"The development of the kernel has changed, and Linux is just getting better and better. However, with a community as large and fractured as the Linux community, it can sometimes be hard to get a big picture overview of where Linux is going: what's happening with kernel version 2.6? Will there be a version 3.0? What has Linus been up to lately? What does he get up to in his spare time?
I had the opportunity to chat with the original creator of the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds, in a number of email exchanges."
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Member since:2006-02-05
Well, you are right in that I did not represent middle ground too well in my story, but like it or not, a world ruled by geeks is a world run by big egos and touchy personalities. More often then not, the FOSS world erupts in what can only be described as High Drama. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way, as not only is it better then any soap opera, but more often then not people simply do not stand for something they don't believe is right, and when the dust settles, you end up with two alternatives competing on technical merit.
There are a great many people who fall into your analogy, but Linus and RMS are not two of them. RMS has repeatedly called Linus "Just an engineer", and Linus' remarks in this interview about "Frothing at the mouth ideologues" are fairly common. While both camps work together, there is still frustration on both sides.
I am sorry if I came off "pro-business", because I really love both the ideas behind open source, and what has already been accomplished. I am only pro-business in that I believe that abolishing intellectual property in the software industry, or any other industry would result in a drop in innovation due to a lack of financial incentive for businesses to put the money they do into these things. There has been a balance between academic innovation for scientific curiosity, and commercial market driven innovation for a very long time now, and it has been working pretty damn well so far. Academic innovation has given us stuff like TCP/IP and the web, Commercial innovation has given us stuff like Photoshop and Pro Tools. You need both, because both tackle different spheres more efficiently.
Now, you can say that free software businesses can/do exist. But the fact of the matter is that these make up a very small amount of the market, and they only really succeed by using software as a vehicle to sell something else. Red Hat doesnt really sell linux, they sell their certifications and support. IBM doesnt really sell linux, they use it as a way to reduce the cost of their "eSolutions". Palm isn't going to be selling linux, they will be selling their palmtop computers.
I'm not saying this way of doing business is bad, but it is the only viable way of turning a profit when you take out the factor of IP protection. How will people like Adobe exist? How about gaming companies? Id or Unreal really exists because of their engine liscences, you take that away from them and they have no real incentive to deliver. What about apple? Who would buy over-priced hardware in a pretty box if stuff like Quartz and all their nifty APIs got ported into free desktops?
There needs to be a mix of both. The OSI allows for this, the FSF is not only opposed, but they say I am morally wrong for suggesting such a notion.
Last point, if you read stuff by guys like Larry Lessig (the Creative Commons guy), he will tell you that things like copyright and patents were fantastic ideas, but have become corrupted by the shift in governament legislation from its constituants to corporate lobby groups. Having a limited monopoly on things you come up with has been driving north american innovation for centuries now, and been quite successful at it. You are right that we should not let companies walk all over us, but we need reform, not abolishment.
Member since:2005-07-06
but we need reform, not abolishment.
It depends on which end you are.
The current goverment policy and the iraqi war is pretty harsh for the economic climate at the middle and lower end. By the way did you know $28 is being charged to the goverment for every meal that is being served to the soldiers. Whose war is it?
Hundreds of billions of tax money that could easily be spend in the USA itself. Or do we need another war to feed the economy?
Edited 2007-08-23 05:38
Member since:2006-01-01
Member since:2005-07-08
I agree with a lot of what you say here, but some comments:
a world ruled by geeks is a world run by big egos and touchy personalities.
All world rulers have big egos and touchy personalities. Think about the world's leaders for a moment. There's hardly a normal, well-adjusted human being in the bunch.
I think that part of the human condition is that we seek ambitious leaders with very strong beliefs. We want our leaders to sell us the idea of a better tomorrow. We'll pay top dollar to be told a great story about who we are and what we're doing on this big rock. We want a fanatic whose personal utopian or dystopian fantasy we can use as a framework for understanding ourselves and the world around us.
I suppose this is a good argument for why we shouldn't get to choose our leaders. But it's obviously a better argument for why we have to be able to choose our leaders. There should be many leaders and a certain balance of power between them.
I suppose that all organizations work this way. But they vary greatly in how the leaders get chosen and how the power is distributed. In the free software community, anybody can be a leader, everybody gets to select their own leaders, and nobody has power over anybody else. If that isn't the definition of freedom, I don't what what is.
There are a great many people who fall into your analogy, but Linus and RMS are not two of them.
Yes they are. Ultimately, politics is about selling competing interpretations of reality. Linus and RMS would agree that Linux is succeeding in part because of it's distinctive development and distribution model based on the GPL. Where they disagree is why this model is important and why it works. Same reality, competing interpretations.
In American politics, we play it a bit fast and loose, making it up as we go along. We have competing realities, often for the same interpretation. It's a modern innovation of electoral politics intended prevent facts and outcomes from influencing elections. Look, we don't agree on what we're doing, and we don't agree on whether it's working. So just pick the one you want to see on TV landing on an aircraft carrier.
I believe that abolishing intellectual property in the software industry, or any other industry would result in a drop in innovation
I don't believe in abolishing intellectual property. I believe in eliminating patents on creative works, facts of nature or things found in nature, and anything intended to prevent, cure, treat or otherwise mitigate illnesses and disabilities.
Like RMS, I believe in three categories of creative works that should have different limits on protection under copyright law:
Works that are used to do something, make something, or convey facts should be modifiable and redistributable for noncommercial use. This way we do more stuff, make more stuff, and know more stuff. This category includes most software, hard news, references, scholarly works, and educational materials.
