In-Depth Coverage of The Future of The Linux Community [panel discussion]

Paul Ferris, Editor
Linux Today

Dec 17, 1999

On Tuesday night, the first night of the Bazaar in New York, I attended a panel discussion between several Open Source and Free Software community members. The discussion provided a chance to allow community under-currents to surface in a public format where open debate of the specifics was encouraged.

I have to add here that there are issues in the Free Software and Open Source communities that are not clear to the uninitiated new-comer. Unless you really understand some of these issues, you would likely be baffled at what is really going on at an event like this.

New-comers to GNU/Linux (further referred to as just plain "Linux") and the Free Software movement will likely be confused at just what the differences are in the context of Open Source as compared to Free Software.

The context to people that mildly understand the issues is likely to seem trivial, while more passionate community members will likely see these issues as having near religious meaning. The overall pall cast by some people outside of the community is one of group of people who are "fragmenting" politically.

But the panel discussion that I witnessed was really quite civilized in a humorous kind of way. It's clear that some of the people on the panel don't like and will not agree with others. Yet there were no verbal fist-fights. It was a public debate and an example of a democratic process.

If we have a strength, it is here. We are the new democracy. We can get upset and exchange heated, sometimes dangerously so, words. Yet things go on, and the movement is still a cohesive one in a very functional way.

The panel discussion membership was made up of Rob Malda, Chris DiBona, Jeff Bates, Eric Raymond, John (Mad Dog) Hall, as moderator, Bruce Perens, Ken Coar and Richard Stallman.

Mad Dog began by asking all of the members to introduce themselves and give a brief overview of what got them started with Free Software.

Chris DiBona
Didn't feel like using Sun workstations and instead used Linux on a laptop, which made him happy. He came to California and joined the silicon valley users group.

Jeff Bates
"Cute Little" (Rob Malda's description) Jeff Bates, site admin for Slashdot, was "infected" with Linux by Rob Malda.

Eric Raymond
A self-described "Wandering anthro philosophical trouble-maker", roving ambassador and author of Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Bruce Perens
Unix systems analyst, since 1981 and a Graphics specialist. Bruce realized that working on Linux was more satisfying than working at Pixar! This point was driven home for him when he realized that he had stuff orbiting in the space shuttle for NASA.

John Mad Dog Hall
Chairman of Linux International. Started using it in May of 1994, when Linus showed it to him.

Ken Coar
Head of the Apache group, the most widely used Web serving software on the face of the planet.

Richard Stallman Founder of the Free Software Foundation.

Richard arrived late, causing a bit of stalling at the beginning of the panel, as everyone was asking where he was. Finally, Mad Dog was forced to start things without him. The introductions were in mid-swing as he jumped up on the stage and said, "Glad I didn't cause a delay."

Richard then proceeded to explain that his credentials were that he founded the GNU system and developed the operating system that most people call "Linux" -- he was emphasizing the fact that "Linux" is actually the kernel of the operating system, which is built with GNU tools.

Unfortunately, this was greeted with more laughter than I believe that Richard was prepared for.

Mad Dog then had everyone announce who they were and how they got here. He explained that he had no questions for everybody, because he didn't think that they were needed. You have to be a bit more intimately involved here to understand that there is a bit of a rift in the political under-currents that represent the Linux "Free Software" style of development.

Mad Dog then told everyone to explain where they thought Open Source was today and where it was headed as far as they were concerned.

Rob Malda started things off by warning that he wasn't a public speaker. He explained that now there were fewer hackers using Linux than actual users. He didn't think that this was a problem because companies that wanted Linux to succeed were now involved and helping out with the forward development of it.

Chris DiBona explained next that as the base of software gets larger it would bring upon an exponential growth. He explained that he has a lot of hope for GNOME and KDE in the object oriented area. He finished by explaining that more people around using a product helps in the bug checking area.

Jeff Bates pointed out that the people who are really hard-core are outnumbered by PHB's. He explained that it's very difficult to deal with non-cultured people from outside the open source movement.

