Alan's Ramblings - open source tag

YAPC::EU roundup #1

Thu, 16 Sep 2004 07:59:44 GMT

Well, my talk yesterday on how we use perl to help in the development of Solaris went down OK - the only heckling was friendly (thanks, Nick ;-) and I was asked if I would release some of the bits I talked about as Open Source, specifically the stuff for allowing you to embed MySQL queries inside TWiki topics, and the mod_perl handler for doing SCCS history browsing. Something to do when I get back to the ranch.

The conference has wireless access, and by a fortunate coincidence my hotel room is directly across the street from one of the rooms we are using in the conference centre, which means I can get a wireless connection from my hotel room, which is a real boon!

I bumped into Abe Timmerman on Tuesday evening in The Crown - the only pub I've ever been in that is owned by the National Trust! Abe looks after the Perl Smoke framework - this is a distributed set of machines that run daily regression tests on perl on as many different machines types as possible. After last year's YAPC::EU I scrounged together five old machines and installed Solaris 2.6 through to Solaris 10 on them to add to the smoke pool. I'd been kinda busy and not really paying attention to the test output, and one of the machines had wedged in the test suite back in June and had chewed up over 2000 hours of CPU - oops! The test framework was also in need of an upgrade, so we set to and upgraded it - hopefully by tomorrow we'll see the first sets of results from the new version of Test::Smoke.

I also had a quick chat with Leo Toetsch about what needs to be done on the Parrot front (Parrot is the new interpreter engine that Perl 6 will eventually sit on top of). The first things that would benefit from some attention are getting Parrot to build well with the Sun Forte compilers, and then there's a whole load of stuff to do related to threading support, making sure the x86 JIT works OK on Solaris x86 and improving the sparc JIT, which hasn't received very much attention. So, loads to do once Solaris 10 ships and I get clear of some of my current commitments on the Open Source Solaris project.

I also grabbed Nick Clark to discuss an issue that's been a bit of a pain for us when upgrading perl versions. Perl uses its version number as part of the path under which it stores libperl.so - for example, /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/i86pc-solaris-64int/CORE/libperl.so. The problem with this is that if you upgrade to a later but binary compatible version of perl, the version number component of the pathname changes as well. This means that anything that explicitly links against libperl can no longer find it. In general this is anything that embeds a perl interpreter within itself - an example being the Apache mod_perl plugin that we ship as part of Solaris. The obvious fix is to put a symlink somewhere and link against that, however some perl5-porters mailing list discussion will be required to sort this out.

And lastly I managed to get a nice new orange Fotango pen from Leon Brocard - the one I got from him during YAPC::EU 2000 had finally given up the ghost. Reason enough for coming to the conference :-)

Off on a jolly^W important conference

Mon, 13 Sep 2004 14:01:01 GMT

As part of my penance (and my sins must have been many), I look after the perl we ship in Solaris (yes, I admit it, it's my fault - whatever it is). However along with the heavy responsibility comes the opportunity to go off on various high flying conferences and talk to lots of other Important Open Source People like myself.

However, I've given all that up, and instead I'm going to YAPC::EU tomorrow in glorious...
Belfast. I'm also singing for my supper, in that I'm giving a talk on how we use perl to help in the development of Solaris. My manager will be happy (Hi Allan!) as instead of an expensive flight to Portland to go to even more expensive OSCON he gets off with a 130 Pound air fare (57 Pounds less than it costs to go to Watford on the train) and a paltry 65 Pounds for the conference fee. The reason that it is so cheap is that it is a grass-roots conference, run by the perl hackerati, for the perl hackerati. It's also cheap so that we can spend the bulk of our money on beer (only joking - honest!)

Actually I'm really looking forward to it, the perl crowd are a great bunch and I'm really looking forward to meeting up with my friends (well most of them - Some of the Finnish contingent wimped out this year - you know who you are ;-) IRC is OK, but you can't beat 'facetime' as it is so inelegantly called. Hopefully I'll have caught up on all the scurrilous perl gossip by the time I come back!

