Open Source Could Learn from Capitalism 385
ukhackster writes to tell us that Sun's Simon Phipps challenged many open source ideals at a recent open source conference in London. Urging the open source community to look to the lessons of capitalism, Phipps called for "volunteerism" to be replaced with "directed self-interest" and denounced the perceived legal issues surrounding open source. From the article: "Phipps took time out to take a swipe at some of the exhibitors at the conference who were selling professional advice on negotiating the open source 'legal minefield'. 'I disagree with those who say who say open source is a legal minefield,' he said as he threw from the stage a brochure from one firm of lawyers. 'If you think open source is a minefield you're doing it wrong.'"
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
FOSS is what it is. In some ways, it's capitalist, in others, it's communist, in others, it's volunteerist. That's really the beauty of the movement; you get out of it what you want to get out of it, and you put into it what you want to put into it.
Maybe that's anarchy. Or maybe that's just another way of saying "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The question is, why does it matter?
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Err, correction (Score:3, Insightful)
(O/T: You would think the Slashdot maintainers would eventually catch on and let people edit posts.)
Re:Err, correction (Score:3, Informative)
But bear in mind that the GNU system _was_ made in order to protect freedom.
Free Software _is_ about protecting freedom.
Open Source isn't, it's about writing software, for fun _or_ profit.
I care more about free software, but I think it's great when people do it for the money, but don't choose to restrict your freedom.
Re:editing posts (Score:3, Insightful)
it's not rocket science, folks.
Re:editing posts (Score:5, Informative)
Before replies, before moderation, and before a few minutes have passed. Also, you'd need to block moderation of very recently edited comments. And a cost of one point off the starting score for the comment.
It's unlikely to ever be implemented though, because their stance on letting people delete their comments [slashdot.org] would probably apply to editing as well:
rocket science (Score:5, Informative)
Re:rocket science (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a nice idea, but it's not very practical. We can't all be Spinoza's and mathematically deduce an comprehensive framework of ethics in our spare time. Mathematicians reduce complex problems to problems that have already been solved. To illustrate:
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Why, sure you can! It's easy: just start with the Golden Rule (assuming you accept it as a postulate) and go from there.
It works for me, and I didn't have to invent any mythology to support it!
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure this contributes something deeply insightful to the debate, but I'm damned if I can work out what.
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen to that. It is not necessary for us to create unique and genuinely new philosophies in order for us to make our own decisions. Accepting someone else's philosophy wholesale is never healthy. You must always think critically, or you are not really thinking at all. Blindly adopting someone else's beliefs doesn't make them your beliefs, even if you act like it does. It makes you a sheep.
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't appear that Mr. Phipps is advocating blind acceptance of capitalism. Instead he's saying, look at the lessons of capitalism and capitalists and take the positive lessons from that. It's right in the article.
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
I am advocating a position of cynicism, in the ancient Greek school of philosophy context, not the modern context where it is closer to nihilism. Do not believe or disbelieve anything, merely weight the possiblities based on all the other ideas one has considered. Doing this, one can take the best parts from all philosophies and moral systems one encounters and discard the garbage.
isn't that actually called 'eclecticism'? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
WTF?
Do you really believe that, or are you just trolling?
As far as I know, Stallman has nothing against capitalism. He just believes that ideas are not capital but can be the result of capitalism - just like a full belly or a feeling of happiness can be the result of capitalist production but are not capital themselves.
Isms abound (Score:2)
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
Not nearly as bad as the people who try to categorize others incorrectly. Stallman doesn't think that it's wrong to make money selling Free Software. To the contrary, he actively encourages people to do so. Just read the FSF's essay on selling Free Software [fsf.org]. For people who can't bother to follow the link, a salient quote is (emphasis is from the original):
That doesn't seem like somebody who's opposed to capitalism.
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
0. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
1. The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
2. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
3. The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The FSF supports any (legitimate) business/revenue model which respects these four freedoms.