Jeff also expressed the belief that the desktop area would be the next battleground.

"I don't want to tech support my mother" 
[laughter] 
"I know, I love her". 

Jeff expressed a fear that a certain proprietary corporation is making a lot of moves into the college arena and that this is an important battleground. The protests that just took place in Michigan are just the tip of the iceberg. He explained that this will likely be a new area of focus and an important one.

Eric Raymond then explained that our community will not be effected by money because anyone who can be distracted by money is already gone.

He stated that we are not going to run out of new programmers contributing to Linux and Open Source projects because most of the bright people in the world don't even have computers or telephones. Microsoft is not going to be dominating the mainstream computing landscape.

Eric then alluded to a paper he was working upon that has to do with "The seven bullets that Microsoft has to dodge to survive the next 18 months".

He explained that the most severe problem that Microsoft is facing is that they are pricing themselves out of their own markets. He used Windows CE as an example, pointing out that it's so expensive that vendors of hand-held computers cannot make money.

Eric expressed the belief that Microsoft cannot afford to lower their prices because if they don't keep their prices high their employees will buy out.

"Microsoft is not a long term problem". 

Bruce Perens was next in line. He started out by explaining that he was not at first interested in the financial aspects of Free Software. Recently, however, he has changed his tune.

He said that some big fights are ahead of us as a community. The developers have established an ethos which is a very fundamental part of Free Software and a lot of developers are coming on board that want to make money. Some want to say something like "move over kids, there are grownups involved now".

But he said it was extremely important that we in the community draw a line in the sand and say "Yes, you can make money, but lets not forget our roots -- what put us here". He then explained that he's kind of prejudiced here because he's now a capitalist -- he's started a company to help fund Linux.

Bruce explained that there are some bad eggs out there that don't give much credence to Free Software. The other end of the spectrum are the Open Source fair players. Unfortunately, there appeared to be a wide spectrum between the two. Finally, he advised people to help the good people involved and hinder the bad ones.

Ken Coar explained that he was not trying to pretend to know the future.

He went on to say that we don't have anything to fear from the failure to grow. As Eric pointed out there are just a lot of people that just haven't come to the table yet. And more will be coming and adding to that. Sort of like a bacterial colony that just continues to expand.

He doesn't think that say 15 or 20 years from now the people using software will call what they are using the same thing that we are calling software today. With the access to the Internet being given to the man on the street, what with millions of people coming online there is no telling what is going to happen.

At this point there were some miscellaneous comments about "Brain Farts" involving several notable panel members.

He thought that things will continue in acceptance and stabilize in 5-7 years.

Richard Stallman's views began in a confrontational manor. He explained that unlike some of the speakers, he's from the Free Software movement instead of the open source movement.

As an example of what he was talking about, he explained that these people (from the Open Source movement) were pointing out benefits derived from the fact that you can use other people's code and mainly focusing on practical benefits instead of paying attention to the way of life that Free Software brings to the table.

Because of this, he's motivated by political idealism, less by artistic passion. He's concerned with whether OS will continue working on the goal of freedom, which was the original goal. According to Richard we are now in danger of being slowly diverted down a path toward non-free software.

The danger is that we will end up having a popular version of GNU/Linux that has proprietary software on top of it. This will not be a success to freedom because people will not know the difference. That's a big challenge, because most people will not immediately appreciate the concepts that are being fought for.

We have to work harder at being more vocal, he explained. He said that we should be more worried about the good eggs, rotting slowly, as opposed to the obviously bad eggs that are easily identifiable.

That ended, for the most part the introduction opinions.

John (Mad Dog) Hall then took over and shared that in the Fiji islands at the University of the South Pacific he really got an impact of what the FSF was having. They had a good department, but had just heard about Linux, and only had a 1200 baud modem, so they couldn't download the software -- a hurricane would interrupt things eventually, for example.

