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The Free Software Movement

  
 
Tom Coates
15:10 / 08.06.02
I spent quite a lot of yesterday on the phone with a friend debating the existence of the 'free software' movement. Basically it's this group of individuals who say that free (rather than open source) software products are the wave of the future. They argue that since when you make a piece of software you have created a limitless resource (anyone can use it, and using it more doesn't deplete it) that it's unethical to expect to be paid for the thousandth, millionth or ten millionth use. They posit a situation instead where you get paid for your expertise (perhaps in suporting the software, perhaps in developing new software) rather than owning the intellectual property or rights to the software.

Now I'm as open to alternative models as anyone else, and very willing to be persuaded, but it seems to me that to an extent at least the problem in the world at the moment is not the getting paid for software thing, but the complete lack of competition between people getting paid for software. As an individual if you have a world-changing idea and it saves a world hundreds of thousands of pounds (perhaps as a side effect of making the world a better place), then you should be rewarded for that action - through SOME kind of ownership of rights to the software - which you could choose to exploit for money should you wish to... What we need is more people offering stable high quality pieces of software that we can choose between. That would stop people getting paid absurd amounts of money for work undertaken twenty years ago in a fairer way....

I'll see if I can dig up some materials on the movement. See if I'm completely missing the point. Perhaps Matt will come and talk to us about it as well...
 
 
netbanshee
17:40 / 08.06.02
...I like the idea of open source software since it shows how people can work together and what that can achieve. Plus since it's people driven it usually tries to provide for the needs of many users. If you don't like a feature or you'd like one, you can pick it up and make it work if you have the know how. Not many commercial products can be tuned and tooled to the user this way. You do need experience, but when you look at most computer problems people have, it's a lack of understanding and contact that creates the problem in the first place. Taking ownership has it's priviledges (sp?)...

Free software looks like an interesting idea but I'm wondering what the pay-off is. Shareware at least starts to enroll people with a basic service and then offers features to entice you to support the programmer(s) and designer(s). In this consumer day and age, it's difficult to give a great deal of yourself without getting some form of retribution.

But this starts entering into some forms of art and information that proliferate the web...plenty of people add to it without more than a desire to provide things to people's brains and eyeballs. Weblogs, promo sites, hobby sites and webboards all provide something generally without trying to recoup more than server costs.
 
 
tSuibhne
14:55 / 10.06.02
Couple of links to begin with:

Eric S. Raymond's collection of writings, including The Cathedral and the Bazaar. This will give you a background on Open Source.

Richard Stallman's web site. I literally just got this site off google, no idea what's in it, but Stallman is the main drive behind the Free Software Foundation.

The Free Software Definition from the GNU web site. Don't have time to read it right now, but...

Ok, that should tide you over for a bit. My own thoughts on the matter? The next few years should prove interesting in the world. The Information Revolution is starting to show some companies that the real value of information is only obtainable when it's openly shared with certain people. A lot of companies (IBM, HP, etc.) are moving away from a product driven buisness plan, and into a services driven plan.

A perfect example of how this works would be Red Hat. Red Hat sells a version of the Linux OS. An OS that is free to download for anyone who wants it. So, if it's free, how does Red Hat get away with charging something like $80 a box? (NOTE: I don't remember the actual price, could be more, could be less, but it's around there) Because what Red Hat sells is a stable version, that's got a "simple" install routine, and tech support. When you shell out the money, what you are really paying for is the tech support, and similiar things.

A lot of companies have noticed this trend and are experimenting with it. This is a driving force behind Microsoft's .Net product line. And companies like Sun and IBM are also looking into it.

Shit, I need to go, I may write more when I get a chance.