The next category is works that express ideas or opinions. These should be redistributable in unmodified form with attribution for noncommercial use. This includes op-eds, analysis, comments on OSNews, and nonfiction literature.
The final category is works that are meant to be enjoyed. These should be presentable in unmodified form with attribution for noncommercial use. This includes fiction, graphics, music, movies, and anything that's generally considered art. If software contains artwork or storylines, they fall in this category as long as they're separable from the rest of the software.
Of course, copyright owners can grant more rights to the recipients of their work, but these should be the minimum requirements.
Software is the most tinkerable, extensible, and modular stuff that we use. There's more way more value in the ability to innovate through modification than in the ability to monopolize an innovation. Software patents and proprietary software make innovation more profitable, but also more difficult. Society will ultimately benefit from more innovation through collaboration than through exclusivity.
There are innumerable reasons to invest in software development other than to sell software. As you note, "Linux" vendors don't really sell Linux. But they invest in Linux, and they profit from their investment. Very few vendors are successful selling software anyway. Microsoft and Adobe are the exceptions, and do we honestly want more vendors like them?
How about gaming companies?
Companies like Id and Unreal should work more like Trolltech. Their engines should be free software for noncommercial use only. Commercial game developers would still have to pay. Games would be mostly free software, but downstream distributors would need to make a completely different game out of it, devoid of any art or plot elements from the original.
Commercial innovation has given us stuff like Photoshop and Pro Tools.
This is a historically accurate argument, but I'm not sure that proprietary software vendors are continuing to innovate in ways that free software doesn't. Most of the biggest software innovations of the past few years have come out of the free software community. The biggest issue facing GIMP and Ardour is that they aren't Photoshop and Pro Tools. I think that content creation is a viable market for free software. It's content consumption that poses more a challenge.
The bottom line is that intellectual property is a good idea that's often used in cases where it's not in the best interest of the public. We don't need to incentivize innovation in software. The existence of free software is proof. Software is very useful. There are many ways of capitalizing on the value of software without restricting our ability to improve and share it, which is arguably more valuable than the software itself.
Member since:
2005-07-08
Basically, it goes like this. Way back in the day when software began to get commercialized, there was an academic named Richard Stallman, who believed...
While the FSF were busy doing their thing, a young guy called Linus...
It was pretty much a match made in heaven...
Now, Stallman was pissed. Not only was Linux the resounding success he had always hoped GNU to be...
As it stands, the FSF is still pretty much ignored by the people who matter in the Linux community...
Nice "War of the Roses" narrative. It evokes the journalistic integrity of Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room. You grab onto this Stallman/Linus antagonistic framework and use it to pry apart a diverse collective that is working toward the same goals for different reasons.
I apologize for the upcoming Americanisms, but it's a useful analogy. Think of the social freedom crowd as the progressive Democrats, the alliance of big business and the economic freedom crowd as the conservative Republicans, and the small group of pro-business pundits of the ESR ilk as the DLC and their bluedogs.
Ultimately, we're all after the same thing: getting the products and services we need at a price we can afford. Both sides appreciate the efficiency of the private sector in making this happen. But while the conservatives are willing to let business operate as they wish, progressives favor modest regulations to prevent abuses.
What separates progressives from conservatives is their belief that a consolidation of power and wealth in the business class is threatening freedom. The conservatives believe that business success will ultimately trickle down to their employees. Normally, the shear size of the working class would allow them to exert influence over the tiny business elite.
However, the progressive majority in the working class has been tricked by the DLC into supporting bluedogs. These are essentially conservatives that campaign as Democrats. They tell people that Democrats don't stand a chance unless they let business get whatever they want. Then they throw in some socially-oriented wedge issue that has little to do with anything.
The result is that a Democratic majority ends up rubber-stamping conservative policy. Or more generally, the progressive world-view is marginalized and vastly underrepresented.
Progressives think something is wrong when the top 1% has more money than the bottom 95% while the highest tax bracket has dropped from 87% to 28% in the past 20 years and the White House spokesperson insists that this "isn't a very interesting story." New York City has the same distribution of wealth as Namibia, the most unequal nation in the entire world. That's an interesting story.
Obviously where the analogy falls apart is the lack of any major inequality in the FOSS ecosystem. That is because while the progressive FSF agenda is marginalized and often ridiculed, it is not underrepresented by any means. The GPL is a dominant license in the FOSS world. We observe that while commercial contributors would probably rather use a less restrictive license if they could, they are still profiting from their participation in the Linux community.
Equality is working. Business is good, and users are enjoying unparalleled freedom. Yet people like ESR still stress the fact that business is not in it for freedom. Of course they're not! They're in it for profit, and it's working. We don't need to pander to business any more than we do now. They get profit, we get freedom, and the developers get participation. We're working toward the same goals for different reasons.
So before you go bashing the FSF because business isn't buying the freedom aspect of the GPL, consider the balance that the GPL has brought to the greater FOSS community. Whether you're in it for profit, freedom, or collaboration, the GPL delivers. It's not pro-business. It's a compromise that business can live with. It favors users because there's way more of us than there are of them, and I think that's fair.
If only we could have the same level of balance in politics. I don't care if I'm ridiculed for my beliefs. I just think that ordinary people should get their way more often then not because there's more of us. We don't need to let big business walk all over us while they smugly promise to trickle down whatever they choose not to keep for themselves. They'll survive a little progressive regulation, and maybe we can once again feel as free as our leaders insist we are.