Comments on: Pendulum has swung in the open source debate

Some think open source is a convenient slogan. It's not. It's an inconvenient slogan that happens to be the basis for the next decade's commercial software world.

[stephenwalli]

That's not quite what I said ....

I did suggest they were separate value systems, not opposed, and I did observe that business exists at the behest and tolerance of government. But don't confuse freedom with capitalism. (China has a weak property system today by N. Armerican standards of business, but it would be foolish to suggest there wasn't a lot of capital intensive growth happening.)

But while I don't believe these value systems sit as opposites, I would observe that governments and commercial organizations are absolutely in tension. The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee exists for a reason. Business people entering politics put their businesses out of their own reach. The reverse is equally true when government legislation is enacted to control businesses. Yes -- Enron broke all the rules, but does every public company really need the entire regulatory beast that is Sarbannes-Oxley?

I do not suggest that because you choose to vote your political conscience, that you can't live the commercial value set. What I did suggest is that you can't be a civil servant and a business person at the same time.

You are clearly a business person that recognizes and celebrates the freedoms (both political and software) your business uses. Great. Me too. I'm a card carrying member of the EFF. It doesn't mean I want to work there. Indeed that's WHY I contribute. I'm a business person that relies on their political agenda.

Eben is driving an important political agenda of rights and freedoms. Tim is running a business empire. These are rightly different things.

Eben has every right to call on the commercial world to act to support a political agenda. (And he typically does it gracefully and vigorously.) We are equally free to accept or ignore that call while we carry out our commercial endeavours.

[stephenwalli]

That's not quite what I said ....

I did suggest they were separate value systems, not opposed, and I did observe that business exists at the behest and tolerance of government. But don't confuse freedom with capitalism. (China has a weak property system today by N. Armerican standards of business, but it would be foolish to suggest there wasn't a lot of capital intensive growth happening.)

But while I don't believe these value systems sit as opposites, I would observe that governments and commercial organizations are absolutely in tension. The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee exists for a reason. Business people entering politics put their businesses out of their own reach. The reverse is equally true when government legislation is enacted to control businesses. Yes -- Enron broke all the rules, but does every public company really need the entire regulatory beast that is Sarbannes-Oxley?

I do not suggest that because you choose to vote your political conscience, that you can't live the commercial value set. What I did suggest is that you can't be a civil servant and a business person at the same time.

You are clearly a business person that recognizes and celebrates the freedoms (both political and software) your business uses. Great. Me too. I'm a card carrying member of the EFF. It doesn't mean I want to work there. Indeed that's WHY I contribute. I'm a business person that relies on their political agenda.

Eben is driving an important political agenda of rights and freedoms. Tim is running a business empire. These are rightly different things.

Eben has every right to call on the commercial world to act to support a political agenda. (And he typically does it gracefully and vigorously.) We are equally free to accept or ignore that call while we carry out our commercial endeavours.

[royrusso]

The pendulum has swung in the open source debate

[http://We spend an inordinate amount of time chatting about Facebook and the rise of Web 2.0, which is frankly nothing new (and is beginning to strike me as so vapid as to be a waste of digital ink).|http://We spend an inordinate amount of time chatting about Facebook and the rise of Web 2.0, which is frankly nothing new (and is beginning to strike me as so vapid as to be a waste of digital ink).]

+1

[royrusso]

The pendulum has swung in the open source debate

[http://We spend an inordinate amount of time chatting about Facebook and the rise of Web 2.0, which is frankly nothing new (and is beginning to strike me as so vapid as to be a waste of digital ink).|http://We spend an inordinate amount of time chatting about Facebook and the rise of Web 2.0, which is frankly nothing new (and is beginning to strike me as so vapid as to be a waste of digital ink).]

+1

[timoreilly]

Matt -- Eben didn't want to talk about freedom

He just wanted to talk about his idea of freedom, which is different from mine. I've been talking for the past half dozen years about how focusing on the wrong freedoms will doom free software to irrelevance. What good does it do us to have free software if we're facing a future in which the key source of lock-in is no longer software? I think Eben is fighting the last war. It's as though someone were saying we needed to be focusing on proprietary hardware back in the 1980s, when it was already apparent that the locus of lock-in had moved to software.