Something to chew on though. It recently became known that if the price of a computer drops below $300, Microsoft will no longer be able to recoup the costs of their operating system. They will be forced to lose money on the OS, and make it up somewhere else.
 
 
nedrichards is confused
17:50 / 10.06.02
I personally prefer the term 'software libre', I think that encapsulates the things that make open source/free software good. A sense of community and shared ownership, assisting 'weaker' users and they in turn assisting others and as close to an equality of opportunity as we're likely to get for a while. Your status depends entirely on your contribution to the community.

Remember if you do something world changing, like Linus Torvalds you are likely to get handsomely recompensed for it. Apart from his rather nice job at Transmeta Linus and other prominent hackers were offered preview shares in most of the Linux companies that floated. Although most of them aren't doing quite so well now the concept is worth thinking about.

I volunteer for the open source project OpenOffice.org because I appreciate having a quality office suite to write my essays with and because I think that with a little education and the right tools many (sadly not all) peoples lives can be changed for the better.

All of this sounds hugely idealistic and well, it is. If software libre does even half of these things it'll have done brilliantly and quite possibly changed the world. It has done one thing though, software libre allowed me to believe again.
 
 
tom-karika nukes it from orbit
17:57 / 10.06.02
My favourite feature of free software is the diversity. By freeing the source code, and telling people how it works, even the humblest of hackers can radically alter their computer, make it work how they want and get more productivity out of it as a result. I can be fairly sure that my Linux desktop PC, whilst not fundamentally different to many other unix machines, has no identical equivalent. A windows setup may only be changed in certain ways, installed with the same options as your next door neighbour and a direct clone of the other PC's that the manufacturer ran out that year.

An advantage of this diversity is security. A unique system is nearly impossible to write virii for (unless you have inside knowledge) and hard to hack into.

But a disadvantage of this diversity is that making software should be harder. For linux, I know of:
Two major desktop environments (GNOME and KDE)
Several Widget toolkits (GTK+, QT, Motif, XUL...)
Lots of File systems (Ext2, Ext3, Reiser...)

Compared to one desktop environment, one filesystem and limited toolkits under windows and mac.

This is why free software systems can be so complicated, and why you don't find them on every home computer. Standards and good coding go someway to combat this, as do the mega-distros, SuSE and Mandrake which setup all these elements and hundreds of programs for you already. But uniting more aspects, i think, is the way forward.
 
 
tSuibhne
18:39 / 10.06.02
Just a quick word. Note that Tom made a distinction between the free software that he is talking about, and open source. There is a difference, and it is a big difference to many of the people involved in the two movements. It's one of the reasons a lot of people in the open source movement don't care for Richard Stallman. (one of many)

If anyone can give a breakdown between the two, please do so, I think it would be very helpful here. I'll try to pull some stuff up when I get a chance.
 
 
Irony of Ironies
19:53 / 11.06.02
The kind of software Tom's referring to is what the open source mavens commonly call "free as in beer". That is, it's a good that's given away without any charge. Open source is free as in freedom: you can charge for open source software, but you have to distribute the source code with it, and allow free copying, and modification of it.

In a sense, free as in beer software is pretty trivial: Even Microsoft gives away software. Of course, giving away what you could charge for can be a revolutionary act. It certainly gives a big "fuck you" to what Julian Cope always calls "The Greedheads". But what makes open source software cool is that it can't be enslaved; the terms of its license make it, as Microsoft have rightly said, a virus that attachs itself to business.
 
 
nedrichards is confused
21:04 / 11.06.02
Ian, remember it doesn't have to be a virus depending upon both the licence that you choose and what you do with the software. You can use BSD licenced stuff weithout 'giving anything back' indeed Microsoft's origional TCP/IP stack was a BSD licenced one that they used.

Also if you don't make the software available then no matter what licence it's under you're free to keep your changes secret. This is how governments can use open source stuff whilst keeping their modifications secret. Not everybody's a software company, Tesco's aren't going to be too interested in selling their POS software.

