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Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
At 12:37 PM on Aug 31, 2007, Jack Newsom wrote:
Fresh Jobs for Developers Post a job opportunity
A taste of Phipps' insights:
-- With the advent of the Web and broadband, the Information Age is fast becoming the Participation Age, information can flow anywhere, anytime, and collaborative software ecosystems are springing up everywhere, fundamentally altering the way software is produced.
--In creating software that does not require the unique skills of a
very few individuals, developers are more likely to be productive
working in an open collaborative context than one that is closed.
-- The commercial software market has been transformed in the last 25 years from one where software users became customers when they acquired the software to one where users become customers when they want to buy something -- often services, support, or training -- that enhances the value of the software they already have, and got for free.
-- Open source is not about using software free of cost -- it is about
creating valuable software and sustaining it by leveraging the
network of other developers in the community. If open source developers keep their code for themselves, so many skills are needed that it becomes impossibly burdensome to maintain a fork. The best way to produce great software is to
contribute back and avoid regression-test hell. As Phipps put it: ?The Apache Software Foundation(http://www.apache.org/) ?looked at
their 10-year history and could not find a single example of
someone forking an Apache code base and continuing with it as a
fork without contributing code back in the end. Everyone either
gives up or gives back -- there is no third way.?
-- Users love open source software not so much because it is free, but because they can have control over what they are using.
-- The trick to making money in open source is to turn competence in producing software into a competitive advantage in supplying the
aftermarket with support and maintenance.
My question: Is altruism and political ideology as insignificant as Phipps seems to think it is? I think altruism and wanting a better world is a key to open source. Am I being naive? Any thoughts.
12 replies so far (
Post your own)
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
Thanks for posting this, Jack. It's a very interesting question to ask. I think that for many people, open source is a way for them to show that they think they can do something better than an existing solution. With the help of other developers around teh world, they're able to produce what only big companies have done and what they couldn't do on their own.As far as altruism, I think that we've seen some shift in that. As I recall, there used to be more of the feeling that you could change the world through open source. I'm not sure whether I still get that feeling anymore.
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maybe Sun should take this to heart
As Phipps put it: ?The Apache Software Foundation(http://www.apache.org/) ?looked at their 10-year history and could not find a single example of someone forking an Apache code base and continuing with it as a fork without contributing code back in the end. Everyone either gives up or gives back -- there is no third way.?So, basically, what Phipps is saying that Sun's arguments about the dangers of incompatible Java forks have been bogus all along, and that even the restrictions that Sun still has in place are superfluous.
Re: maybe Sun should take this to heart
> As Phipps put it: ?The Apache Software> Foundation(http://www.apache.org/) ?looked at their
> 10-year history and could not find a single example
> of someone forking an Apache code base and continuing
> with it as a fork without contributing code back in
> the end. Everyone either gives up or gives back --
> there is no third way.?
>
> So, basically, what Phipps is saying that Sun's
> arguments about the dangers of incompatible Java
> forks have been bogus all along, and that even the
> restrictions that Sun still has in place are
> superfluous.
I think Sun believes they've prevented forks by using the GPL. Now they're still worried not about forks, but alternative clean-room implementations such as J++, Classpath, and Harmony.
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
Users love open source software not so much because it is free, but because they can have control over what they are using.I agree with sentence.Users always hope to change the software according to their need.
Java Software
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
> Users love open source software not so much because> it is free, but because they can have control over
> what they are using.
> I agree with sentence.Users always hope to change the
> software according to their need.
Let's take the firefox web browser as an example. What percentage of firefox users do you think chose it for their ability to change the code? What percentage do you think actually make their own changes to the code?
I'd guess that maybe 0.1% of firefox users would say they like it because they can change the code and maybe 0.00001% actually do change it.
In general, my guess is that this is one of the many open-source urban legends. I think that for most open source software, people use it because they like the product and it's free. And by "most" here, I don't mean 60%, I mean 99% or above. I know I use lots of open source, and I've almost never changed any of it, and I'm even a developer!
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
> In general, my guess is that this is one of the many> open-source urban legends.
I agree, and this was not the point I was making in that JavaOne session.
> I think that for most open
> source software, people use it because they like the
> product and it's free.
Rather than the individual user, I was speaking about IT managers and their motivations for using open source. I assert that IT managers may like the savings on license fees, but they love the control open source gives them over their installations. That control only applies, of course, if the open source software they are using is substitutable (has multiple sources of support or implements open standards sufficiently faithfully to allow alternative implementations to be used).
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
> My question: Is altruism and political ideology as> insignificant as Phipps seems to think it is? I think
> altruism and wanting a better world is a key to open
> source. Am I being naive? Any thoughts.
Actually I don't say either is insignificant. A tendency to altruism is common and helpful in Free and open source communities and most of the great leaders have it as a strong motivation. I am passionate about "software freedom" as well - you'll find strong signs of that in most things I write as well as in the vocabulary Sun's marketing people use.
I'm not of the view, however, that either is a vital primary argument in advocating the use of FOSS in a business environment. In fact, both tend to distract business IT people from the real facts. Since that was the point of the JavaOne session the author of the article attended, the points made revolve around the practical dynamics of open source rather than the ideology behind it.
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
> > I think that for most open> > source software, people use it because they like
> the
> > product and it's free.
>
> Rather than the individual user, I was speaking about
> IT managers and their motivations for using open
> source. I assert that IT managers may like the
> savings on license fees, but they love the control
> open source gives them over their installations. That
> control only applies, of course, if the open source
> software they are using is substitutable (has
> multiple sources of support or implements open
> standards sufficiently faithfully to allow
> alternative implementations to be used).
