Open Source is a Religion | The Coffeehouse

SCMcDonnell
.NET

Really, the title says it all on this one.

Maybe if I keep "believing" my dream will come true and Microsoft will go out of business because everyone has switched to the "penguin" software. I believe, therefore it will happen, right?

Open Source programming is a religion that comes from more of a political angle than anything else. It's sort of like pushing socialism within a capitalist environment.

"If only people understood my goodness!" "If only the world were like Star Trek and people worked for the greater good!"

Well, as of right now, we live as capitalists and I am pretty sure it is going to remain that way for some time.

In my line of work, I don't have to believe or hope that my technology (software that serves to get the job done rather than a software philosophy that serves to promote my belief) is going to serve a purpose. I happily and gratefully do the work assigned to me by my superiors and then I receive a paycheck that helps put food on the table for my family. Not only that, but I have a sense of fullfilment because I accomplished something. My programming serves the purpose of this world because it makes businesses profitable and therefore it expands the economy which eventually trickles down to a better salary, etc.

As of today (and most likely the continual future) the radical Open Source community does nothing but serve itself. It's a religion.

I invite those of you who disagree with me to respond but the fact of the matter is - the point is inarguable.

Peace,

SM

jamie

the idea of open souce is great

the praticality is ..somewhat scarce (on the desktop)

(sorry...i use corel, adobe, quiken,ms,FP,etc)

i think the world is rooting for open source though... but in the end - it will come down to convenience - which is something oss lacks (sorry)

*caveat: should OS numbers EVER reach shares like: ms 50 apple 30 oss 20 - beware

once the weight shifts...its over for proprietary software ( at least for main stream / os / office/ browser/ media players.. etc

and billg's memo of "piracy" will go down in history as what it really was - a BRILLIANT smokescreen

services or hardware will rule.

software is just a means to an end

*unless ms is actually going to release something that will RENEW our belief that there is a reason for keeping closed.

its been ...how long since ie4/xml/css/web2.0

ms - SHOW the facts .. not "give" them

edit: yes im going to get it for typing "software is just a means to an end"

it is though,,?

- theres the menu and the recipe (software) .. then theres the stomach and the food (user/hardware) and the waiter/chef (services)

figuerres
???

jamie wrote:

the idea of open souce is great

the praticality is ..somewhat scarce (on the desktop)

(sorry...i use corel, adobe, quiken,ms,FP,etc)

i think the world is rooting for open source though... but in the end - it will come down to convenience - which is something oss lacks (sorry)

*caveat: should OS numbers EVER reach shares like: ms 50 apple 30 oss 20 - beware

once the weight shifts...its over for proprietary software ( at least for main stream / os / office/ browser/ media players.. etc

and billg's memo of "piracy" will go down in history as what it really was - a BRILLIANT smokescreen

services or hardware will rule.

software is just a means to an end

*unless ms is actually going to release something that will RENEW our belief that there is a reason for keeping closed.

its been ...how long since ie4/xml/css/web2.0

ms - SHOW the facts .. not "give" them

edit: yes im going to get it for typing "software is just a means to an end"

it is though,,?

- theres the menu and the recipe (software) .. then theres the stomach and the food (user/hardware) and the waiter/chef (services)

Hm.... yes software like hardware are not "the point" rather they are tools to aid the user to do something, paint a picture, play a game, balance accounts and so on...

and the folks who make the tools need money to live.
so they sell a copy of the tool, if you make hardware you make many copies to sell, if you make software you sell copies of it.

if I had no need for money to pay bills then I might just give away things I make to share them.

if I make enough money and have time to spend sharing some things i make.

the way OSS can carry on is if you find a balance between paying the author and sharing the tools.

as long as you have to work for a living then the amount of time you can spend giving things away is limited.

thus the on going need for non-free software.

evildictaitor
if( !succeed( try() ) ) { while(true) try(); }

I wouldn't like to trivialize Religion by saying that the OSS/Commercial, or more commonly the LINUX/Windows argument is a Religion, but it certainly seems the case from previous discussions with people that neither side enters the argument with any intention of listening to the other side.