And as for the 'Virus' thing. If you derive a work from GPL'd software and make that software available then yes you do have to relelase the whole thing under the GPL. Yet if you did the same thing using a standard EULA the company who's software you used would have your ass, and the software you'd made. The GPL is just giving you an extra freedom that you don't have to take up.

These points are put in a bit more depth here.

Whilst I hope that open source licences lead to a more open computer industry with greater access to better software it doesn't have to be that way. It'd just be nicer if it were.
 
 
cusm
17:55 / 12.06.02
The free software movement works best in a colaborative situation where the authors are seeing benefit from their work, just not necessarily directly. One fine example is FreeBSD, the OS we use. The OS and all files are free and open source. The company keeps afloat by selling support services in the form of manuals, CD ROMs, and merchandising like t-shirts and cute plush daemon dolls. But the work is largely done by the same community that is actually using the product. You see, if there's a bug in the software your company uses, you report your fix for it to the main group and everyone benefits from it. Companies that use the OS support it in this manner rather than directly with $$, as the colaborative tech support is helping themselves in the long run. Its really all about the project, not the individual at all. Individuals who donate work are often paid by their own companies to do so, as the company uses the software. So, you still have compensation for your work, but the software itself remains free.

For another good example, apache.org. Here you have another psudo company that sells no product, but is made up of people supporting the project because they use it at their own companies. Helping the group is helping yourself, because you use the produce the group maintains to make profit in other ways (like selling webhosting). The software is free, and the foundation members are paid by their own companies rather than the foundation. It makes a lot of sense, and works very well as you get the benefit of the open source community, and a product which remains free. If you do a lot of work on it, you benefit from prestige that helps you find $$ in work elsewhere, or from your own company. Your work is compensated, just not in the traditional direct way.
 
 
Fist of Fun
14:15 / 14.06.02
cusm You make an interesting point about free software developers being compensated in alternative ways. I cannot help but think that (with the possible exception of a few saints) you will always need some form of compensation to promote work of any sort, software development no less than any other.

For accademics, that compensation may be provided by means of prestige, with all that promotes in the accademic world (such as increased chances of tenure, lecturing opportunities, peer prestige, and improved career opportunities). Indeed, for some within any industry / profession, prestige will always be sufficient compensation (I myself am a lawyer and occasionally write articles, not just to drum up work and for the pathetic author's fee, but also to show how clever I am).

For the rest of the world, though, it strikes me that it is likely that financial compensation, beit direct or indirect, would be necessary. But, it appears to a mere non-techie like myself that the internet, at least originally, was not like this. Prestige and selflessness really did generate a great deal of development work (and appear to a certain degree to still do so).

So, here's my question - why is the internet like this? I can see specific examples of people getting benefits from jointly improving a single piece of software, but I doubt that this coudl ever explain the even the majority of advances.

Are the people who work on it more interested in prestige than the average, and if so why?

Is it because they are such geeks they need to get their social acceptance levels up and the only way to do that is with other geeks? Via non-BO conducting interfaces such as telecommunications facilities?

Or is it because the internet started out (or at least blossomed) from accademia and other non-commercial sources, and there has been a cultural heritage of prestige and selflessness that survives to today? And if so, how long can this / will this last?
 
 
Grey Area
15:14 / 14.06.02
I think the Internet has still got a strong element of co-operation when you delve beyond all the useless junk and corporate machinery. There are people out there for whom the main reason for working on software solutions for free is because they cannot find what they need in the commercial offering.

