[Reader-list] FREE CODE and the divisions within

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FREE CODE and the divisions within
Sam de Silva

In mid 1999, Microsoft were subject to an antitrust trial, in which the US Department of Justice accused the software giant of being a monopoly, and using intentional strategies to eliminate competition.

On May 25th 1999, an email from Microsoft marketer Ed Chase was sent to a number of software corporations' executives, claiming that 'Linux is outselling Windows 98' in key retail outlets. This email was made public by Microsoft on June 4th, in hope of dispelling the claims of monopolisation. The email was accepted as evidence in the trial, but the judge hearing the case commented that it was self-serving. In the end, the email didn't help. In June 2000, the court found Microsoft guilty of monopolistic practice and ordered the company to divide in to two. Currently, the judgement is being appealed.

Both Windows 98 and Linux are operating systems--software that sits between the computer hardware and applications such as Word and Netscape. It is the operating system that enables these practical applications to work. Linux is the free operating system that is slowly creeping in to mainstream use. 

Were Microsoft sales really being undermined by Linux? Or was the company simply constructing a case to create the illusion that there are in fact serious competitors to its Windows operating system? 

If anything, it is the unique philosophy and culture that underlines the free software movement that poses a threat to big business monopoly.

The initial version of the Linux operating system was created by Finnish student, Linus Trovadis. This system was then improved upon by thousands of others after he made the source code available to the public under the GNU General Public Licence. This licence ensures that any source code associated with the software has to be made available to the public for scrutiny, improvement and exchange. Source code is effectively the recipe of the software application-it tells computer programmers exactly how a piece of software works. The GNU licence also allows companies to charge money for distributions (such as user-friendly Linux cd-roms,) technical service and other applications. However, the source code behind the applications must at all times be available to the public--which means that anyone could have it for free if they wanted it.

Linux spread like a virus amongst programmers and enthusiasts during the 1990s. Currently, it has a growing industry surrounding it--offering books and manuals as well as pre-packaged software cd-roms for those who do not wish to download it from the Internet. Programmers from around the world are involved in developing thousands of applications to improve the system and add new functions. 

The distribution of Linux has raised the popularity of the GNU licence and its principles have since been adopted by thousands of software developers. Richard Stallman, the man behind GNU, was a programmer at MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab who was an active participatant in the culture of sharing source code, collaborative problem solving and learning from others that was alive in the 1970s. However, in the early 80s, Stallman witnessed the atmosphere beginning to change. The code was becoming valuable and big business began to move in.

Frustrated by the new proprietary environment, Stallman decided to create a free operating system. In 1984, he resigned from MIT to start the GNU project. The primary motivation of this project was to create a free computer operating system where 'everyone is free to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to make changes either large or small' 

In 1985, he founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF)--aiming to further promote the right to 'use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs.'  Stallman was also interested in the ethics and definition of the word 'free', and the impact that this way of thinking might have on the community. The FSF is a political movement-'free software is a new mechanism for democracy to operate' 

For the next few years, Stallman and a dispersed cluster of programmers would produce hundreds of large and small software tools and applications under the GNU philosophy. It was possible for programmers to specify the way they wanted their software and code to be utilised--GNU has an ever-growing variety of licences that reflect the various needs of its community. The software-sharing community was being rebuilt. But not everyone understood. 

One of the problems with Stallman's initiative was the use of the word 'free', although he has always maintained that it isn't about money, it's 'free as in freedom.' However, some members of the software sharing community did not share all the ideals of the movement. For them, it was about a distributed community and its capacity to jointly solve problems, error-proof programs and, at the end of the day, produce superior software. 

Enter the 'open source' movement. Today, open source has become the popular term to describe freely downloadable software such as Linux. The media are using this term more and more frequently. Eric Steven Raymond and his paper 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' played an influential role in the mainstreaming of this term.

'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' documents the software movement that inspired Linux, tracing it back to the very early days of computing. This is the paper that inspired Netscape executives to make the web browser's source code publicly available. Raymond stated that the future 'will belong to people who start from individual vision and brilliance, then amplify it through the effective construction of voluntary communities of interest'  For Netscape, or any big business, access to a talented pool of highly skilled programmers working for free must be tempting.  

In January 1998, Raymond got a call from Netscape confirming that the Internet browser creator was going to make Netscape 5.0 software code available to the public. In an article in Salon Magazine,  Raymond reports that this was the moment he had been waiting on for 20 years: 'Netscape doing this creates a window of opportunity for us to get our message into corporate boardrooms'.

The Netscape decision to free its software marked a significant division in the non-proprietary software development community. Eric Raymond and his group of five colleagues agreed the time had come 'to dump the confrontational attitude that has been associated with free software in the past and sell the idea strictly on the same pragmatic, business-case grounds that motivated Netscape' . The word 'free' had to go and 'open source' was born.

Richard Stallman accepts the increasing popularity of the term 'open source' but is highly critical of the movement, claiming that it 'avoids mentioning idealistic concepts such as freedom and community, and as a result most of the newcomers have no idea that you can think of free software in those terms.' For him, the free software and open source movements agree on the practical side of things, but disagree on political and ethical fronts. 

There is widespread acknowledgement within the free software movement of the positive contributions software companies have made by revealing their source code. More and more IBM, Sun and Corel seem to be making their software open-source. Microsoft is still the exception--arguing that it is bad business practice to give away content. For the companies who are sharing their code, open source has been good business practice-perhaps they have realised that improvements and innovations are more likely to come out of communal spaces than cubicles in sterile labs and high-rise buildings. 

It's unfortunate that a new term had to be coined in order for the code-sharing idea to become acceptable to more corporations. If the word 'free' is included in the term describing the sharing and improving of software code, the value of 'freedom' becomes embedded in the process. The danger of 'open source' flirting with big business is that, with the right type of marketing and legal strategy, that term could easily be re-interpreted to describe software made by a community, but owned by a corporation.

Hopefully 'open source' will not become a euphemism for 'proprietary'.


References:
http://www.gnu.org
http://www.fsf.org/gnu/manifesto.html
http://www.opensource.org