Uncomfortable truths

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 08:15:23 GMT

Neil Gunton has written an interesting article debunking some common Open Source myths. I agree with most of what he says, and have made similar points myself in the past. Some of the Slashdot thread ensuing from Neil's article is predictable - software is theft, all commercial software needs can be met by HobbyHackers, gratis vs libre blah blah blah, but some of the people commenting do understand and agree with Neil's points, which is refreshing. I don't believe that either closed or open development is necessarily better than the alternative approach. I've seen some goddam awful closed source products, and some equally bad open source ones. Some people inside Sun seem to believe that Closed Source is a dead development model, but I personally just don't buy it. Both open and closed source approaches can yield high quality products with short development times, the key factor is the the team who are working on the project and the tools and techniques they are using, not whether they are from Lilliput or Blefuscu.

There seems also to be a great deal of confusion over the interpretation of the term 'Open Source'. Quite often people assume it necessarily implies Open Development, but I believe the two concepts are entirely different:

Open Source
The source code for a piece of software is available without restriction or cost.
Open Development
Anyone who is so inclined is able to contribute to a project without restriction.

Whilst Open Source undoubtedly exists, I'm not so sure that Open Development in the widest sense actually does. I've been looking at several Open Source databases over the last couple of days, and to take just one example, while MySQL is Open Source, it certainly isn't Open Development. Although it is possible to get patches back in to MySQL, it has to be done by submitting them to the MySQL developers, and when you look at the release notes and development roadmaps for MySQL it is quite clear that MySQL AB (the company) is in complete control of MySQL (the product). Even Linux isn't completely Open Development - Linus keeps a very firm rein on what goes in to Linux, as Bryan Cantrill points out, the Linux LTT folks have been trying to get their stuff integrated for more than five years.

That's not to say there aren't extremely good reasons for this state of affairs - letting everyone who had the whim integrate their changes willy-nilly would lead to anarchy and permanent brokenness. However, when evaluating the 'Openness' of a piece of software, the discussion seems to centre entirely around if it is Open Source - possibly because it's a much easier, almost binary, distinction between 'Open Source' and 'Not Open Source'. Evaluating how a project ranks with regards to Open Development is is much harder - there is a wide continuum of how easy it is to contribute to a project, and of the restrictions which control how you may contribute. MySQL is obviously not Open Development, Linux is more Open Development, but not completely so. Some 'Open Source' projects also require assignment of copyright to the project if any contributions are made. Again there are often very good reasons for this, but it doesn't seem exactly 'Open' if I contribute something and it ends up being owned by someone else.

At the moment Open Source is Soup de Jour, and it is interesting to see how different companies react and adopt their business models to encompass it. It's often convenient for companies to be able to fill in the 'Open Source' checkbox whilst keeping tight control of their intellectual property. I'm not implying this is a necessarily bad thing, after all they have a responsibility to their shareholders to protect their assets. However it's interesting to note the lack of discussion around what access to source code actually means in practical terms. It appears that most of the Open Source bigots can't and/or don't want to distinguish between Open Source and Open Development, and that some companies are taking advantage of this to jump on the Open Source bandwagon whilst continuing to behave exactly as they did before.

Virgin on the ridiculous

Fri, 16 Jul 2004 01:24:36 GMT

I went down to Watford yesterday to meet up with Danese Cooper who was giving talks on both Open Source within Sun and Blogging. I didn't fancy driving the 7-8 hour round trip, so I decided to go by train. The first shock was the price - 187 Pounds (for my colonial colleagues that's 350 US Dollars). The Virgin Trains service was over half an hour late leaving, three-quarters of an hour late arriving, the buffet bar had no hot food or drinks and there was only one working toilet on the entire eight-carriage train. The only plus was that the seat I managed to grab had a table with a power socket so I could use my laptop on the way down (and on that front does anyone know the correct XOrg HorizSync and VertRefresh values for a Tecra M3?). I was complaining to the staff on the train about the toilet situation, and they said that it was 'normal' and that there wasn't any point either them or I complaining as we would both be equally ignored by Virgin Train's management. Virgin Trains often get panned in the UK Press, and I can fully understand why - boy I'm glad I'm not a shareholder.