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Who would want to get involved with open source if it were about donating your time and skills to help some company acquire wealth? If this were true, you would lose the community.
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, because that statement alone could be interpreted as Christian, Marxist, and Capitalist all at the same time.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a slogan popularized by Karl Marx. It was derived from two parts of the Book of Acts in the Bible, Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 4:34-35, describing the system set up amongst the apostles. And in a more general sense, the statement comports with capitalist ideas of individual agency and self-interest.
Re:Missing the point (Score:2, Interesting)
That is interesting and you are certainly right that the language is similar. I wasn't aware there was similar language in the Bible.
It's somewhat amusing that a Jewish Communist drew his rhetorical inspiration from the Christian New Testament.
Re:Missing the point (Score:2, Flamebait)
Certainly more amusing than what happened whenever somebody tried to implement his ideas without the faith-based component...
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth of it is, that the problems arise whenever someone tries to mandate a religion, be it christianity, islam, or atheism. The excesses you attribute to communisim are no worse than those found in many theocracies.
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Religion is just a convenient scapegoat. The problem is not religion or communism or any other -ism. The problem is intolerance. When people who do not like other people, for whatever reason, gain enough power to persecute those they dislike they will reach for any justification that is h
Re:Missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
100% perfection in wrongness. (Score:3, Insightful)
Man, that's a good one. Look, in a market situation, you may have abilities you don't feel like selling, and you may have needs you can't possibly meet (or, far more likely, a wildly distorted sense of the word "need" means - as in, "I really need that new Sony console.").
Any system
Re:got that backwards.... (Score:2)
Re:got that backwards.... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is incorrect. In microeconomics or Econ 101 or whatever introductory econ course you end up taking, you'll learn that one of the assumptions of an ideal capitalist system is something called Perfect Information [wikipedia.org] in which every consumer has correct and comprehensive knowledge of the product they are looking to buy. Scamming someone violates the idea of "perfect information" and is the reason we have anti-fraud
Re:got that backwards.... (Score:5, Insightful)
As an aside- anti-fraud laws predate Adam Smith and the idea of perfect information. SO no, its not the reason we have anti-fraud laws.
Re:got that backwards.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which definition are you using, exactly? Here's one from the dictionary:
"An economic system based on a free market, open competition, profit motive and private ownership of the means of production. Capitalism encourages private investment and business, compared to a government-controlled economy. Investors in these private companies (i.e. shareholders) also own the firms and are k
Re:got that backwards.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Eh? How's that? I think you really need to read Marx, Engels, and Feuerbach - and Smith, Hayek, and Friedman too - and forget the 50's "Reds under the bed"-influenced education/indoctrination you've received. Time to stop conflating Leninism, Stalinism, Communism, and Socialism, too...
Somebody upthread brough up the concept of "Perfect Information", and added "Scamming someon
Values (Score:2)
I'm looking in vain for something concrete that Phipps thinks FOSS "could learn" from capitalism... wish I had the complete text. Open source has always -- to me -- been about having more [badosa.com] capitalists
Re:Missing the point (Score:2)
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
On broader terms, this sort of developments in society worry me in general. Certainly the market is good at some things, and people are at least partly motivated by self-interest, and it's fine with me. However, I am getting the feeling that more and more we are being shoe-horned into mandatorily self-interested behavioural models, simply because some powerful people believe that this is the way things "should" work. This kind of thinking can eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy -- people will eventually forget that alternative models of behaviour actually EXIST, even though they may be perfectly viable choices. Thus higher ideals like altruism and advancing the general good get edged out "just because" and because you have to play by their rules if you want to play at all. This is nicely demonstrated by all the ad hominem attacks against co-operatively behaving people branding them as "Communists" who seek to destroy Western civilization. Soon basic decency is going to be a thought-crime as it reduces the competitiveness of a society and "is bad for the economy".
