.
It's a different way of counting.
Both are correct when thinking of them from different perspectives. To understand this requires mental flexibility in your ways of thinking.
As a further illustration:
The argument presented in both the article and summary:
there's generally little difference between version 0.99.14z, say, and version 1.0
There's generally little difference between a fetus the day before it's born and the day after it's born. But culture generally starts counting after it's born and not at conception. Computer culture often starts counting at v1.0
Remember the Millenium (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite the quite correct statement by a few people that the millenium changed Jan 1 2001, the vast majority of people ignored that and celebrated the arrival of 2000 as the new millenium. No matter how right you are about Linux's age etc., the vast majority will completely fail to notice you and your dogmatic assertions, and will enjoy themselves in spite of you.
I think you're analyzing it too much (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps "anniversary" would be a better term. A marriage rarely has its beginnings at the altar or in front of the justice of the peace. The persons involved typically began interacting with each other, learning, and growing together before the date of the actual ceremony, yet we celebrate their anniversary on the date they made their public vows in front of witnesses. I can see a parallel between pre-release and beta editions culminating with a public 1.0 release (or whatever the given name or number of a product may be). I don't see it as a disservice to the open source community to mark such milestones. In fact, if they were to describe the development process similarly to how I described it here--as an ongoing, growing, developing thing--it might actually mean more to some people.
In any case, observing a birthday or anniversary holds powerful meaning regardless of the context (human or inanimate): it means the person or the thing survived the test of time. That's why so many businesses are quick to proclaim "...since 1933", "...established 2006", or similar sentiments that convey age. They understand that people tend to trust established brands, thinking (consciously or subconsciously), "if they've been around that long, they can't be too bad," or, "if they've been around that long, there's a good chance they'll still be around in a few years if I need to exercise my warranty rights."
So, for me, I'll say happy anniversary Linux. You've had a good start. I'm looking forward to what the next 50 years will bring.
Re:"Release early, release often" (Score:2, Insightful)
>release early, release often" is a terrible idea.
Err. Not to the non-computer-savvy end users.
That's why the first release is 0.1. If you give a 0.1 release to a non-computer-savvy end user, you're insane. On the other hand, that early is the best time for other computer-savvy users (=programmers) to see it and still be able to change fundamental stuff.
>That just means all your end-users will see the crap you're working on before you do the testing, and get a bad impression of your software right from the get-go.
Of your 0.1 software? I guess it depends on their expectation, but they shouldn't even see it, much less have opinions about something that most probably doesn't even compile on some machines, much less work in some finished for.
>It makes sense to do that *after* you hit 1.0 and have a pretty clean product,
No, please, no. There's no way you can change any big thing of it without having to essentially make it 2.0 and wait half a year or more until the mess finally compiles again. Just release what you have when you have it.
>but why would you want people forming their first impression of your software from untested development releases?
So that they can participate in your development.
A lack of planning (Score:3, Insightful)
A lack of planning and having defined goals is not the same as working in a new and different way. If a survey of the most successful open source project was to be done I would put money on every single one having a strong plan and good leadership. Fair enough that leadership might be technical rather than the typical management type but it would be there.
This whole "we won't call it 1.0 till it does everything perfectly" thinking smacks of childishness to me. Set some goals and publish them along with version numbers so that people know what to expect when. FFmpeg is a prime example of a project that should be 5.0 not 0.5. It's a mature, feature rich and stable lump of code that is in widespread use. Give it a version number that reflect that.
What's so special? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free:Proprietary::Incremental:Waterfall -- FALSE (Score:2, Insightful)
The two actually have nothing to do with each other. Many "proprietary" software projects are done in an incremental, release-often mode. Many "free" software projects are done in a waterfall, plan-design-code-test-release mode.
By promulgating this myth, you are actually doing free software a big disservice, by limiting it to a certain style of development.
Go away, ponder, then come back and repent.
a proper linux milestone... (Score:3, Insightful)
the first time a slacker sneered derisively at a red hat user. a.k.a. the beginning of the distro wars.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)