I believe that Web 2.0 and software as a service have fundamentally changed the game, and that free software advocates need to go back to first principles in thinking about what freedoms matter in the new environment.

Eben didn't want to talk about that. He just wanted to score points, and position free software vs. open source as an "us vs. them." I was really disappointed that he would agree to come talk about an important issue, and then say it was a non-issue, claiming that Google is "thermal noise" in the context of free software.

When one of the people in the audience asked the question instead of me, he was a bit more forthcoming, answering that he believed that he was faced with a choice of rights, and that the rights of an SaaS provider to privacy outweighed the rights of the original developer of any GPL'd software.

That's a great point, but I really regretted that he wasn't willing to have a real conversation about an important issue, and instead built and proceeded to attack a straw man. He has a lot to say, but preferred to spend most of his time on cheap shots and insults rather than a debate.

I'm surprised at you giving him attaboys. If I sat down with him and started insulting him and the free software movement, I doubt I'd get the same kudos. I don't mind disagreement -- in fact, I was hoping for vigorous debate. But I was hoping for debate about issues, and there I was sadly disappointed in Eben.

I thought Stephen Walli's analysis was spot on.

Matt -- you've spent a lot of time talking with me. You know I care a lot about freedom. I just have a different idea about what freedoms matter than Eben does.

I thought I took his insults in good humor, but the more I've thought about it, the more disappointed I've become in how he acted. He was grandstanding. It was dishonest and disrespectful.

[timoreilly]

Matt -- Eben didn't want to talk about freedom

He just wanted to talk about his idea of freedom, which is different from mine. I've been talking for the past half dozen years about how focusing on the wrong freedoms will doom free software to irrelevance. What good does it do us to have free software if we're facing a future in which the key source of lock-in is no longer software? I think Eben is fighting the last war. It's as though someone were saying we needed to be focusing on proprietary hardware back in the 1980s, when it was already apparent that the locus of lock-in had moved to software.

I believe that Web 2.0 and software as a service have fundamentally changed the game, and that free software advocates need to go back to first principles in thinking about what freedoms matter in the new environment.

Eben didn't want to talk about that. He just wanted to score points, and position free software vs. open source as an "us vs. them." I was really disappointed that he would agree to come talk about an important issue, and then say it was a non-issue, claiming that Google is "thermal noise" in the context of free software.

When one of the people in the audience asked the question instead of me, he was a bit more forthcoming, answering that he believed that he was faced with a choice of rights, and that the rights of an SaaS provider to privacy outweighed the rights of the original developer of any GPL'd software.

That's a great point, but I really regretted that he wasn't willing to have a real conversation about an important issue, and instead built and proceeded to attack a straw man. He has a lot to say, but preferred to spend most of his time on cheap shots and insults rather than a debate.

I'm surprised at you giving him attaboys. If I sat down with him and started insulting him and the free software movement, I doubt I'd get the same kudos. I don't mind disagreement -- in fact, I was hoping for vigorous debate. But I was hoping for debate about issues, and there I was sadly disappointed in Eben.

I thought Stephen Walli's analysis was spot on.

Matt -- you've spent a lot of time talking with me. You know I care a lot about freedom. I just have a different idea about what freedoms matter than Eben does.

I thought I took his insults in good humor, but the more I've thought about it, the more disappointed I've become in how he acted. He was grandstanding. It was dishonest and disrespectful.

[Matt Asay]

@Tim: I wasn't intending an "attaboy"

But rather I was suggesting that I'm grateful that Eben keeps reminding us that it's not time for the industry to move on to Open Source 2.0 quite yet.

I wasn?t there for Eben?s comments, so it?s easy for me to distance myself from the unfair passion behind them (which is how I heard it described by everyone I talked to). I was trying to tackle the larger issue of freedom in my post but, as you noted, it may well be that I, like Eben, am focusing on yesterday?s war.

I guess the problem I have with calling it ?yesterday?s war? is that the open data war (today?s war, presumably, or one of them) is that I think data matters not at all if we can?t even protect code. If "Web 2.0" companies are allowed to use without giving back (or only giving back selectively), I?ve got to think that the well is going to dry up. People have to feed their families, and they don?t feed them with Google Adwords if they?re an open source developer.