OSS is, to me, similar to the way science is done through open discourse. It's a joint, open effort to create something cool. No amount of money would actually help me do any better at writing the hobby code I write, because I don't believe that my talents and abilities increase with pay -- in the world of work it tends to be the other way around. The point is that most OSS people are motivated by the project they are involved, not the peripheral benefits they may derive from its commercial success... of course, this is beyond the grasp of all-monetizing bean-counters.
Re:Missing the point (Score:2)
I call shenanigans.
I'm not getting what I want out of FOSS, even though I've been putting in all I want for years.
Re:Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how Sun is going to survive this. My fear is that on the way down they'll become the next SCO, because they have been talking the way Caldera did on its way down.
Bruce
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to disagree with you on that. Having purchased a fair amount of Sun hardware in my day, I never chose Sun for it's systems programming. We picked Sun because of a) rock solid hardware and b) excellent support. I mainly designed Oracle systems, so I could care less (over exagerating) about the OS, Oracle ran/runs on all the big ones. We could just as easily chosen an HP-UX, or DEC VAX, or SGI system. That said, that was then, when mid
Reporter missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
In fact I said and routinely say nothing of the sort. Matt Asay does a fine job of summarising the main points I made [infoworld.com], which you will note do not include claiming "open source could learn from capitalism". In fact I wonder if the other reporter was even at the same event. Reading through the whole thread here I'm amazed that people feel they can come to any conclusions about what I think based on an intentionally provocative and ill-informed article by a ZDNet reporter who badly summarises the thrust of my keynote in reported speech apparently intended to garner Slashdot coverage.
And I disagree with your outdated analysis of Sun, naturally.
New Sun (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I decided to stay at Sun because in my personal opinion the company has found a new direction and energy under new leadership [sun.com], focussing on providing the systems to deliver the next generation of computing in a world where open source is dominant. I think the company is returning to its roots and heading in the right direction at last.To give you some examples:
Doubtless there are plenty on Slashdot who'll come over to throw rocks, but I'm very pleased all this and more is happening as there was a time not so long ago when I would not have been so positive (or keen to stay). As it is (and regardless of what Bruce may say), I'm proud to be running Sun's open source strategy on the watch where Sun's Java implementations all go open source.
Re:"Right to use" is here to stay. (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you're missing the point of what I'm saying - I in fact agree with you. What I am saying is that, in a world where one can no longer charge for the right to use software, the only place there is left to earn a living is by providing value to the software user at the point where they need it. I have explained this in detail before [sun.com] but essentially what I my "Software Market 3.0" point says is that once Freedom 0 is guaranteed, business models based on restrictions on use can no longer work, and all busin
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Freedom (Score:2)
Re:Freedom (Score:3, Funny)
You know, it's possible that you're right, but personally if I were trying to make people think freedom were not important, the first word of my new name for Free software wouldn't be Free .
As such, I think you're on crack.
Whining capitalist .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any good capitalist will trumpet their value based on supply and demand. Then when someone decides to give something away they'll cry like babies. Remember the banks suing the credit unions.
Yes absoluetly people have the right to make free software. And as long as dedicated hobbyists are willing to give it away for the sake of personal satisfaction and being able to control their tools, the corporate guys are going to have to work harder.
Re:Whining capitalist .... (Score:2)
I'm not anti-capitalist ... (Score:2)
I'm not anti-capitalist. I'm a "fair trader" who believes in a refereed marketplace where rules are maintained in order enforce basic ethics and preserve the "multi-producer"/"multi-buyer" model (the only way capitalism can work).