Before listening to Danese I got to meet and chat with Dave Edmondson which I thoroughly enjoyed - Dave runs the PlanetSun Sun weblog aggregator, and like me works in Solaris Software (although a different part - at least until the next reorg ;-) Like many people in Sun, I know lots of people within the company who I've never physically met - for example when I was on the Solaris 10 cteam I worked with the rest of the group on a daily basis for 9 months before I actually met any of them in the flesh. As I said, this isn't unusual within Sun, in fact it has pretty much become the norm.

I also got to meet Danese - I'd heard her talking before at OSCON 2001, but I snuck away without introducing myself. She talked about Open Source at Sun, and the different business models that the various OSS companies were trying out. This was interesting for me as I'm working on the project to Open Source Solaris at the moment, and listening to her gave me a different perspective on some the issues, which I found useful and thought-provoking. She also talked about blogging within Sun, Danese (in best American tradition ;-) has being doing a whistlestop tour of Europe evangelising blogging within Sun. She mentioned that she had nearly flamed me over my requiem for Open Source, but I still maintain my position. Danese told a little anecdote during her talk yesterday - she has a friend who teaches people in the third world how to farm sustainably even though he believes the planet has passed the point of no return and is doomed - he's trying to delay what he believes is the inevitable catastrophe. Perhaps I'm in the same position with respect to Open Source ;-)

Dead man walking

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 11:00:00 GMT

I've been following with interest the various conversations on the meanings of 'open' and 'free' as applied to software, following on from a posting on Groklaw, and spilling over onto Simon Phipps's and Geoff Arnold's blogs. The original trigger for all this kerfuffle was a slightly dubious article on EWeek, which according to Simon Phipps was largely fabricated to make it look contentious. The Groklaw thread contains the usual quota of Linux conspiracy theorist rantings, as evinced by the following fairly representative snippet:

The intent is to get everyone to develop in C# or Java and then to use that lock-in to gain massive control over the market. Then, they can do things like pull Java support from Linux and sink Linux because all these Java apps will no longer run on it. Or... they can rake in the bucks by making the JVM cost money for "other platforms" (other than Solaris and Windows) and at the same time drive people toward those platforms. MS may have realized that everyone does not want Windows. So, they are making an alliance with Sun. The intent is to create an oligopoly whereby both companies conspire to herd the industry toward their products and above all *away from open source*.

I've expressed my opinion of these paranoid individuals in an earlier post, so I don't propose to rehash that again, I'll merely state that in any ecosystem monocultures are a bad idea, be it a Microsoft, Sun, IBM or even (Gasp!) Linux monoculture.

What I would like to say is that the increasing popularity and consequential commercialisation of Open Source is very much focused on the rights of those consuming OSS and not those producing it, and this has largely removed the attractiveness of contributing. Even the GNU philosophy statement is clearly slanted towards the interests of the consumer and not the contributor - as it says in only the third paragraph (the italics are mine):

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

A commonly repeated Open Source myth is that it is all 'Free', be that 'free as in beer' or 'free as in speech'. Well it isn't. The GNU GPL certainly doesn't fit my definition of 'free' as in 'completely unencumbered', it places some significant constraints on what I can and can't do with GPL software. I'm not saying that the restrictions are unreasonable, but to pretend that GPL == Free is disingenuous at best. It's also indisputable that the GNU crowd are pushing a political agenda, which may have been appropriate at one time when the Open Source movement was starting up but I'm far from persuaded that it is still appropriate. However like many radicals who have defined themselves by the presentation of their argument rather than it's content and goals, they seem unable to recognise that things have changed and they should therefore do the same. The other myth is that Open Source is zero-cost. Again, this is palpable nonsense. Most people who develop Open Source software are either doing it with the tacit agreement of their employers, or are doing it in their own time - neither of these are 'free' in my book, and that follows right the way through the entire Open Source food chain. Open Source is a bit like the UK National Health Service - it's free at the point of delivery, but one way or another we all have to pay for it in the end.