I'm sure you talk to a lot more CIOs and IT managers than I do, so I'll defer to you on what they're thinking.
But speaking as just one little voice-from-the-trenches developer, I can tell you what I see. We developers use whatever software we want: email client, browser, source control, etc. We're then surprised to find if the company even has an "official" package that we're supposed to be using. So the CIOs and IT managers might not be making as many decisions as they think they are
At one company I worked for that was very much top-down control oriented, they did make it very difficult to use whatever software you wanted. I had to jump through hoops to get Java on my PC, for example. Even then, the rationale wasn't an issue of "open source gives us alternatives", but rather one of security ("we, the IT dept, need to ensure that you don't download a virus") and support ("we don't know Java and can't help you if you need it").
I'm sure end-user IT depts are different from the development-shop IT depts I've seen. But even in an end-user IT dept, suppose have have application XYZ running on Websphere x.y.z on top of Red Hat Linux x.y.z on Sun XYZ hardware. I would think they're using that particular app server and OS because that's an environment that the app officially supports.
One more point...you say the IT managers love open source for the control, but the control only applies if the app is substitutable. It may be that "substitutable" may be a minimum requirement, and "open source" has nothing to do with it. For example, both the Apache web server and IIS fully substitutable - both always have and always will fully support the HTTP standard. Yet IIS is doing fine (see netcraft.com).
So substitutability is just one of many factors along with price, support, features, etc. Is "Open source" in that list of factors? I don't know, but I haven't seen any convincing evidence that it is. And open source is not a prerequisite for substitutability.
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
"Is altruism and political ideology as insignificant as Phipps seems to think it is? I think altruism and wanting a better world is a key to open source. Am I being naive? Any thoughts."My own world view values altruism on my own part and on the part of others. I think open source ties in nicely with this perspective. The real value of open source to humanity is that each project is a contribution to a universal body of knowledge.
I'll use the analogy of building a bridge. A bridge to where? A bridge to Utopia, enlightenment, Zen, Terabithia, the end of evolution bell curve...wherever! Wherever we want to go, open source can take us there. Each open source project is a brick. Each brick fits perfectly with all the other bricks. We can put these bricks together to build a bridge. Each brick depends on those below it and assists those above it. Each brick is important in it's own right but much more important in the context of the bridge.
You have to see the bridge to understand the value of open source. Closed source software companies are also in the brick business. The problem is that they only see the bricks and the short term profit made for selling bricks. They see only the bricks and not the bridge. The bricks produced by closed source companies are the wrong shape, type or color to fit into the open source bridge.
Sometimes, these odd bricks are used to start building other bridges, but these bridges never get built beyond the level of the riverbed. In a short time, builders desert these bridges and they are forgotten. Sometimes deserting closed source brick layers come to work on the open source bridge and find they like the work, and they stay. Work on the open source bridge never falters.
The longer we build, the more bricks we lay, the further away we get from wherever it is we're ultimately trying get to. Paradoxically, this is a positive thing. Put another way; the demand for bricks will *never* wane. The opposite is true. The more we build the bridge, the more bricks we need to extend the bridge even further, to get to the next exit on the highway to...wherever we want to go.
There will *always* be a demand for open source bricks. And, because we've been building the bridge for years now, the structure of the bridge has become complex. We need skilled engineers and construction workers to keep building the bridge. Society will pay good money for people with these skills.
I'm sure some people will read this and shake their heads. They don't get it. That's OK. The open source community knows it's a pretty good millenium to be an open source brick layer.
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
> My question: Is altruism and political ideology as> insignificant as Phipps seems to think it is? I think
> altruism and wanting a better world is a key to open
> source. Am I being naive? Any thoughts.
There is a room for both attitudes in Open Source world. If I write Open Source code to make the world a better place it doesn't matter for me what are the motives of others to do so. It is OK for me if they earn money with my code. I have published my thesis as open source and it was pure altruism than. Today I work on another open source project and it is a business for me. And I don't see conflict here.
Altruists! Raise your hand those who would say no to $1000 offer to spend 1-2 hours to help out with the open source piece of code you have written!
Mark
http://www.sourcekibitzer.org/Bio.ext?sp=l8
Re: maybe Sun should take this to heart
I think Sun believes they've prevented forks by using the GPL.But Phipps just argued that even if you choose the Apache license, forks aren't a problem, so he is saying that Sun didn't need to GPL the code to prevent forks, they could have used the Apache license.
Furthermore, nothing in the GPL prevents people from making incompatible forks.
Now they're still worried not about forks, but alternative clean-room implementations such as J++, Classpath, and Harmony.
Classpath is a GPL+Classpath-licensed implementation itself and they are busy reusing whatever bits and pieces of Sun's release are useful and discarding the rest. And they are not going to care at all about what Sun wants them to do.
The interesting technology is IKVM, which will be greatly improved using Sun's release. Think about it: any .NET and Mono developer can stay in the environment they already know and like, yet transparently use any Java library without any porting effort or even source code.
Re: Simon Phipps on Open Source Communities
In general, my guess is that this is one of the many open-source urban legends.No, the "urban legend" is that the percentage of users that actually change the code matters.
I think that for most open source software, people use it because they like the product and it's free.
Quite right. And the reason they like the product is because open source causes products to have the features users want and not have the features users dislike. Unlike Windows, systems like Gnome, KDE, and Firefox aren't loaded with adware, trial-ware and lock-in features because it's impossible to maintain those in open source software.
What makes open source so powerful is the possibility of changing and forking the source code; it never has to be realized to be effective.