What disgusts me are these coyotes who eat other peoples lunches like crazy claiming it was there brilliance. Then when someone comes along and says "I can do that for free" they run to the courts and Congress and attempt to create regulatory barriers (that they previously decrie
Re:I'm not anti-capitalist ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo. And yet how many who loudly proclaim to love the free market are also in love with copyrights and patents? And how many advise to let the market solve the problem when people point out issues with goods protected by copyrights or patents.
all the best,
drew
(da idea man)
Re:Whining capitalist .... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand, are you calling him a bad capitalist, or are you saying that a capitalist wouldn't give away the source code? Because neither is the case. Capitalists give things away all the time--sales, promotions, loyalty rewards, bonus miles, etc. Open source is just one more way of involving your consumers. Think Darwin and Apple. This highly suc
Re:Whining capitalist .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple gave away the source code to Darwin and reaped the very same returns that every other OSS project reaps. I see no contradiction between Apple's capitalist decision to open-source their kernel, and any other project's decision to open-source. Apple did expect to make more in return, but indirectly, through having a better kern
Re:Whining capitalist .... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are maliging capitalists here unfairly. In a free market, if someone wishes to release something free of charge, they can. Anyone who whines and cries out for "regulation" or about "unfair competition" is not really into capitalisim. However, what you illustrate by that example, is not capitalists crying foul, but pe
Open Source is not communism (Score:5, Insightful)
Last time I checked, many open source people were pretty capitalistic. I guess the rumor keeps floating around that everybody's a commie or something, but it simply isn't true. I'm a laissez-faire capitalist, and therefore I love open source.
Phipps called for "volunteerism" to be replaced with "directed self-interest"
When you really get down to it, there's no difference. People "volunteer" because they get something out of it, whether it be financial, utility, entertainment, or the satisfaction of simply "making the world a better place."
Re:Open Source is not communism (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, there's nothing about Capitalism (a term made up by Marx, BTW...) that says people can't do things for free or out of the goodness of their hearts. In fact, in Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith says that beneficence is an important aspect of a successful free market environment. Currently, the U.S. has a mixed-economy that a lot of people like to call Capitalism, but is actually much closer to the Mercantilism that Smith was writing against. In a free market society, you're welcome to live on a commune if you choose, but you're not free to buy & sell as you wish under Communism...
Re:Open Source is not communism (Score:3, Funny)
Scratching an itch... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Directed self-interest" (Score:5, Insightful)
The same applies to companies - Sun didn't make OO.org open-source out of the goodness of its heart; it did so to strike back at Microsoft.
There shouldn't be the firm line Phipps draws between volunteerism and "directed self-interest" - they're interelated. They always have been. They probably always will be.
Re:"Directed self-interest" (Score:2)
Re:"Directed self-interest" (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:3, Insightful)
kept up with inflation. Outside the US, the situation is even worse in the majority of cases in those countries that have followed the so-called free market solutions to economic and social problems. Meanwhile, as the majority hang out to dry, the profits for those involved in capitalism proper, eg capital instensive ventures, have doubled dozens of times over. The only lesson capitalism seems to offer is that under a capitalist system, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. How long does it take this guy to get that lesson?
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:2, Insightful)
Life is what you make of it (Score:2)
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:2)
And not only humanity but life by itself, it is the food chain and the basic rule of life to survive by eliminating others. I have always thought how this so called "reasoning" beings are the ones that kill for other things than self preservation.
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:2, Insightful)
Competition destroys intrinsic motivation. People are motivated to do things for personal reasons that have little to do with competition. When competition reigns supreme, th
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:4, Funny)
So what you are saying is we need to keep an eye on those damned bees.
Damn! I knew it! All that buzzing and fuzziness is just a front!
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) How do our cells compete to distribute resources?
An interesting essay [bcm.edu] proposes that cells use competition as a means to determine which functions, which organs, which tissues, and what features are developed. Otherwise we would be a blob of millions of identical undifferentiated cells with identical genes. Or a cancer, if you like. Certain cells, like bone, need calcium more than certain cells need lipids, like fat, or protien, like muscles. This competition for resources would allow different cells to develop differently, in a way reducing competition by specializing into different cells with different requirements, with the end results that you have a heart and bones and blood and fat and muscle.
2) Why do cells die when told to?