I suppose that may be because they?re trying to monetize their creations through a ?yesterday business model,? but we?re going to be mucking through that world of yesterday for at least another 10-15 years, if history is any guide. We still have green screens on Wall Street, for heaven?s sake!

So, for the moment, I think licensing really matters. I think open data matters tremendously, too, but that?s not my battle today. I am glad, however, to have you talk about it. I know you care about freedom and do so in a way that people respect and to which they listen. Just don?t forget about the underlying freedoms that make the open data discussion even possible: the source code that powers the Internet (i.e., open source). We're still in the midst of Enterprise 1.0, which requires an Open Source 1.0 discussion.

[Matt Asay]

@Tim: I wasn't intending an "attaboy"

But rather I was suggesting that I'm grateful that Eben keeps reminding us that it's not time for the industry to move on to Open Source 2.0 quite yet.

I wasn?t there for Eben?s comments, so it?s easy for me to distance myself from the unfair passion behind them (which is how I heard it described by everyone I talked to). I was trying to tackle the larger issue of freedom in my post but, as you noted, it may well be that I, like Eben, am focusing on yesterday?s war.

I guess the problem I have with calling it ?yesterday?s war? is that the open data war (today?s war, presumably, or one of them) is that I think data matters not at all if we can?t even protect code. If "Web 2.0" companies are allowed to use without giving back (or only giving back selectively), I?ve got to think that the well is going to dry up. People have to feed their families, and they don?t feed them with Google Adwords if they?re an open source developer.

I suppose that may be because they?re trying to monetize their creations through a ?yesterday business model,? but we?re going to be mucking through that world of yesterday for at least another 10-15 years, if history is any guide. We still have green screens on Wall Street, for heaven?s sake!

So, for the moment, I think licensing really matters. I think open data matters tremendously, too, but that?s not my battle today. I am glad, however, to have you talk about it. I know you care about freedom and do so in a way that people respect and to which they listen. Just don?t forget about the underlying freedoms that make the open data discussion even possible: the source code that powers the Internet (i.e., open source). We're still in the midst of Enterprise 1.0, which requires an Open Source 1.0 discussion.

[stephenwalli]

@Matt: Eben actually defended Google's rights

"If 'Web 2.0' companies are allowed to use without giving back (or only giving back selectively), I?ve got to think that the well is going to dry up."

Actually, I'm pretty sure I heard Eben defend a free software user's right to keep private changes private (possibly in the Ubuntu Live keynote). The GPLv3 doesn't compel Google to share anymore than they do today.

We've shared source code as long as we've written it. The well has only gotten deeper with the articulation of software freedom, and the publishing of subsequent General Public Licenses. It's gone from a well to a tsunami with the expansion of Internet bandwidth.

While you (who programmed in English as a lawyer) and I (who haven't put code in production in almost a decade) may need to get creative in how we develop business value and use free and open source software in our businesses, the freedoms were never designed to enable us in our commercial pursuits. (Neither were they designed to prevent us from developing those pursuits.)

Freedom 0 is as important today. My asset; my license terms.

[stephenwalli]

@Matt: Eben actually defended Google's rights

"If 'Web 2.0' companies are allowed to use without giving back (or only giving back selectively), I?ve got to think that the well is going to dry up."

Actually, I'm pretty sure I heard Eben defend a free software user's right to keep private changes private (possibly in the Ubuntu Live keynote). The GPLv3 doesn't compel Google to share anymore than they do today.

We've shared source code as long as we've written it. The well has only gotten deeper with the articulation of software freedom, and the publishing of subsequent General Public Licenses. It's gone from a well to a tsunami with the expansion of Internet bandwidth.

While you (who programmed in English as a lawyer) and I (who haven't put code in production in almost a decade) may need to get creative in how we develop business value and use free and open source software in our businesses, the freedoms were never designed to enable us in our commercial pursuits. (Neither were they designed to prevent us from developing those pursuits.)

Freedom 0 is as important today. My asset; my license terms.