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Rebel Code
from the -the-story-of-Linux-and-Linus- dept.
| Rebel Code: Inside Linux And The Open Source Revolution | |
| author | Glyn Moody |
| pages | 333 |
| publisher | Perseus |
| rating | 7/10 |
| reviewer | Jon Katz |
| ISBN | 0-7382-0333-5 |
| summary | How Linus started it all |
The author has a point: Open Source did turn out to be a revolution whose impact and implications went beyond the wildest dreams of its idealistic, obsessive creators and are ballooning beyond the software community and the Net.
Rebel code helped end the Microsoft era, is challenging the proprietary notions of commerce, intellectual property and censorship that have dominated business and information for a long time.
Rebel Code, by British author Glyn Moody is one of the first serious histories of this movement. It's an important story, and also a useful primer for anybody interested in how this increasingly complicated phenomenon came about.
Moody begins the book at the peak of Microsoft's rule, with the primal beginnings of Linux at the hands of Linus Torvalds, then a college student in Finland. He takes us through the development of the new system, all the way up to the newly-emerging business implications of GNU/Linux.
Today, he writes, the "open source revolution has moved on from the pioneers. Today, mainstream companies -- IBM, HP, COmpaq and SGI -- have all taken up open source in various ways. They depend critically neither on Unix, as Sun does, nor on open source, as Red Hat and other distributions do. Instead, they use both as elements of a broader strategy: selling hardware and services."
The central issue now, isn't whether Open Source companies can flourish and blossom into billion-dollar concerns, but whether free software can continue to grow and progress as it has for the last 15 years. He suggests the answer is yes.
Moody, a London-based writer who has used and written about Linux since its creation, has written for Wired, Computer Weekly and The London Financial Times. He knows his stuff. The book is crammed with OS arcania and minutiae: microkernels versus monolithic kernels and probability, and even the story of Eric Raymond's search for a new name that would be less ambiguous than "free software." (Moody credits Christine Peterson, president of the Foresight Institute, with coming up with the term "open source.")
This is probably the most definitive social chronicle of the creation of Linux and the evolution of the free software movement. It also explains why Open Source has become so important in terms of economics and business models.
Rebel Code is an investigative book with a distinctly-behind-the-scenes feel to it. It moves from tense programming breakthroughs to the cliques, feuds, business influences, ancillary discoveries and sometimes nasty politics that have marked the OS universe. All of the major players are interviewed here: Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Michael Tiemann, and Eric Raymond among many others.
Moody belives that Torvalds is unique in part because he was able to serve as a focal point for complicated programming advances, a methodology that has allowed the delegation of software programming and architectural decisions to ever expanding circles of contributors and experts. Thanks to this style -- Moody calls it "power wielded in subservience to the user base" -- software can be written and distributed much more widely.
The author also believes that Stallman will be the leader of the Free Software movement for as long as he wishes to be, but, he says, "a worthy successor who has the rare mix of qualities necessary may already be emerging in the person of Miguel de Icaza."
It turns out that Rebel Code is the perfect name for the social upheaval that Torvalds touched off.
This is a good book to mark the end of the Microsoft Era, and good preparation for the beginning of another, hopefully more open one. If Rebel Code has a flaw, it is that it's dry reading. Moody has crammed so much reporting and information into this book, and moves so relentlessly from one event, programming advance, breakthrough and benchmark to another, the real implications and human drama of what's happening sometimes sometimes slips by. If you don't know the significance of code and programming breakthroughs, they can slide by. But those of you who've lived it will enjoy seeing your own experience morphed into a historical perspective by a skilled journalist.
The book has an authentic-in-the-trenches feel to it. And no matter how technical, the Open Source revolution is exciting far beyond the techie fold. Hollywood has even made a lousy movie about it -- "Antitrust." Reading Rebel Code, you're left with the feeling that this story is just beginning.
You can purchase this book at ThinkGeek.
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:3)
Remember, I said "as practiced" in the real world. Talk to anyone who grew up in Eastern Europe, or the Soviet Union, before 1990 and you'll discover that there was most certainly central control. "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is." Communism is a theory that sounds wonderful, but doesn't allow for the contrariness of human beings, and thus doesn't work in practice.
Re:Intriguing book... (Score:3)
Focus is a good thing in a book. You don't get a good overview of WW1 by reading 'All Quiet on the Western Front' either.
RMS gets about 20-30 pages, including the first substantial chapter. Only Linus gets a comparable amount.