Some forms of cell death [wikipedia.org] are critical to development of features such as fingers, in which the spaces between fingers die and fall away. It is a form of survival enhancement in the same way kin selection selects for altruistic behavior. A creature born with a functional heart, because certain nerves and muscles and fats died when told to, survived while a creature born without a functional heart died.
3) Cells that only compete have a name: cancer
That is entirely too simplistic. Cancer is many things, not only competing. Cancer cells have to cooperate to create the necessary environment necessary for cancer growth, such as the development of additional blood vessels, supports, and metastasizing. Cancer cells are like normal cells, but more so
4) One flora or fauna overwhelming the rest is the end result of competition, not cooperation!
The fact is that when there is multiple flora or fauna competing, no single flora or fauna can overwhelm the system because they keep each other in check. If they did not keep each other in check, if they did not compete but instead gave up, then you get gastrointestinal infections and other diseases. As long as there is competition no one can overwhelm, by the very definition of competition.
5) People are not intrinisically motivated by competition.
So if I can offer proof of one individual intrinisically motivated by competition, your assertion is proven wrong. Here is my proof, and I use me, because I am a person and I am motivated by competition. I like knowing I am smarter, I like knowing I am right, and this is my reward for posting on Slashdot, in which moderators might see my brilliance and mod me up for other people to see my posts and read my words. I compete with other Slashdot posters for moderation points.
6) There is no proof that competition motivates people to greater heights. There is no proof that in a cooperative environment people would get barely enough to survive. Rather than addressing my legitimate points, you are just making shit up.
Again I apologize, I should have made it more clear I was being facetious, sarcastic, and mocking. My real point is lost in the noise, I was trying to point out that competition and cooperation both are needed. Cooperation is a valid survival and success strategy. Two people together may survive where two people competing might not. However two people competing may achieve more than two people cooperating because the reward and competition incites more out of the people. I think we need both.
I was never trying to invalidate you, merely show you as being hyperbolic. Cooperation is necessary. So is competition.
You ask a serious question: "Why do corporations never use internal competition between divisions"?
My answer, "Because cooperation is the more successful strategy in
Facts? I Think Not (Score:3, Insightful)
- made the US the sole world superpower
- made the West's standard of living what it is
- is responsible for almost every useful innovation of the last 2 centuries
- is lifting 100s of millions out of poverty in China and India
- is the single explanation of the vast economic chasm between North and South Korea
- etc and so on
*and* offers no alternative, yet is already at +4 Insightful.
Nice.
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:2, Insightful)
Except that is not capitalism. College educations provided by the state is a type of socialism. Wages, especially minimum wages and the inflation that inflicts upon the rest of the wages, is another type of socialism. Inflation is another beast entirely, an effect of economics and technology as well as interest and growth.
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:3, Insightful)
In the last twenty years there has been a significant increase in the number of college-educated U.S. workers. As the supply goes up, the price of their labor (i.e. wages) goes down. Only because demand for college-educated works has also gone up has their real wage level remained constant.
Re:Here's the facts on capitalism. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not the fault of Capitalism as it is the fault of Interest. Interest is how money makes money without doing any work -- it is the basis for the trueism "it takes money to make money", and it is the principal means by which the divide between the rich and the poor is widened.
Doing away with Interest wouldn't entirely eliminate the problems you describe, but it would certainly re
it's not about capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the kind of pressure found in a market economy completly apply to open source. Developpers will migrate from one project to another as interest and popularity shifts etc. There is an evolutionnary process very similar to the one found between businesses in market economy, only it is much faster and smoother due to the conditions guaranteeing freedom. Indeed capitalism could learn from open source.
