[svlug] A little on Open Source Philosophy...

[Javilk]

> better product when someone else could do it.  This raises an interesting
> question:  Why would a company spend tons of money on R&D if they were going
> to give away the design once they had it (even if they could sell the
> product successfully).  I did not have a good enough answer for this. All I

     They would not.  Wrong end!  

     _WE_ the End Users are spending the money in terms of time to improve
the product.  All that Red Hat, Caldera, etc.  are doing, is putting it
in a package for others.

     MS has Zero reasons to join the open software movement, EXCEPT to
entice us to help debug their code.

     Open software and corporations only works where there are strong
developed markets protected by copyright and patent law; _OR_ where the
users started it, and the corporations have only distribution channels.
The middle ground is wasteland.

     Intel wants Linux to succeed, because they don't care about selling
software.  To them, Linux is the road maps that gas stations use to give
away for free thirty years ago.  I remember writing to Gulf Oil Co, and
getting a complete set of maps for the USA for free.  You could get any
local road map at any gas station for free -- they wanted you to drive, so
they helped you drive.

     Microsoft is in the equivalent of the road map business.  They are
selling their general road maps mostly to the oil companies, and ripping
you off for the local maps, which are a larger market. 
     
> could do was ask him how he explained the Linux movement, but the truth is
> the Linux movement is strongly founded in beliefs that underlie
> socialism...people innovate because it makes them feel good; its for the
> good of the community.  Not everyone has that same devotion and motivation,
> so how would open source scale to industry?  

      Linux is not founded on socialism.  Not at all.  It is founded on
existentialism -- the need for inner self expression, and also the need to
show the world a sample of what you can do.  This is part of a strong
tradition of Pro Bono work, such as found in the legal field.  A good
lawyer will help this or that club or civic organization for free, just to
get his name before the members, and show them a bit of his abilities.
That is how many of them get their early clients and build a reputation. 

> The question of open source development scaling was posed to Linus at the SC
> Intel Linux Users Group meeting last week.  He answered by saying that it
> had very well scaled so far, and that was many orders of magnitude.  This is
> very true, but its scaled only within a group of people who all share a
> common desire, and its not monetary.  As we all know, the world is driven by
> money, whether it should or not, so how does open source fit into that
> picture?  

     He is employed, no?  The developers of each piece of significant code
are employed, no?  They are employed because people saw what they could
do.  Linux is a grand part of their portfolio.

> Suprinsingly, my manager used to be a Linux user.  Now he is very supportive
> of MS, which really blows my mind.  I can't believe that someone who spends
> his entire week in front of a computer can stand having a corporation
> control every aspect of it.  Especially during these arguments, however,
> he's always looking at it from a corporate/regular users view point. 

     I am not in favor of socialism.  I am not in favor of monopolies.  I
am an entrepreneur.  If Linux was socialism, I would... well... have
serious qualms about using it.  

     Linux is about "Look at what I can do", this is what I need, and I
know others need it too -- you do what you can do, I'll do what I can do,
and we'll all build the barn before sundown.  Then tomorrow, I'll pay you
for your help by helping you build your barn before sundown. 

     You are at Intel, huh?  If you want to use this, do attribute it to
me, and point to my mall-net site.  I did parts of that Pro Bono for a
doctor, not as web pages, but e-mailing his works out on request.  As a
result of that work I got funding from a vitamin company to put those
pages up on the web, along with a lot of other medical information.

     As another set of Pro Bono work, I am giving away 100 web query
statistics pages to show others what I have, and to spark their
imagination; as a result they are buying reports to get what they really
want -- words to clarify and centralize the concepts they are trying to
get themselves indexed under in the search engines. 

     The bulk of the web is based on this kind of Pro Bono work to show
people to see what you have. Linux is part of those Pro Bono and barn
raising traditions. 


- javilk at mall-net.com -----------------------------
-------- MS asks "Where do you want to go?" -------
------- Linux asks "What do you want to do?" ------
-- It is doers, not goers, who built this world! --
--------- Member: http://www.svlug.org/ -----------


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