You may have heard the term “strawman” used in a debate at one point or another, what it means is this:
Someone misrepresents a position, usually to make it easier to attack, and then proceeds to tear apart (knock down) the new (strawman) position. Then they proclaim that the original position is flawed and declare victory, thus failing to deal with the actual position.
It can be a combination of fallacies as well (like non sequitir - does not follow), but in Robert Cringely’s case: a misrepresentation of a position.
His column at PBS this past week focused on the flaw(s) of ‘open-source’ projects, stating:
There are a thousand Open Source projects that get started out of need or fun, are maintained for awhile for fame, then get abandoned because there is no reason to go on. Eventually, the programmers come to understand that “users” are people who yell at you to fix stuff. So Open Source is inherently flawed. It only works because otherwise unknown programmers can get 15 minutes of fame using the Internet as low-barrier entry into introducing their skill to the world. Since they are introverted nobodies, getting a few emails from unknown users that say “good job!” feels great. But in time, most Open Source projects grind to a halt. The ones that survive are projects like Linux and Apache that have substantial involvement by PAID engineers. One could argue, in fact, that the idea of Open Source software being created by volunteers is a misnomer. Even Linus Torvalds is paid by Transmeta to be the God of Linux.
Let me preface my rebuttal by mentioning that Mr. Cringely does not define what ?open-source? is, so therefore whatever he says about it leaves the reader guessing what it could be. It also allows Mr. Cringely to create a strawman from which he can heave sticks and stones at.
With that said, Mr. Cringely uses a clichéd fame & fortune strawman to represent the self-explanatory term: “open-source.” The term ‘open-source ‘means simply, the code source is open for viewership. There are multiple variations of this concept in which restrictions are placed on who can and cannot view the code as well as what can be modified. He is most probably referring to the GNU variety.
At this point I should point out that Mr. Cringely failed to do his homework. Microsoft for instance has had a “Shared-Source” program by which various State agencies, Universities and large corporations are allowed to review the code source of various products, modify and implement these changes without paying Microsoft royalties (the average Joe Blow can now too).
Microsoft continues to modify, simplify and streamline this program. For instance, last month (March) they released a new license called the “ASP .Net Starter Kit License” -
Under the licensing terms, developers and users are permitted to download the ASP .Net Starter Kit source code for free, to develop on and around the code and redistribute it, commercially or internally, without paying Microsoft any royalties.
Feel free to read the new license yourself and compare it to the popular BSD or GPL licenses.
So will the same conditions that Mr. Cringely applies condescendingly to the ‘open source’ community now apply to Microsoft as well?
Mr. Cringely also states that “most Open Source projects grind to a halt.” He doesn’t produce numbers from SourceForge, Savannah or MozDev. Just conjecture making this blogger wonder if Mr. Cringely knows those entities exist. At the same time, just because a project is not being actively developed does not mean it is a poor or broken solution.
These projects are like any normal businesses, if a programmer is dissatisfied with where a project is moving he can start his own branch. OpenBSD is one of the better known examples of this (branched off from FreeBSD). Similarly if a developer dies or moves on other programmers can pick up where he left off and move on. Cafelog and PHPAdsNew are two good examples of this. Michel Valdrighi went MIA several months back, but that has not stopped the development of Cafelog. Similarly PHPAdsNew is an entirely new development team that began after the TextAds developers moved onto other pastures.
While fame and sometimes fortune could play a role in the open-source community, I have yet to meet any individual in the community that verbalizes either. To be balanced, fame and fortune can play a role in journalism too, as networks and media outlets strive for larger audiences — this is no secret and in fact many of the personalities (talking heads) that appear on TV are brought in specifically to raise ratings and/or appeal to a specific demographic group. I challenge Mr. Cringely to list 10 open-source programmers that go out of their way or are primarily paid because of their celebrity status. To the best of my knowledge both Alan Cox and Linus Torvalds make a concerted effort to stay out of the razzle dazzle limelight that many journalist bask and glow in. In fact, neither one has their own syndicated column on a large public network which needs donations to exist.
Another difference between many widely syndicated American commentators (ex: FOX) and open-source programmers is merit versus sensationalism. To succeed in the open-source world one has to perform at a certain level as his contribution (code) is continually reviewed for flaws. Commentators on the other hand are required at some level to hook an audience, because without an audience the network cannot pay the bills (advertisers want consumers to sell products to).
Mr. Cringely’s argument about certain programmers being paid is besides the point. Yes Transmeta might receive more attention because Linus works there, but the company does not utilize him as a cheerleader, nor do they showcase him like a showgirl, nor do they have him endorse their product lines (I’d be quite interested in seeing the “Linus Approved” signature on a Crusoe box). In fact, if anything the Crusoe is a failure in the minds of many geeks as it failed to perform up to its hype. Plus, if someone did their homework they can find that Linus discusses the merits (pros & cons) of the Itanium and Opteron processors. The same can be said about Alan Cox at Redhat. He does not actively promote or endorse the products the company signing his check makes. And some geeks consider Red Hat to be an inferior distribution compared to Gentoo, Debian, SuSE and Mandrake - yet he does not use his position to proclaim the superiority of Red Hat. The list can go on. At Collectrix we do not use an open-source product because some well-known developer works on it - we do not use Transmeta products currently nor do we plan to in the future. We use what works and what is economically sound (no Microsoft tax).
Mr. Cringely states:
Open Source has value or people wouldn’t still be doing it after 10 plus years. At the same time, complexity breeds inefficiency. Whatever approach you take to the organization of product development some form of the 80/20 rule applies — 80 percent of the available material is useless to you. We can easily just dismiss the creaking parts of Open Source by bunching them in the 80 percent we ignore.
