From: edki...@my-dejanews.com Subject: Open Source Software Date: 1998/07/29 Message-ID: <hpo19980729172454$6213@news.cso.uiuc.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 376055780 Approved: tskirvin+...@math.uiuc.edu X-Mail-Path: relay7.UU.NET!homer.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!n...@dejanews.com X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.200.21.194 X-Group-Homepage: <URL:http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/tskirvin/hpo/> X-Original-To: humanities-philosophy-objectiv...@moderators.isc.org X-Modbot: Mackie the HPO ModBot X-HTTP-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (Win95; I) Processed-By: Mackie the HPO ModBot <tskir...@uiuc.edu> X-Submissions-To: tskirvin+...@math.uiuc.edu X-Original-Path: not-for-mail Organization: VeriMod (<URL:http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/tskirvin/verimod/>) X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Jul 29 17:24:39 1998 GMT X-Auth: PGPMoose V1.1 PGP humanities.philosophy.objectivism iQCVAwUBNb9a5otwLG25AQfZAQG7JwP/VtCiaD8hLfSUYz6sncIWagHGJK1Kgu/c b0pgd6E8J+xuUzwtiM6l6oVEh3IjaLujxKUtYqHoz2pBzAiqg4DmqVCsgvXVmoyk ZgcJ6d3IzlsB8sxvjmwAEkghdVUnElnbr2QN3fa9Rt4ImgD7hlW0UEzaVWIgPtZq Qxp7tzeYXEE= =jFSZ X-Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-No-Confirm: yes - automatic Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism If you want a perfect example of how evil is a parasite that leeches off of good, take a good look at Open Source (http://www.opensource.org/). The Open Source philosophy represents an extension of the collectivist-altruist philosophy of the Free Software Foundation (http://www.fsf.org/). Open Source and the FSF both claim to be compatible with capitalism while abolishing software ownership (private property). This is a contradiction. To be Open Source, a computer program has to meet two criteria: 1. Users have to be able to look at the program's source code (the preferred form for making modifications to it), customize and/or fix it, and share their modifications. 2. Anybody must be able to sell copies of the program or give them away. The first criterion gives Open Source software its many objectively validated good qualities, such as reliability, trustworthiness, security, and performance. Letting people see your code, while maintaining control over it yourself, makes good programming sense. Howard Roark, after all, didn't conceal the internal structures of his buildings; he always accepted the advice of those who taught him how to improve them while fully respecting his aims (as Cameron did). Roark also didn't tell people how to live in his buildings. The second criterion is evil. Any programmer who follows it basically is saying it's OK for people to copy his software, and even make money copying it. Why should he let them? Only the FSF answers the question, and they answer it with altruism-collectivism: "Don't you want to help the community?" Open Source evades the question mostly, and the rest of the time claims that #2 is necessary for #1, which is false. Modifications can always be separated from what they modify; telling people how to change something isn't the same as giving them a copy to change. (There _are_ good selfish reasons to give away code -- like trying to establish a de-facto standard, or showing people how to program new hardware, or advertising, or, in the case of a beginner, seeking opinions and guidance from the net about how to write the program. But not all programs allow you to selfishly give them away.) It seems to me that "Open Source" would lose nothing by dropping the second requirement, and that software companies, e.g. Microsoft, would make more money and produce better products by adopting the first. Microsoft is accused of making buggy software and of deliberately breaking other companies' applications; both these accusations would have no ground to stand on if Microsoft sold their source code. So I intend to sell mine. The reason I've written all this is that for years I've been writing software and then just keeping it, believing that it's too cheap to sell and too valuable to give away. I've been debating whether to go Open Source or not; I've been debating it since before I discovered Objectivism and since before I'd ever heard of the FSF or Open Source. The above is the reasoning behind my current decision. If there are any omissions or errors in my reasoning, I'd like to hear about them. -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