When the Free Software/Open Source communities first began to evolve there was an important attractor to them that seems now to be mostly ignored - not only was the software free, but individuals were free to contribute, and the community was open to all. Generally people joined an Open Source community because they couldn't scratch their particular itch any other way - either because their employers didn't provide them an environment in which they could contribute in the way they wanted to, or to get access to a peer group that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them. I remember when I began to contribute to the perl community - at the time I was in a job where I didn't have the opportunity to write code, and I got a real kick out of working with a group of peers, and in fact I still do. However the fact that large amounts of money are now washing around the Open Source world means that I for one would think very long and hard about becoming involved in anything else, when the Venture Capitalists might appear around the corner at any time - witness the MovableType fiasco that I've discussed in earlier posts. I don't think I'm alone in this, I've heard similar sentiments from my friends. Even the perl community has it's share of 'professional pundits' who see it as a quick and easy way to make a name for themselves, but by and large their opinions are only valued by those outside the community - we all know who they are, and how much they really contribute. Nobody minds people who have put a large investment getting something back, but people who take and don't give are generally treated with the scorn they deserve.

One example of the way the old 'grass roots' spirit is fast disappearing is the O'Reilly Open Source Conference. This actually started as the Perl Conference, but over the last few years it has become nothing more than a huge PR vehicle for the various Open Source pundits to read out a stream of press releases to the adoring Open Source wannabees. Rather than being a a chance for grass-roots folks to get together, the whole thing has become completely dominated by the various big-business backed agendas. The last one I went to in San Diego had the not-very-edifying spectacle of RedHat handing out fedoras to everyone who was going in to one of the conference sessions that Microsoft was holding - pretty pathetic really. And if I look at the list of featured speakers for this year's conference it is dominated by CTOs, VPs and managers - people who by and large are only capable of talking about Open Source rather than doing. Several of the people I know in the perl community now don't bother with OSCON, unless someone is paying for their ticket. In fact some of my colleagues went to OSCON last year, and when they came back I was asked in all seriousness if perl was dying, as there were so few perl people there. The answer is no, we've all gone elsewhere, for example the most excellent YAPC (Yet Another Perl Conference) series of self-organised grass-roots conferences. I went to YAPC/EU last year both to do the perl-related stuff and to hang out with my friends, and I'll be going to the conference in Belfast again this year for the same reasons - I certainly won't be going to OSCON if I can avoid it.

The current Open Source boom grew out of an unique set of circumstances, however I'm not sure that they actually exist any longer. Oh for sure the software that it has already given birth to will continue, but I just wonder how many of the quiet folks in the background who have put in the herculean efforts necessary to give Open Source life will be prepared to contribute to the new projects which must follow if Open Source is to survive. Big business has latched on big time, and I doubt that corporations with shareholders on their backs are going to be happy in the long run trusting their corporate family jewels to a load of scruffy geeks. It's quite amusing to see people scrambling over each other trying to be the 'Acceptable corporate face of Open Source', but by and large the people doing this aren't actually the ones who are producing the aforementioned Open Source - and if I'm the kind of person who has the skills to contribute and who enjoys working with others and doing cool stuff, why on earth would I be interested in helping out the leeches who just want to make a name for themselves off of my efforts? Any organism that carries too high a parasite burden will eventually succumb, and I fear the Open Source movement is rapidly reaching that point - a dead man walking.

Open Source is dead, long live Open Source.