He happened to have a copy of GNU/Linux, and he gave it to them. And it was a powerful feeling, being able to give it to them, and knowing that people who created it wanted it that way.

Bruce Perens said that this was like saying "Keep these tablets".

He explained that when he came back 2 years later and surprised a local DEC (Hardware) salesman who didn't think they were using Linux at all. The salesman was flabbergasted at finding out that they were still using that version because they didn't have to ask for his permission.

John had just came back from new Delhi, where they were asking him "who's going to be giving them the authority to use Linux". He began telling them that they didn't need authority. If you look for someone there will be no one to ask.

They realized that they could create their own distributions and the feeling was amazing.

At this point John opened the panel up for general comments.

Things really broke down from here. There were a lot of jabs going back and forth about Freedom and Open Source software.

Bruce Perens broke the volleys up by explaining that the Open Source brand was created to get people interested in Free Software, and that at some later date things would be more educated. He said that now we need to move back to using the term "Free Software" instead of "Open Source".

Then Mad Dog opened up questions from the audience.

First question was relating to BSD licensing.

How does it fit in with the GPL?

Eric Raymond answered that multiple licenses exist to server multiple purposes.

Richard Stallman said that the old license and new license for BSD are different. He doesn't think that the BSD license is evil. With copy left you are fighting to defend other peoples rights, where as BSD is saying something like saying "I'm not going to say no to other peoples rights".

The X11 license is different, as another example, and that's OK.

Bruce Perens said that as far as the BSD license is concerned and the public domain licenses are just ways to make your software a gift. When it's that way people can use it any way they want.

As a contrast the GPL is sharing with rules and structured to not let others take away freedoms that you can take away with the old BSD licenses. But the new BSD license and X11 licenses are not incompatible because they don't add any restrictions.

He went on to explain that there seemed to be some kind of dichotomy of BSD VS. GNU, which is more of a strategy aimed at what we're going to do with people that aren't going to help us (the people in the Free Software community).

Eric Raymond then explained that he'd like to see BSD's succeeding more than they are right now.

Given the issue of protecting the free exchange of information, the corporate influence is really irrelevant.

The Slashdot folks commented upon this. Chris DiBona had more to say. "This is what we do regardless of corporate influence or not."

Jeff: "For a lot of people it's more than a job, it's a love."

Chris: "but the attention is fun!"

John Hall then explained that when asked why people code Free Software that he explains it as follows:

If an artist takes a painting to an art show, they will show it to people and then put it in a museum. These artists ask for comments on technique and how they can improve the painting. This makes their work better and lets people enjoy it.

He said that it is important for Linux to actually get used. Minux (an academic operating system that was like a paired-down Unix), for example, didn't really ever get used. But Linux does, and that makes it better. As an example he pointed out that a super computer running Linux was being used in Brazil to help cure cancer.

Bruce Perens then made a comment relating Free Software development to sex.

A lot of people are not going to come out of computer science, instead are going to learn about hacking from Linux. (This was a comment)

Eric Raymond then mentioned his paper on how to be a hacker.

John explained that there are only 300 million general purpose systems in the world, but as a contrast there are 6 Billion people on the face of the planet right now. If you look at India for example, they only got net access in 1995. However, the rate of growth of the Internet is in triple digits, a tremendous pace. A lot of countries are coming on line and skipping even phone wiring -- just going right on to using wireless access paradigms.

These countries are using Linux because they don't have to ask for permission.

Eric then commented that the true hackers will always find free software because it's where the action is.

Bruce then explained about an M.D. that he met that got a computer science degree so he could develop software. Companies are poised to own this mans work. And the Open Source community is working to intervene so that the community that needs the software will be the ones who own the technology.

At this point the queue line for the microphones was now quite long.

The first questioner began by pointing out the huge explosion or need for custom software.

"What worries me is that none of us are paying attention to proprietary software in embedded applications for example. 20 years from now, everything that we're doing is going to be fairly standard" -- and boring.