Fact of the matter is that OSS software is less user-orientated than commercial software, because commercial software can get user-research and fund support, which helps gather information about what people struggle with when interacting with their computer.

As can be seen by recent Microsoft advances in technology, OSS simply cannot afford (by its very nature) to fund research, particularly when such research may well be a dead end.

Microsoft on the other hand will happily fund the MSR Singularity project with no need for the project to ever "make it's money back", because MS is sufficiently large it can absorb any such costs.

jamie

sorry - i didnt really think out the religion connotations of the title.. - i took it to mean OSS is an idealogy

jmsma2005
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness

Still my point: you should not destroy others' jobs just for fun! Wink

Xaero_Vincent
Sexy me

Well Free Software (you dont mean Open Source) is alot of things:

It is a religion to many fanatics like Beer and a tool to others.

Its a way to protest against companies restricting the rights to the software bought; The GPL only dictates the rights of distribution and not personal use and lenient to even small scale distribution (give FOSS to friends and family), which I think are misconceptions.

Its a way for companies to save money--most obvious use when support not needed. However, RedHat is very expensive to do business with and thus dilutes this point a bit in that case.

Open Source is different from Free Software because Open Source software can have all kinds of restrictions on use and distribution (even as bad as EULAs), the source code just needs to be included.

staceyw
Before C# there was darkness...

I think free pizza and beer would be better idea.

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

SCMcDonnell wrote:

Open Source programming is a religion

You must belong to the cult that is fighting against OSS as a religion.

SCMcDonnell wrote:

It's sort of like pushing socialism

Define "capitalism", and how we are a true capitalist society.

k2t0f12d
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society

Occasionally, someone in the industry makes an attack on the purpose of free software by identifying its ideas as something they are not. Rather then explaining, this promotes the feeling that if the politics of free software were discussed frankly and openly that it is a frightening concept that will hurt people or businesses. Therefore it must be a cultist religion; a mentality propagated by crazed radicalism rather then a desire to promote that every person, whether they are a giant corporate interest or a garage inventor, that everyone has a birthright in the freedom of invention and to share their inventions with others. It is upon the contention that this right is more important than any particular business entity's ability to show a profit, and more important than any particular programmer's ability to eat, that free software is based. There are a number of jobs that are openly available for persons without the education to perform the role of a programmer, and as far as I know those jobs are available for programmers and non-programmers alike. In the free market, if you cannot obtain a job as a programmer writing software as a product because that position is being supplanted by software that is distributed as a public utility, you are experiencing the creative destruction potential of free market capitalism, originally identified by Joseph Schumpeter, and celebrated everywhere that capitalism is truly revered.

There is no argument, it is true, that there is a choice to be made by every individual who uses the technology that increasingly controls every human life. But it is not the question of whether a person should choose software X over software Y, it is that the inventions of the citizens of a free market society be available, and that developer of software X does not have direct control over the developer of software Y, leaving the user free to choose.

The idea of free software that is distinctively American is based upon the fact that people empowered with the freedom to create can change their own lives and the world by exploiting their freedom to invent. In the 18th century, when drafting the Constitution of the republic, patents where considered the only method available for the importation of invention by promising to the inventor the privilege of exclusive use of their writings and discoveries for a limited time. Those discoveries improved the lives of the citizens of the republic by providing public documentation of the inner workings of new inventions for everyone to use for their own education and benefit and deposited to commons for everyone's ability to profit when the duration had elapsed. Now patents are absurd obfuscated legal documents supporting a multi-billion dollar a year legal industry for lawyers in perpetual litigation, and a weapon with which to suppress or withhold rather then to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.