Back when I started using the internet, which was in 1994 (jeez I feel old now), and it was myself and four friends who would cluster 'round the school's one computer with access after everyone had gone home, pretty much most applications we downloaded were written by co-operatives or individuals who simply found that the things they were writing were of use to others. I don't think this tradition has gone away, it's merely been moved from the forefront of the internet to the quiet background by the more glitzy sites and "average user"-based content on offer now. As to whether it will die, I don't think that will ever happen. There are always enough selfless people out there to keep things moving...
 
 
boffy
17:53 / 13.01.04
Big woo to Grey Area, I am unfortunately too young to remember th time before proprietary(unfree) software, th time Richard Messiah Stallman describes as being "like the garden of Eden...it hadn't occured to us NOT to share"*, but I have read about it, and drooled over it, I want some of that.
I find that th easiest way to learn how to do something is to take apart one which exists and have a poke around(sorry Gandalf), so I can imagine this would b th best way for someone like me to learn programming. I want to learn to program so that I can fix whatever needs fixing around me, I use free software all th time(Audacity, Firebird, Thunderbird, CDex, OpenOffice...), and I want to give something back.
I already contribute to http://www.wikipedia.org - a free, collaboratively-written encyclopedia, on which all th content is licensed under th GNU Free Documentation License, kinda like th GPL for refrence works.
A world of free software would be a better world for all: users would have up-to-date, reliable software, which they could share with their friends; software vendors could compete on a more-or-less even playing field monopolies like Microsoft's would be impossible if all software conformed to th same open standards; and software picracy would pretty much caese to exist

Man, I ramble too much


*Quote from memory, probably innacurate
 
 
foot long subbacultcha
18:00 / 14.01.04
One area of open source software that is in continuous debate is the quality of the code. Many businesses have a fear of open source because they believe the projects aren't being looked after and supported by commercial organisations. If an IT manager is going to invest in a technology, they want to have a phone number to call. Also, there is a sense that if code is freely accessible, then it must be a security hole.

There are arguments to suggest that open source is as secure and as supportable as closed source, but in different ways. As a programmer, I personally feel much more comfortable using open source framework projects to help me build my applications and to act as platforms for me applications. I am comforted by the world wide eyeballing the software receives, and am happy to have the support of the community that have volunteered to create this work.

Software development is driven by economics. We live in an age where everything needs to be done yesterday, even at the expense of quality. As a result, I'll argue that commercial software development is suffering terribly in terms of quality. It doesn't help that programmers aren't given the respect as engineers that they deserve. Creating software isn't seen as a craft by IT managers, and this is a major problem. There are movements and philosophies out there (extreme programming is an example) that are working to rectify this, but it's a difficult area. You can't just throw more programmers at a task to get it done faster.

A reason why many people volunteer to do this work is for their own fulfillment and personal expression, in the same way that some of us love to write or make music when we're not doing our day jobs. Not all open source programmers code for money, and a lot of coders following the "free as in beer" philosophy would hate the idea of working for a commercial organization.

Just to be even more contradicting, a lot of open source projects are even headed by large corporate organizations. Sometimes it is in the best interest of the corporate world to contribute under the open source flag. I'll be less mysterious and actually point to an example in this case: check out www.eclipse.org

Argh - I really should think about what I'm writing here but I don't even have time to check my spelling. I hope I've said something useful.
 
 
theory junkie
17:40 / 23.01.04
Being a former Red Hat employee myself, I can tell you that keeping the software free isn't a problem. Red Hat spends countless manhours not only contributing lines and lines of code to make the kernel more efficient, using money to pay the free software developers so they can continue working on the Linux Project. For instance, Alan Cox, the ex-kernel maintainer, is employed by Red Hat, not necessarily to develop for Red Hat but to continue working on the kernel. Stephen Tweedie developer of ext3, same thing. Red Hat makes money by providing support and consultants to help coorporation integrate Red Hat and other Open Source projects into their existing network environment. Red Hat also creates tools some open, some closed to assist people in maintaining this environment. eg. Thre Red Hat Network http://rhn.redhat.com. The bottom line is, if you make an open source product that is well developed and thought out, a Distribution company, Red Hat & Suse, some others, might pick you up to pay you to keep maintaining your product. Of course it is also completely you right to keep your code closed work on it yourself and hopefully the world will see it, and be willing to pay for your work. Open source model just seems to be a better model to get your work out there.
 
  
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