Here is another example of the conjecture I mentioned previously. Mr. Cringely does not specify which projects can have 80 percent of the code ignored. Somehow I doubt that those coding many of the projects have entire sections of code that do nothing more than burn CPU cycles and occupy memory. I’m sure that much of the code can indeed be optimized and compressed, but 80 percent is certainly a very large unsubstantiated number. Can I use the 80/20 rule with journalists too?
Mr. Cringely continues with,
“But ignoring them does not make those parts go away, and here is where we’ll find Open Source’s vulnerability. There is this idea (I’ve written it myself) that Microsoft, for example, can’t compete with Open Source because you can’t compete with a product that has no profit Motive, and can’t out-market a product that has no marketing budget or plan. But Microsoft could still beat Open Source simply by subverting it.”
Just like ignoring journalists does not make them go away (a truism). There are many ways you can still compete with open-source projects. You can make a better product than the competing offerings (like Office XP was to OpenOffice or WordPerfect Suite), you can find a niche market that is willing to purchase your product (like blogging software from Radio, pMachine or Movable Type), advertise and market your product to individuals unaware of alternatives (this occurs quite a bit) or you could simply make “open-source” illegal (which Microsoft has attempted and continues to do).
Mr. Cringely states,
“It is possible to hijack an Open Source project since any Open Source team will automatically bend itself around the party doing the most work. What I find most interesting, however, is applying varying motives to the hijacking. What if Microsoft, for example, suddenly started devoting a lot of resources to Open Source development? They could throw a team at all the key projects. But why would they do that? Well, IBM is already doing it. IBM has hired most of the Apache team. IBM has some major pull on what work gets done and does not get done. In some cases, it is frustrating, and other cases not. However, everybody just accepts it because IBM is paying the bills and people can do what they love. Is there an official IBM party line at Apache? Absolutely not! It is just that none of the Apache developers will talk negatively about IBM, even those that do not work at IBM. So in this sense, it already appears that Apache has been hijacked.”
At the beginning of my rebuttal I mentioned how Mr. Cringely failed to produce a definition of what “open-source” is, so in turn he had the ability to obfuscate and otherwise create strawmen to throw rocks at. The source code is still available regardless as to the actions of IBM. What exactly are they hijacking? IBM can certainly influence the code and even dictate what they want to have implemented, they cannot however control developers and programmers. If one of the developers is unsatisfied he can simply create a new project with the available source (that never disappeared). However, it is in IBM’s interest to keep the developers and programmers satisfied because replacing experienced talent is both costly and time consuming.
In fact, here is a link to several servers by which anyone can obtain the source code for Apache. If by some freak occurrence IBM manages to shut down those servers, I will personally load a copy of both the 1.3.x and 2.0.x sourcecode and mirror them from my blog.
Continuing Mr. Cringely states,
“Now consider an evil alternative. Say Microsoft assigns a team of programmers to help some Open Source project. Maybe this time that team isn’t specifically identified as being from Microsoft, perhaps it is a Microsoft-funded startup. This team, because of its vitality and funding, quickly takes control of the project and goes running off in some particular technical direction, taking with it the rest of the suddenly re-energized team. But what if this new direction is not a good one? Even worse, what if the team gets far down that lonely road only to have Microsoft suddenly pull the plug, removing its team from the game? Would the project survive? It is hard to say, but if I was Microsoft that’s how I would compete with Open Source, by subverting it. Microsoft can’t compete on quality or price. And subversion — since it is subverting a not-for-profit venture — breaks no laws, nasty as it is.”
Again, Microsoft’s new license discredits this possibility as their shared-source initiative is much more lax and less restrictive than ever before. And once more, Mr. Cringely misses the point regarding GNU “open-source” - the code never disappears from outside of Redmond so therefore anyone can still work on the project outside of Microsoft’s purview, that’s the way it has always worked I don’t see how it would somehow stop once Microsoft started funding “open-source” projects.
Additionally, Mr. Cringely has a distorted view regarding the makeup of “open-source” teams. They are all different and many can operate autonomously, simply because no one “controls” the code. There is no building to lay siege upon or company to buyout, the code is available to anyone. In fact, Microsoft could start their own version of Linux or MySQL. They could hire all the developers (I doubt many of them would take the job offer) and then proceed to do nothing with the project. What they are unable to purchase however is the source code which exists on thousands of computers around the globe.
Mr. Cringely ends with,
“So Open Source is not especially altruistic, just ego-driven. It can be hijacked and it can be subverted. And a concerted effort at subversion taking advantage of developer fatigue could be devastating. This hardly seems a movement, then, that can be relied on, yet millions do.”
The only person that can tell whether or not ones actions is altruistic is the individual. I don’t know if the reason Mr. Cringely writes his columns is out of “altruism” or “ego-driven.” Only he knows that. He failed to convince me that:
1) He has spoken to Linus or Alan to find out why they code
2) Knows anyone that is active in the GNU open-source community
3) Done research regarding what “open-source” projects are developed actively, the efficiency of the code and the number of individuals and companies that use the code
4) He can differentiate between “open-source” code and “closed-source” code
5) Asked Apache developers why they continue to live in their cruel and slave-like conditions at IBM - apparently they don’t choose to work there
6) How “open-source” is developed, aside from “15 Minutes of fame”
7) Shown who these superstar celebrity-like programmers are and the digital mansions they now reside in
In short, Mr. Cringely failed to convince me of anything other than he knows zilch about GNU “open-source” and the reasons why companies and individuals use it and modify it daily.