There is no technological enterprise more fitting to Thomas Jefferson's 18th century ideal then free software. For it is the free software commons whose primary interest is the unfettered improvement of the society upon which enterprise may freely build, through the diffusion knowledge and the progress of science and the useful arts.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

k2t0f12d

patent reform and copyright reform isn't ludicrous , but a lot of the politics of free software go beyond that, and mix up a lot of ideas that people do disagree with and find radical.

k2t0f12d
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society

brian.shapiro wrote:
k2t0f12d

patent reform and copyright reform isn't ludicrous , but a lot of the politics of free software go beyond that, and mix up a lot of ideas that people do disagree with and find radical.

k2t0f12d wrote:
Occasionally, someone in the industry makes an attack on the purpose of free software by identifying its ideas as something they are not. Rather then explaining ^what those ideas are, this promotes the feeling that if the politics of free software were discussed frankly and openly that it is a frightening concept that will hurt people or businesses.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

k2t0f12d

geez, we can have a discussion on those ideas but the point is different people in the movement have varied ideas. its not about strumming up fear, its just a fact. some people in the movement have realistic ideas some don't, whether on the legality of things or simply their idealism. some people in the free software movement think freedoms necessarily make software better which I don't agree with. i have a lot of agreement with people in the movement who support reforms.

if you're bringing up joseph schumpeter as a point of fact, you can disagree with his model of economics also. you can also disagree with thomas jefferson. i'm not a strong believer in the model of 'free markets' so i'm not responding to that rhetoric or meaning to defend business.

k2t0f12d
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society

brian.shapiro wrote:
k2t0f12d

geez, we can have a discussion on those ideas but the point is different people in the movement have varied ideas.

No, my point is that you responded to me without bothering to identify any ideas at all. You just said that people disagree, which I do not doubt is true, but points out out exactly nothing.

brian.shapiro wrote:
its not about strumming up fear, its just a fact. some people in the movement have realistic ideas some don't, whether on the legality of things or simply their idealism.

Repeating that people disagree does absolutely nothing at all to illuminate what they are not agreeing upon.

brian.shapiro wrote:
some people in the free software movement think freedoms necessarily make software better which I don't agree with.

This is actually the only idea you make a point of at all. My position is not that freedom makes software better, it is that it is socially and politically better for the citizen to enjoy the freedom, and that removing these freedoms do not make software better either.

brian.shapiro wrote:
i have a lot of agreement with people in the movement who support reforms.

if you're bringing up joseph schumpeter as a point of fact, you can disagree with his model of economics also. you can also disagree with thomas jefferson.

Sure you can. But you haven't done so in any way whatsoever, other then to remark that you think that freedom doesn't make better software. I mentioned the idea of the creative destruction potential of captialism to rebut SCMcDonell's posting that free software is anti-capitalistic, which I thought was absurd. I mentioned Thomas Jefferson, since it was his ideas that lent to the shaping of the Constitution and the reasons for the provision for copyright and patent, not SCMcDonell's.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

k2t0f12d,

just because i wasn't making any arguments about free software ideas in my post didn't mean i had an obligation to. just because you say people bring up free software without discussing it in detail doesn't mean they do this out of psychological defense. you're just hounding me into a discussion on this.

using the free market as a model of innovation in society is a construct. the market, its said, adapts to the needs of society, and limitations on the market constrict the ability to adapt. but institutions that constrict the market can be just as much considered as players on the market as anything else. schrumpeter obviously understood this when he talks about the fall of corporatism. but its a construct to talk about all of these as the product of a market in the first place, since this type of economic talk is just surrogating the process of the market for the process of historical development. in truth, what the historical process is about is the negotiation of different interests in society, between the private and the public, between the corporate and the individual, etc. i dont believe in creative destruction as the most important historical force, but is complementary to the mediation of different interests. the US government itself was created based on the idea that there were different forces and interests in society that needed to be mediated, and tried to reconcile different forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy)

my position on copyright and patent law particularly, is that the law should be greatly loosened, because currently there has been too much distortion of the idea of fair use, where its now corporations defining what rights the public has, and not the public defining what rights they have.

i think problems associated with free open source software can make things worse through fragmenting platforms and reducing incentives to integrating platforms. the most important part of the OS is that its an integrated environment. the biggest achievement of the "microsoft monopoly" has been the force behind the development of an integrated platform, the fruits of which have fallen to a lot of third party and open source developers, and which has driven the market.

i don't believe in abolishing a lot of patent rights that would disallow this, like what some free software followers believe in.

i do believe that once corporations achieve a certain market dominance the public has an interest in regulation. i believe in making software corporations in developed markets accountable to standards bodies.

k2t0f12d
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society

brian.shapiro wrote:
you're just hounding me into a discussion on this.