Re:it's not about capitalism (Score:3, Interesting)
That gets the developers what the developers want. No project, commercial or free, is going to gain much traction if there isn't a commitment to maintain it for an acceptable amount of time. Also, any need that isn't popular among developers may simply be ignored because there's no incentie. I think the OSS movement could use more "bounty coding", though I don't know if that's going to get quality code or not, becau
Is this a revelation? (Score:3, Informative)
How does Open Source not fit into capitalism? (Score:5, Informative)
Here is an article how Linux IS Capitalist [lewrockwell.com]
He may be right (Score:5, Insightful)
The open source people are pragmatists. They actually do, for the most part, rely on self interest to get the job done. IBM doesn't really care about the politics behind free software; they just care that it does the job at the lowest cost. There is nothing wrong with this.
For the most part, this distinction doesn't really matter. Those of us in the free software movement who work towards the volunteerism and ideals can work in harmony with those who are directed by self-interest. The only thing that we need to agree on is the license the code is using. The license doesn't require you to buy in to any politics to use the code. Stallman doesn't make you buy into his rhetoric before you get a copy of binutils. This is the great thing about F/OSS; anyone can contribute for any reason, and we all gain from the contribution.
'If you think open source is a minefield (Score:3, Funny)
Phipps could learn from real capitalism (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey, don't ask for capitalism if you can't live under it's rules yourself.
Linux is capitalistic (Score:4, Insightful)
The Battle for Merit as self interest (Score:2)
Directed Selfishness (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Someone gets paid some money by some group or project to write some code.
2) Another person who also wrote code for the project but didn't get paid says "I want mine!"
3) The whole project folds as some idiot starts equating pay to the number-of-lines-written multiplied by the moeny-per-line-of-code of the first person.
People, if you want to write software for money, get a job. If you want to write software because you think the project is neat and/or worth you while, donate your time.
Same goes for volunteering in other things. The world could use our help - for free.
Pretty ideas that are completely beside the point (Score:4, Insightful)
We disagree on what the definition of open source "prosperity" is. Phipps, as a executive, is thinking entirely in terms of financial prosperity.But what's valuable for Phipps isn't necessarily valuable for open source. In other words, open source's value lies not in the revenues it earns(though that may be what makes it valuable to the private sector), but in the degree to which it is truly open. It is valuable because its sole concern is making available useful products that anyone - not just companies - can modify to suit their needs. As such, it doesn't obey any rigid economic rules or favor any particular economic entity. It is agile, and adapts to many different market circumstances.
I'm not entirely sure, but I think that Phipps' argument here is dangerous for open source. "Connected self-interest" is not something that easily preserves openness. If we take his advice, I see open source gradually being appropriated by private entities to the extent that it becomes indistinguishable from a proprietary product to the outsider. Most corporations tend towards proprietarizing - it fits into a basic principle of capitalism(ownership). This has always been the case, and it runs in direct opposition to the openness which open source seeks to preserve. In any case, until intellectual property and licensing laws are revised, it will be very difficult to achieve the vision for open source of "connected capitalism" that Phipps has, since he seems to be ignoring the whole element of market *competition* and why it creates concerns over what constitutes private property.Open source may be a part of how companies make revenue, but open source *itself* should remain mostly independent and non-profit. That's the only way to preserve its openness, IMHO.
What lessons? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now what lessons would those be? Sacrificing quality to meet shipping schedules? Or butchering established standards to ensure that competing products cannot interoperate? Or ignoring security fixes to disable the latest workaround to copy protection because the first only protects customers and their data while the latter increases company profits?
Phipps called for "volunteerism" to be replaced with "directed self-interest"
He is ignoring the fact that any participation in open source is directed self-interest. Keeping myself free is a self-interest; keeping my computer and its abilities under my control is a self-interest; being able to design hardware and write software free of all the shlock mentioned above is a self-interest. Working as a wage-slave for some company that will pay me pennies but make millions from my designs is volunteerism of the basest sort.
Re:What lessons? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now what lessons would those be? Sacrificing quality to meet shipping schedules? Or butchering established standards to ensure that competing products cannot interoperate? Or ignoring security fixes to disable the latest workaround to copy protection because the first only protects customers and their data while the latter increases company profits?