From: Jimbo- Wales <jwa...@MCS.COM> Subject: Re: Open Source Software Date: 1998/07/29 Message-ID: <hpo19980729192131$1053@news.cso.uiuc.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 376088938 Approved: tskirvin+...@math.uiuc.edu X-Mail-Path: relay1.UU.NET!Kitten.mcs.com!jwa...@Jupiter.mcs.net!jwa...@Jupiter.Mcs.Net References: <hpo19980729172454$6213@news.cso.uiuc.edu> X-Group-Homepage: <URL:http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/tskirvin/hpo/> X-Original-To: humanities-philosophy-objectiv...@uunet.uu.net X-Modbot: Mackie the HPO ModBot Processed-By: Mackie the HPO ModBot <tskir...@uiuc.edu> X-Submissions-To: tskirvin+...@math.uiuc.edu X-Original-Path: ddsw1!not-for-mail Organization: VeriMod (<URL:http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/tskirvin/verimod/>) X-Auth: PGPMoose V1.1 PGP humanities.philosophy.objectivism iQCVAwUBNb92O4twLG25AQfZAQH46AP8D8FreraPxx5R38N7eTr9pq8kFFbY2TbW SoetaN3+1aAticpU5NJm6ZsH9uYmD0ncZowT/wqOfY50e1LLlLp0739BWG9dK/eL X8iHEv36McLOfJbdHSHaY91gzdBbuEUlHrE4eU2uh4eP48iqsqYb+h4+tkMTQHN/ 78zCyV33Wx0= =u1oe X-Organization: MCSNet, Chicagoland's finest Internet Service Provider 312-803-6271 X-No-Confirm: yes - automatic Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism <edki...@my-dejanews.com> wrote: >If you want a perfect example of how evil is a parasite that leeches off of >good, take a good look at Open Source (http://www.opensource.org/). > >The Open Source philosophy represents an extension of the >collectivist-altruist philosophy of the Free Software Foundation >(http://www.fsf.org/). Open Source and the FSF both claim to be compatible >with capitalism while abolishing software ownership (private property). This >is a contradiction. I agree with much of what you have written, disagree with some. However, I will grant to you 100% that Richard Stallman's ideas are flat wrong. This may explain why he's been surpassed by more sensible and productive people like Linus Torvalds. It may be true that some open source partisan's are opposed to software ownership -- but this is really coincidental. The entire concept of open source is grounded in a profound respect for _copyrights_. As Linus(if anyone doesn't know who he is, they have thereby proven that they have no business discussing this with us!) recently wrote: "My opinion on licenses is that 'he who writes the code gets to chose his license, and nobody else gets to complain'. Anybody complaining about a copyright license is a whiner." This is the prevalent attitude in the open source community. Notice how radically this departs from Stallman's view that software should not have owners. Notice, too, that despite his anti-property rhetoric, Stallman's brilliant GNU Public License represents a powerful example of property rights in action. (To be consistent, Stallman would advocate placing all software in the public domain. But he agrees (implicitly) with Linus: if you wrote the software, you get to say what is done with it.) >To be Open Source, a computer program has to meet two criteria: > >1. Users have to be able to look at the program's source code (the > preferred form for making modifications to it), customize and/or > fix it, and share their modifications. > >2. Anybody must be able to sell copies of the program or give them away. [discussion of favorable consequences of (1) omitted] >The second criterion is evil. Any programmer who follows it basically >is saying it's OK for people to copy his software, and even make money >copying it. Why should he let them? Linus's answer? "World Domination -- Fast" Don't confuse the altruism often expressed in Richard Stallman's writings with the reality that is making open source dominant. It's worth making a careful study of the differences between the GPL, the LGPL, the FreeBSD license, and the NPL (Netscape). >(There _are_ good selfish reasons to give away code -- like trying to >establish a de-facto standard, or showing people how to program new >hardware, or advertising, or, in the case of a beginner, seeking opinions >and guidance from the net about how to write the program. But not all programs >allow you to selfishly give them away.) Agreed, 100%. I think that most open source developers would agree with you. There is much room for many different licensing models. >So I intend to sell mine. That's fine. This may or may not be the best way to proceed, depending on your purposes. >The reason I've written all this is that for years I've been writing >software and then just keeping it, believing that it's too cheap to >sell and too valuable to give away. I've been debating whether to go >Open Source or not; I've been debating it since before I discovered >Objectivism and since before I'd ever heard of the FSF or Open Source. >The above is the reasoning behind my current decision. Have you ever heard of Paul Vixie (maintainer of DNS/Bind, once was maintainer of sendmail, wrote the most common version of cron, etc.)? He's a big open source guy. And a longtime Objectivist. (used to run objectiv...@vix.com, is on the board and provides webspace for the Objectivism WWW Service, etc.) Take a look at RedHat _as a business_. One article I saw last year said that they had $30 million in revenue in what I imagine is a rather profitable and *fast growing* business. They are doing it by selling open-source software, and they understand the community of programmer/artists who makes their business possible. My view is that Microsoft and others don't realize what's about the hit them. When people look to Apple for competition, they are not realizing what is going on. --Jimbo (typing this to you from RedHat Linux 5.1 / KDE. Also I run a big webserver on FreeBSD/Apache -- using Intel hardware and with the full knowledge that Microsoft's alternatives could not perform nearly as well for me -- despite costing a small fortune!)