No I am not. You responded to me not the other way around, and if you aren't prepared to make an argument, what is the object of posting your view? I stated a number of ideas to rebut SCMcDonnell and I expect that when I am in turn rebutted that the person doing so will bother to even make an argument. I, in fact, do not go as far as to say that the points I am making are inarguable, which SCMcDonnell has but has not received any of your attention at all. Mine are simply something I think are true for the reasons I described.

brian.shapiro wrote:
using the free market as a model of innovation in society is a construct. the market, its said, adapts to the needs of society, and limitations on the market constrict the ability to adapt. but institutions that constrict the market can be just as much considered as players on the market as anything else. schrumpeter obviously understood this when he talks about the fall of corporatism. but its a construct to talk about all of these as the product of a market in the first place, since this type of economic talk is just surrogating the process of the market for the process of historical development. in truth, what the historical process is about is the negotiation of different interests in society, between the private and the public, between the corporate and the individual, etc. i dont believe in creative destruction as the most important historical force, but is complementary to the mediation of different interests. the US government itself was created based on the idea that there were different forces and interests in society that needed to be mediated, and tried to reconcile different forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy)

Ah but the keyword is "free". Free market capitalism is what created the commons upon which those corporate "players" had the opportunity to become so wealthy. Freedom that they are truncating by making it the interest of the Government to mediate in their favor rather then in the favor of the individual citizen. Creative destruction potential is the "construct" that autonomously guards against any particular person or corporate entity from monopolizing a market while not preventing success in the same market.

brian.shapiro wrote:
my position on copyright and patent law particularly, is that the law should be greatly loosened, because currently there has been too much distortion of the idea of fair use, where its now corporations defining what rights the public has, and not the public defining what rights they have.

Agreed.

brian.shapiro wrote:
i think problems associated with free open source software can make things worse through fragmenting platforms and reducing incentives to integrating platforms. the most important part of the OS is that its an integrated environment. the biggest achievement of the "microsoft monopoly" has been the force behind the development of an integrated platform, the fruits of which have fallen to a lot of third party and open source developers, and which has driven the market.

That is complete rubbish. No one enjoys more interoperability then free software platforms. Proprietary platforms are the only platforms that discourage interoperability because neither the user nor the developer are technically able to read the proprietary method with which to build an interface. In spite of this many Windows binaries are executable on free software platforms. What you are talking about is the uniformity of formats and protocols. If you have the source you can write (or have written for you) software that interoperates with the format or protocol. The primary reason for fragmentation has been proprietary exclusion and patent aggression. If that "monopolistic" achievement were put in the dumpster where it belongs, formats and protocols would coagulate either to the point that everyone's stuff would read, write and execute everyone else's or everyone would use what works best universally rather then what is permitted to work on Bill Gate's boxes.

brian.shapiro wrote:
i don't believe in abolishing a lot of patent rights that would disallow this, like what some free software followers believe in.

Patents have two purposes. To give incentive to talented foreigners to move here and to provide for the diffusion of knowledge and the useful arts by also giving the incentive for the inventor to publicly document their work for everyone's benefit, and after their term of exclusive use, everyone's profit as well.

brian.shapiro wrote:
i do believe that once corporations achieve a certain market dominance the public has an interest in regulation. i believe in making software corporations in developed markets accountable to standards bodies.