I don't really have a stake in this argument. But I'd say that you have just pointed out a number of ways open source has already listened to capitalism.
EULAs (Score:3, Interesting)
The assertion that a EULA can be indefinitely scoped is the most unbounded liability in the entire product marketplace.
--Dan
Re:EULAs (Score:3, Interesting)
So the GPL is a Distribution (of Copies of Copyrighted Materials) License Agreement, not an End-User License Agreement.
To correct your analogy, the GPL would say that you can't copy and modify the intellectual property embedded in the car and sell it, without allowing others to do the same. A typical
typical Sun spin (Score:3, Insightful)
But Phipps is wrong when he generically says "there is nothing wrong with self-interest". Con-men act in self-interest, but their actions are not beneficial to society at large. And, in fact, Sun's misrepresentation of the Java licenses and the JCP are an example of how, if you fail to balance your self-interest with ethical behavior, you end up screwing your customers and hurting the community; Sun's self-interest has amounted to establishing a proprietary platform by pretending that it's open, and extracting hundreds of man-years of contributions to a proprietary platform under the false pretense that what these people are creating is "open".
As Sun's business keeps going down the toilet, you can expect more and more of this kind of spin from Schwartz, Phipps, and the other talking heads at Sun. It's clever of them to have their "open source officer" make these statements and attempt to reinforce the stereotype of open source developers as anti-capitalist dreamers. Phipps only needs to look at his company's failing business to see how much open source means business. I'm really looking forward to that company closing its doors.
"Software and Related Services" (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes he sells the software, which is a bit like selling a copy of a textbook.
And sometimes the software is free; that's more like an exercise book.
It's usually the warranty; the proposition that my employer will move heaven and earth to keep a client up and running, if he has paid the insurance premium; that's the valuable part.
Nothing to do with capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
He clearly means that it should be okay to not 'share' code as long as the commons is 'enriched'. This is an argument for proprietary software, thinly cloaked. My bet is that he's thinking of licenses that say "You can look at the source code and modify it to fix bugs for your use, and even distribute those bug fixes, but you may not use it to produce a product that competes with ours" - sure, it's better than what they used to offer, but it is just not good enough. It's not free software, it's slightly less painful proprietary software. It's Java - join their developer program and you can see the code, and submit bug fixes, but you can't share the code with anybody.
Here he's arguing that people shouldn't be reimplementing Java (as kaffe, sablevm, etc), but instead 'cooperating' with Sun and working on Sun's proprietary implementation of it. That's what this is probably all about. Sun don't want to release Java as free software, they just want the community to help them develop it.
The message here is: free software is bad, stop doing it because we don't want to play and that means competing implementations which is bad for everyone.
Even the anti-freedom 'pragmatists' would have to admit that it's not really a very convincing message. Creating and maintaining a completely independent code base is, all else aside, ensuring that there is always competition so Sun will continue having to work to stay ahead of them.
Nothing to do with my views (Score:5, Informative)
I am fascinated by the words you are putting into my mouth here. The things you claim I said are pretty much the opposite of what I believe - I suppose that's what happens when you use reported speech from a clueless journalist as truth. The journalist really didn't understand what I was saying.
Absolutely not. In the talk I explain clearly that those who do not share their work lose out. Keeping source to yourself benefits no-one and the whole point of that part of the talk was to explain why attempting to withhold work from the community was a mistake.
Absolutely wrong. See above.
It's hard to see how you possibly be further from my view. If I thought free software was bad, I would not have licensed the OpenOffice.org source under LGPL, for example, and I would not be directing the staff at Sun to take Sun's entire software portfolio open source.
Horrible description. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you serious? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:We seem to be forgetting ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Patents were originally a way to induce inventors to share their discoveries with the public. The requirement for a patent is that the method be detailed and published publically. In return for revealing this information the inventor received a short-term monopoly (14-20 years) on the production of their invention--