Eric Raymond stated that he didn't care about this because the community is growing regardless.

Jeff Bates commented that everything is going to continue to expand outward and we will be working in more areas.

Next was a comment about obsolete hardware that was thrown out because the school that got them as a donation didn't understand that they didn't need money for the software to run the computers.

Bruce Perens explained that this man and more like him needed to become evangelists.

John "Mad Dog" Hall then related a story about a Chinese proverb that had to do with doubling the grains of rice on each square of a chess board. If you start with one grain of rice, the number of grains of rice at the end square of the chess board is more rice than there was in China.

He explained that advocacy was a contagious thing and that as we worked at this we would gain similar effects.

There was a comments on companies that are "bad eggs" -- companies that want all of the benefits of Free Software, but only if it means ignoring it so that they can make their own proprietary extensions. How do you tell the difference?

Richard Stallman jumped in here explaining that we should judge them simply by what they are offering. Are they offering a product that respects freedom? Does their activity contribute to our community? Are they advancing our community? A real advance will increase the range of what the software will do, decreasing the chances of proprietary software being used.

He explained that we should buy the stuff that fits and don't buy the stuff that doesn't. But if you want to send these companies a message then that's OK as well.

Eric Raymond stated that if they are committed to shipping only "Open Source Software", then that's a test.

Bruce Perens Mentioned one company in particular that is not understanding. Several articles have been written about this company, so it's (the company's future) not going to come to anything.

He said that yet another company simply needs to get its attorneys under control.

What Bruce was worried about was that the particular bad player will poison the Linux well. Bruce hopes that people will take some time to understand these issues.

Richard Stallman witnessed a presentation by a company called "Scriptics" about a year and a half ago that showed off software that was free, supposedly. But it turned out that the software they were pushing, the main activity, was aimed at developing non-free software that went with this free software.

He explained that if people didn't understand things like this, that things were going to go the route he was worried about before.

Chris DiBona stated that when faced with any large movement there is always going to be a group that is going to try and scam people.

John then began to break things off, as it was 6:50, and the free software awards were at 7:00. John announced that a beginners SIG (Special Interest Group) was going to be going on in the next room.

The next question was a potential problem example of a "Bad Egg". What if somebody decided to put put out a proprietary version of Linux?

Bruce Perens Explained that our rich friends would help us out should we need to sue some company that tried something stupid like this. We have never had to go to court -- public relations were enforcement enough. Unfortunately there are no case examples of this.

What about the schools like Michigan? Who's going to ensure the future usage of Linux in schools?

John "Mad Dog" Hall: There are Free Software based colleges starting up all over. John talked about a project called the "Tree of Knowledge". An entire curriculum based upon the free exchange of knowledge and information.

Unfortunately he had no URLs (web addresses) relating to the project -- yet. It's still a fledgling idea.

"In bringing the message of Free Software to the masses, is there any hope of there being an open source brand or trade mark?"

Eric Raymond stated: "We're working on it."

"How come you don't change free-ware to "no-cost-ware"?

Almost everyone at this point said something like "Cost is not the issue -- we just want to raise the flag".

John "Mad Dog" Hall stated something to the effect that there is a cost associated with the software from the perspective of the people working on it.

Eric Raymond explained that changing people's languages is very hard thing.

Chris DiBona said he was in favor of the term "Funky-Source" himself.

Eric Raymond stated that he thought it was possible if you didn't challenge peoples existing categories.

Someone raised the issue of the impact of Free Software in China.

Bruce Perens then raised the issue that he was worried about China not respecting the GPL.

Richard Stallman had just returned from China and shared the experience that he'd seen this as a problem in China and he'd talked to the Turbo Linux people about possible enforcement.

Chris DiBona said that he felt that the Chinese are very well poised to accept this new way of thinking. He didn't think it would be way out of hand to just get them to return the code changes.

At this point the panel session was over and John Hall broke things off so that the session could proceed to the GNU community awards.

Copyright 1999