The book uses the term GNU/Linux throughout. And it refers to RMS as "more than just the greatest hacker who has ever lived".
Without knowing what (or if) RMS' reservations are I woudn't like to comment further. However, some folks round here have gone way over the top.
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:3)
The same goes for the idea that software isn't free unless there are onerous conditions attached to its use. The "Free Software" people also take credit for all sorts of stuff that was written by people who were largely uninterested in their ideology (Linux, Apache), or actively hostile to it (Perl, BSD). gcc and emacs were genuinely created under the Free Software banner.
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:3)
As a libertarian, I found the former USSR Government quite offensive, however I've got to play the devils advocate on this post because it does miss-lead.
If we are to avoid repeating the former USSR mistakes, we need to truely understand them.
Talk to anyone who grew up in Eastern Europe, or the Soviet Union, before 1990 and you'll discover that there was most certainly central control.
The failure of the former USSR is primarily attributable to the totalitarian nature [Central Control in your words] of it's government, not to communism.
[Communism] thus doesn't work in practice.
Capitalist Governments have also collapsed.
So Capitalism thus doesn't work in practice ?
Indeed, it seems to force at least a third of the population to live in abject poverty, even in the richest countries [USA/Japan/UK/Canada/etc]. This also seems pretty totalitatian to me.
Indeed if you measure 'success' as the highest medium (rather than mean) living standards, the most successful countries are the Scandanavian countries, with near zero real poverty, and socialist (not communist!) Governments. Indeed they are also very strongly social libertarian.
Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:3)
I think that in the far future, maybe 100 years or so down the line, Open Source will have spread to encompass all parts of our civilisation, the very fundamental way we live, our economy, everything.
In my view, it is inevitable that our economy become communist in the distant future - when we can manufacture anything, anywhere, anytime, for no cost, our present money and job based society breaks down. We shall become a wealthy society of equals. This is the destiny of Open Source.
In the future, as more and more parts of our society become intellectualised, and as the intellectual economy does to Industry what Industry did to agriculture - overshadows it utterly - the pressures for Open Source to extend its aim beyond the software industry will redouble.
I think it will do so, and eventually our entire civilisation will be based around the ethics of the Open Source philosophy, as evinced by RMS and ESR.
And we will all be the better for it.
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Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
The Microsoft Era is over? (Score:4)
I'm sure this is an excellent book - I'm very curious about it. However, broad statements like this do NOT encourage people to take reviews seriously.
This is a review, not wish-fulfillment. If Open Source has a true enemy it is NOT Microsoft or anyone else - it's self-delusion and self-aggrandizement.
I have a problem (Score:4)
I think the Open Source movement is great. However I can see what Bill Gates means when he asks what programmer can afford to spend 3 years designing, developing and testing a product only to give the entire lot (include source) away for free.
Quite simply, the majority can't. Those that can, are even more simply, gods.
Open source is great, you get to release your code, people get to pick it over, learn from it and in the process they may even help you out with it or at least spawn something off that is bigger and better. Don't know how to use TCP/IP correctly or well? Download something that does and look at its code, the only condition being that should you use any part of it then you should release your code open to the masses too.
But heres the problem. Open source software as we know it works, its indesputable. But it only works fully if the project is small. Hear me out and I'll explain why I think so.
For over a year I worked on a telemetry system for my employers. It was a Visual Basic frontend to Pro*C and Oracle backend. It was big. It also took me nearly 3 months of 9-5 working for 5 days a week to understand the entire system, how it works, the concequences of changing things and to get an understanding of the beast.
This isn't something unusual. In fact my company specifically understands this and refuses to put people on for any time less because they are only truely productive after this lead time.
So, approximately 6 hours a day for 3 months (roughly 87 days) makes 522 hours of work.
Where is this leading? Well, say this was an open source project and I was doing it in my spare time then I'd need 522 hours before I was fully acquainted with the project. Thats a lot of work and based on 2 hours per night plus 8 at the weekend thats 29 weeks before I can really truely say that I'm at a level to genuinly be able to contribute to the code. Sure, I could do the odd bug fix here and there but the GPL isn't about just doing bug fixes, its about helping the code to evolve.
Thats a lot of work for something in my free time. And unfortunately for me, time I don't have. Of course, others do and I applaud them, but IMO as the scale of the project increases the tougher it is to get people to work on it. If I GPL'ed a 20 line program the chances are the flaws and bugs and oversights would/could be fixed very quickly because it doesn't take much for people to understand the code completely.
