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<title>Open Source Developer Day LG #32</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<font color="navy">A <I>Linux Journal</I> Preview</font>:
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This article will appear in the November 1998 issue of <I>Linux Journal</I>.
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<center>
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<H1><font color="maroon">Open Source Developer Day</font></H1>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:phil@ssc.com">Phil Hughes</a></H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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I have just returned from the Open Source Developer Day, August 21,
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held by O'Reilly & Associates at the end of their Perl Conference.
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The stated purpose of this conference was ``How to Set Up an Open Source
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Business in the Real World''. It had a few hundred attendees. This
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column is as much an editorial describing my opinions of how Open Source
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businesses should be run as it is a blow-by-blow description of the OSDD
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event.
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<p>
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OSDD was an interesting event for me. Since the day's schedule was
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set up with people explaining how to run a business using the Open Source
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model, I originally thought it would be an open forum rather than a series of
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talks. I was wrong. I also expected the audience to be mostly business people.
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I was wrong again. About 95% of the attendees were already
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using Linux and very few had on suits.
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<p>
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I am glad I went, as I learned things. However, that learning came from
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individual conversations and watching the ambiance rather than from actual
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talk content. Others, with whom I spoke, seemed to feel the same way.
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For example, I witnessed Richard Stallman kissing the hand of a marketing
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person--that definitely did not happen on the speaker's platform.
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<p>
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I think Tim O'Reilly had a good idea but the wrong
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audience. The speakers were talking to the already-converted. We don't need to tell
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Linux believers that Open Source software like BIND, Sendmail and Apache
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virtually run the Internet, as Tim O'Reilly did. We don't need
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to tell this audience that ``Open Source software creates the broadest,
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most robust software platforms'' as Michael Tiemann of Cygnus
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did, or even that Open Source software creates a culture of open
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discussion as John Osterhout did.
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We needed an unconvinced audience who would benefit by hearing all these things
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along with Bob Young's (Red Hat) ``talk about benefits, not
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features'' and
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James Barry's (IBM) is it a problem or an opportunity story.
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Good try, Tim--next year, maybe we can get you the right audience.
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<p>
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I wish all software was Open Source.
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It has the immediate advantage of allowing you to choose your own support
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rather than having to depend on the software vendor.
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This protects you if a vendor vanishes from the market, and it also
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forces the vendor into a position of providing good support or losing
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business to another vendor. If we believe in ``free market
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capitalism''
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then why not ``free and open market capitalism''?
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<p>
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We have seen the most popular Linux distribution change
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from Yggdrasil to Slackware to Red Hat. This was certainly a less painful
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sequence of events than the transition of software from IBM to Microsoft.
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It has also meant that other distributions such as Caldera and S.u.S.E. can
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stay in the market, and even gives them the chance to become the new market
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leader.
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<p>
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That said, I don't want to go to IBM or Oracle or any other huge company
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and say ``Open Source is the answer''. I believe it is, but we
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don't have the ammunition to make that statement today.
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Besides, we can't afford to be exclusive.
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If we were, we wouldn't have Informix SE, Applixware, StarOffice or a lot of
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other software applications in our camp today.
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Yes, I would like to see these companies go to Open Source, but I would rather
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see them do it on their own schedule and because of market conditions
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rather than from being sold on the concept by fast talking.
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<p>
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What did I learn at the conference? At a business models panel, IBM talked
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about its open involvement in Apache, and John Osterhout
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talked about Tcl and his company Scriptics, which will keep the Tcl core free
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but charge for various enhancements. After they finished, we again
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experienced how closed Open can be. Richard Stallman went to the audience
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microphone and embraced IBM's involvement in Apache and called Osterhout's
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company a parasite.
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<p>
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Why bother? As Tim O'Reilly said in an effort to terminate this speech, the
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market will determine who is right.
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If we are going to be Open Source, we need to take the word Open and apply
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it to other things as well--let the market decide who is right.
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<p>
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<h3>Monopolies</h3>
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<p>
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Open Source should help prevent monopolies.
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I say <i>should</i> because I see a potential problem.
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When Eid Eid was Chief Technical Officer for Corel
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Corporation, he told me that as soon as Corel purchased WordPerfect, Microsoft
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stopped releasing information to them about operating system internals and
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future plans/changes.
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Microsoft did this because Corel had become a competitor.
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<p>
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While Open Source might have helped, it still wouldn't prevent a
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distribution vendor from adding a feature they shared
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with their partners but not with other vendors.
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Once the distribution was released everyone else could get the information,
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but they would have to play catch-up.
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<p>
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Contracts where only one company (generally a
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distribution vendor) can sell an application fragment the Linux market.
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If a certain application runs only on distribution A and another application
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runs only on distribution B, then the user is forced to choose between the two
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applications and to run the particular distribution supporting that
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application.
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<p>
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Even when such a contract is not in place, it is important to
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encourage compatibility between Linux distributions in order for
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the Linux market to expand and not become a monopoly.
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More than just encouraging this, we should demand it.
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<p>
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One other potential monopoly scenario is the act of buying out the competition.
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Look at Microsoft's history to see examples of how this works.
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Microsoft bought the right to ship a product from another vendor (the C
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compiler from Lattice) until their homegrown product was
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ready to sell, invested in a competitor (SCO) just in case, bought a big
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chunk of a new technology (Web TV), and ported their applications to
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another operating system (Macintosh OS for now, expect Linux in the future).
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<p>
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While Open Source doesn't eliminate monopolies, it certainly makes them
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harder to create.
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<p>
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<h3>Linux Standards</h3>
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<p>
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Over the past few months, three different attempts at a Linux standard
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have been made--that's the bad news.
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The good news is that Dan Quinlan of Linux Filesystem Standard fame has
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taken over as chair of what is now a combination of the first two
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standards attempts.
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<p>
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This effort has support from a reasonable cross section of the Linux
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community and, with Dan at the helm, I expect support to grow.
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You can read more about it at <A HREF="http://www.linuxbase.org/">
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http://www.linuxbase.org/</A>.
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<p>
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For my two cents, to make the effort work there has to be a high level
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of involvement from the applications vendors.
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This will ensure that applications will run on all major Linux
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distributions.
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I think a face-to-face meeting of all participants is needed
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to get this effort rolling.
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Phil Hughes <BR>
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Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
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