As I was reading the article I was wondering it had such a strong
slant against the free-software community and kept trying to push the
open-source community to the periphery.
While I agree with this article about the internet providing the
medium for a far flung user base to provide feedback (aren't there
always users out there who want more for nothing?) - that same
internet doesn't mystically sprout ideas and individuals willing to
act on those ideas (for free, no less). While Walker may think that
Linux and Apache were predestined to come about due to the internet,
that line of thinking is akin to waiting for the fabled room full of
monkeys to eventually produce a work of Shakespeare (why hasn't the
internet given us that by now?).
I've read an article in the past that actually goes pretty much head
on against this article. That past article (which I should dig up)
says the open-source "community" is a myth. That in fact its not a
large number of unknown individuals who are driving (and
contributing) to open source, but a small-ish number of core
individuals. This article detailed how some companies thought, "oh,
let's make our product open source and let the open source community
take care of it for us" only to discover no one cared and no one
worked on it. Surprise.
Another past article disputes the rogue individualist open-source
developer phenomenon by stating that many open source projects are
actually either funded with cash or supported with internal
developers by large corporations (I know postgresql falls into this
bucket).
Personally, I think open source is great when I find some software
that solves one of my problems and I don't have to pay for it. I
think open source sucks sometimes when I have a good idea for some
software and realize that I'll never be able to make money on it. I
think the open source mentality now permeates users (maybe just
techie users), whose first reaction to most software is "why should I
pay for that, I'm sure its out there somewhere for free". I know that
companies have hopped on the open source bandwagon - some in a bad
way just in their marketing, others in a good way with having some
versions of their product open source, with other versions still
commercial.
If I looked into my hazy and often incorrect crystal ball, I would
predict that the open-source pendulum is swinging way off to one end
and getting close to the extreme. Sometime soon it will start
swinging back the other way. Not all software should be open source.
Users (i.e. potential customers) should not expect to get all/most
software for free. Using open-source as an umbrella is a great way
for companies to undercut the competition until there is no
competition, at which point they can go back to charging. Not that I
think we'll have to start paying for bare bones email clients, but we
should expect to pay for good software that we like and use. One
caveat - maybe users won't have to pay directly, maybe all software
will start to either display ads or pilfer your personal information
for compensation. That would be ugly.
Walter.
On Jan 15, 2006, at 9:34 PM, T. Joseph CARTER wrote:
On Sat, Jan 14, 2006 at 10:52:49AM -0800, Jeff wrote:
"It's the internet, stupid"
ONLamp.com: There Is No Open Source Community
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2006/01/12/no_oss_community.html
Looks like propaganda from the O'Reilly/Raymond camp to me.
O'Reilly has
been looking to debunk this idea of an ideological community since
1998--a
fact the article states plainly. They describe the success of the
open
source moniker, but conveniently leave out the fact that the open
source
community is not the pragmatic alternative to the free software
zealots
they so want you to stop paying attention to.
Because they have failed to do so, they must marginalize or
eliminate the
influence of that community. I suspect--but do not claim--that
others who
actually know these people might agree that Eric Raymond, Bruce
Perens,
Richard Stallman, and the others of their kind are basically resident
gasbags in the community, always prepared to offer their own
opinions as
the conscious will of the community without bothering to consult us
first.
This is my opinion, and if you want to know what somebody else
thinks you
maybe ought to ask them.
The claim of the article, obviously, is that there is no
community. What
exists is rather just a natural consequence of the Internet, the
article
argues. It is true that the notion of a single interconnected
community
is a myth, but to claim that there is no community is disrespectful
to the
members of certain key communities which make up the mythical
global open
source community.
First we have the development communities. Without them, there
would be
no open source. The notion that you should give away your code to the
world is largely a new concept--but the idea of sharing your code with
those around you isn't. At least, it isn't in the academic world.
All
that the Internet does is make the community of those around you to
share
with larger. These have spread beyond the academic communities
now, and
the results have more than merely academic interest, but the
underlying
bits are still there.
Am I missing something?
--
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act,
but a habit."
-- Aristotle
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