All software can be measured by an agreed upon standard, which is what I believe IEEE's posix standard was documented to achieve. The problem with your predication is that the approach you suggest still does not put the power in the public commons, rather it gives it to a third party authority of questionable trust, thus increasing the complexity of the political structure and increasing the probability of corruption and the oppression of the citizen. We the people, are most often the best regulatory body. The simplest way to achieve corporate regulation is to require the publication of source, similarly to the reason that ingredients of food must be documented for the safety of the public. Thereby no third party regulation is required to mediate, corporations will stand or fall exclusively on the quality of their software and their ability to maintain and service their customers, and no organization or person shall have control over the technology of any other organization, person, or government.

brian.shapiro
things go on as always

k2t0f12d wrote:

Ah but the keyword is "free". Free market capitalism is what created the commons upon which those corporate "players" had the opportunity to become so wealthy. Freedom that they are truncating by making it the interest of the Government to mediate in their favor rather then in the favor of the individual citizen. Creative destruction potential is the "construct" that autonomously guards against any particular person or corporate entity from monopolizing a market while not preventing success in the same market.

And I don't believe in the ideal that removing restrictions in a market will create a situation that best serves the public. For example if you're talking about Austrian economics, I don't agree with the idea market is never responsible for monopolies, and you have to blame government, because some mode of government will always, always, will shape the market. countering policies help balance competition in the market to achieve a situation that meets demands more efficiently. i do believe that the direction of government policy should always mean freeing more things into private interests over time.

k2t0f12d wrote:

That is complete rubbish. No one enjoys more interoperability then free software platforms. Proprietary platforms are the only platforms that discourage interoperability because neither the user nor the developer are technically able to read the proprietary method with which to build an interface. In spite of this many Windows binaries are executable on free software platforms. What you are talking about is the uniformity of formats and protocols. If you have the source you can write (or have written for you) software that interoperates with the format or protocol. The primary reason for fragmentation has been proprietary exclusion and patent aggression. If that "monopolistic" achievement were put in the dumpster where it belongs, formats and protocols would coagulate either to the point that everyone's stuff would read, write and execute everyone else's or everyone would use what works best universally rather then what is permitted to work on Bill Gate's boxes.

Its not the existence of uniformity of protocols or formats I'm concerned about, but the ability for this to be pushed to the market and shape the market. Microsoft has helped shape the market, and so has Apple with the iPod. Interopability is important, but its not enough for useful integration; interopability without uniform protocols creates work for users who have to put their software together so it works like they want it to. The vision that some day when proprietary software is dead, all software will all be seamless , is something I don't believe in, because it depends on people making it seamless. And simply put, open source software in usability terms is and maybe always will be in a catchup game with proprietary solutions.

The type of freedom in copyright laws I support would mean laws do not apply to free transactions but apply to transactions involving money or involving physical media which are commercial. I would also support less restrictive uses on patents and quicker expiry. That itself is not probably different than what a lot of free software people want. But at the same time, forcing companies to be open source and forcing them to open their formats, destroys the value of this type of setup, as a competing company can easily remarket something.

k2t0f12d wrote:

All software can be measured by an agreed upon standard, which is what I believe IEEE's posix standard was documented to achieve. The problem with your predication is that the approach you suggest still does not put the power in the public commons, rather it gives it to a third party authority of questionable trust, thus increasing the complexity of the political structure and increasing the probability of corruption and the oppression of the citizen. We the people, are most often the best regulatory body. The simplest way to achieve corporate regulation is to require the publication of source, similarly to the reason that ingredients of food must be documented for the safety of the public. Thereby no third party regulation is required to mediate, corporations will stand or fall exclusively on the quality of their software and their ability to maintain and service their customers, and no organization or person shall have control over the technology of any other organization, person, or government.

I don't believe the market represents the people more than the government, and I'm not suggesting that there be a regulatory body set up by governments, but existing standards bodies play more of an important role in legal decisions.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

k2t0f12d wrote:
The simplest way to achieve corporate regulation is to require the publication of source, similarly to the reason that ingredients of food must be documented for the safety of the public. Thereby no third party regulation is required to mediate, corporations will stand or fall exclusively on the quality of their software and their ability to maintain and service their customers, and no organization or person shall have control over the technology of any other organization, person, or government.

Your food analogy doesn't stand up. The ingredient list is not equivalent to source publication, as source = implementation, which to stretch your analogy would be the recipe, manufacturing and packing process.

Arguing that a safety measure is the same as requiring source publication is specious; there are very few occasions where software directly impacts public safety and even then the source would probably need expert eyes cast over it, whereas ingredient lists are easily comprehended by the majority of the public.