So where is this heading? The GPL is great, without it we wouldn't have had the innovation that we've had (contrary to Microsofts belief) but I believe that for the majority of people the GPL means only that they can give it to friends for free. The average Jo Public doesn't want to look at the code and doesn't care that they can modify it and give away the modifications without some law agency hammering on their door.
What we should remember above all, is that code is a mighty beast, where everyone has differing styles and ideas. If you release code under the GPL that is big and complicated don't expect hundreds of people to come crawling out of the woodwork and help you. After all, really how many true developers are there on the Mozilla project? As in the ones that really know the system.
The "many eyes" theory is great, if the many eyes can be bothered to look and understand the code.
But before you hit the reply button or go for the "Troll" option in the moderation box please note that I am a fan of open source. I see no reason why people should distribute their code and hard work to others with a licence that almost says "here you go, do what you want with it" but those that do are truely generious individuals.
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Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:5)
Manufacture anything for no cost? I think you've seen too much Star Trek. What about the cost in energy? And the associated costs of getting the energy?
Bet you're a college student. You any relation to Larry? And don't let ESR hear you calling open source communist. He'll go ballistic.
A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:5)
Helped end the Microsoft era? (Score:5)
Hey, I'm as big an open source and Linux fan as the rest of you, but jeez, isn't that a bit of hyperbole? Last time I checked,
All in all, I think this was a bit of undeserved braggadocio. The open source movement still has alot of work ahead of it.
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Re:Helped end the Microsoft era? (Score:5)
1. All the passengers still beloeved they were on the best most widely admired ship in the world.
2. The bars on board were still selling drinks for cash.
3. They still had lots of money and were operating in profit.
4. No passnegers saw a problem. They were comfortable enough and didn't want to leave.
At that time, a very small number of people on board knew very well that the minor shaking of the ship they had just felt would inevitably lead to the sinking of the ship. Nobody could do anything about it.
My point is this: Just because all looks well from the customers viewpoint doesn't mean all is well. One seemingly minor thing (at the time) can change the course of history entirely for those involved.
I think microsoft has hit its iceberg. I also think that all looks fine right now to customers and to investors. I also think that a small minority of people inside microsoft know very well they they are doomed.
They know there is nothing left they can do, so they get frustrated and start shouting at the iceberg. (icebergs stifle innovation!)
Do you know whats funny though? Microsoft saw their iceberg years ago, but they thought they could sail right through it.
Bandwagon. (Score:5)
I remember having to "bootstrap" my machines into networkable machines by downloading _source_ code to a simple pip clone (basically a 50 line serial driver) which permitted me to copy onto my machine the _source_ to kermit (back when kermit was open source). When I had that, I could then on my own machine download the _source_ to the other tools that would then enable me to compile/assemble the _source_ to the other programs that I really wanted. The variety of programs was very broad (but remember that it was almost exclusively command line programs in those days), you name a tool, you could download a copy...
At this stage Linus was just a teenager.
It's only because the Open Source "movement" (what movement?) was so strong already that Linus decided that's how he wanted his project to be.
I think that's a very long way of saying "I'm not going to buy this Linux-bandwagon-jumping book".
FatPhil
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Rebel code (Score:5)
"Just remember, Gates, the harder you squeeze, the more Unices will slip through your fingers!"
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The end of the Microsoft era? (Score:5)
It might well be, but the Microsoft era certainly hasn't ended. They have better market share than ever.
They are poised to take over the game console market, and yesterday announced moves to corner the mobile phone market. This combined with the increasing acceptance of Windows 2000 as the most stable and maintainable server platform around means the Microsoft era is far from over.
We have seen the beginning of open source on a large scale, but we certainly haven't seen the end of the Microsoft era.
Looks like this guy's journalistic instincts to make a story where none exists have overridden the fact of the matter - the Microsoft era hasn't ended, and Open Source is no more significant or worrisome to Microsoft than Apple; there is no sign of the kind of consumer platform where everything is done for you (speaking as someone who recently went to see a client who didn't even understand how to change resolutions and had 640*480 on a 21" monitor, the importance of the OS helping you through everything is clear), nor indeed a server platform where the all important factor - staff time and expertise in maintenance is kept low enough.
Much as it would be nice to see a kind of people's revolution for the good of all, this is nothing more than hype and journalistic bull.
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