The people as a regulatory body only works when the vast majority are able to comprehend the issues fully which is simply not the case with software. The vast majority of people simply don't care about source publication.

k2t0f12d wrote:

No one enjoys more interoperability then free software platforms.

Again specious. Face it, the most interoperable formats on the planet, text, xml, html are read and written by both closed and open source software. You don't want interoperability, you want drop in replacements. If interoperability was the goal then open standards would suffice.

k2t0f12d
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society

brian.shapiro wrote:
And I don't believe in the ideal that removing restrictions in a market will create a situation that best serves the public. For example if you're talking about Austrian economics, I don't agree with the idea market is never responsible for monopolies, and you have to blame government, because some mode of government will always, always, will shape the market. countering policies help balance competition in the market to achieve a situation that meets demands more efficiently. i do believe that the direction of government policy should always mean freeing more things into private interests over time.

I understand this but don't understand where we disagree. We seem to almost have the same opinion here. Anti-trust law is the legal safeguard mechanism that government can use to break up monopoly that is not otherwise defeated naturally in the free market. Adding restrictions on the market for public's health and safety is almost as important as removing restrictions in the pursuit and maintenance of liberty because the value of a citizen's liberty always trumps all other interests.

brian.shapiro wrote:
Its not the existence of uniformity of protocols or formats I'm concerned about, but the ability for this to be pushed to the market and shape the market. Microsoft has helped shape the market, and so has Apple with the iPod. Interopability is important, but its not enough for useful integration; interopability without uniform protocols creates work for users who have to put their software together so it works like they want it to. The vision that some day when proprietary software is dead, all software will all be seamless , is something I don't believe in, because it depends on people making it seamless. And simply put, open source software in usability terms is and maybe always will be in a catchup game with proprietary solutions.

So what you were pointing out is that you have to have a large corporate enterprise to market a new idea successfully? What about Wal-Mart? Either way, what difference does it make if it were free or proprietary software under this analysis?

The point about seamlessness in free software is confused. In a free software economy, the user has the option to get the software that works best in the same way they choose their software today. So the developer that provides a better solution is going to distribute more software then that which is less convenient But under those conditions, another more technically advanced user will be able to choose a more flexible distribution because they can perform their own maintenance. The point is that the user even has the option to perform their own maintenance or pay whomever they trust to perform that maintenance for them.

brian.shapiro wrote:
The type of freedom in copyright laws I support would mean laws do not apply to free transactions but apply to transactions involving money or involving physical media which are commercial. I would also support less restrictive uses on patents and quicker expiry. That itself is not probably different than what a lot of free software people want. But at the same time, forcing companies to be open source and forcing them to open their formats, destroys the value of this type of setup, as a competing company can easily remarket something.

Yes, and they should be able to do so. If patent law were reasonable and followed the spirit in which its provision was written, the person or company would be able to profit exclusively from their idea for a limited time, after which it is put into the commons and they must either invent something else or compete normally. I however think that software should not be patentable any more then any other printable matter is patentable. J. K. Rowling doesn't have nor can get a patent on stories about young wizards who go to wizard school, nor does she need one to work in the marketplace. I can write a story about wizards as well and have just as much success in the market without hurting Rowling, if people like my story. Copyrightable yes, patentable no.

brian.shapiro wrote:
I don't believe the market represents the people more than the government, and I'm not suggesting that there be a regulatory body set up by governments, but existing standards bodies play more of an important role in legal decisions.

I don't understand. The market doesn't represent government at all. The market place is a public utility for the public to engage in commerce, and the government is supposed to represent the interest of the public. If the public can autonomously regulate a commodity simply with buying decisions there never need be any other standards body. The IEEE represent a powerful documentation of standards, some of which apply to computers and computer software, but there is no reason why anyone must adopt their standards. They do because it is frequently in their interest to do so because public knowledge in the fields of the ideas they are concerned with coagulated into the documentation they decided upon. Those standards can be changed or ignored anytime something better comes along.