Open Source: Who Are Those Guys?

dfay writes "An interesting article on ZDNet about who makes up the Open Source Movement. Of course, you have to accept the premise that all OSS programmers are tracked in the LSM. Still, I think the overall tone of the piece suggests that OSS developers can be taken at least as seriously as those in the 'industry'." Actually, the article mentions that lots of developers' work, including kernel hacks, don't show up in Linux Software Maps [LSMs]. Still good stuff.

Not too surprising

Anyone who gives a casual glance over at Freshmeat can see that most of the software is pretty serious stuff, that requires at least a BS in CS. I mean, come on, your typical teen warez monkey can't even spell HTML, much less write some useful tool for it.

It seems that there are three conditions needed to get Geeks to write stuff.

1. It has to be something geeks themselves need (or want).
2. It has to be something that is not already available to buy (or is too expensive, too limited, or unpurchasable for whatever reason.)
3. There has to be a particular passion in the geek for creating it.

Compare this to commercial software:

1. much commercial software is stuff the users need, not the geeks. Some of it is actually abhorrent to geeks.
2. Much of it is a newer version of stuff that is already available (i.e., the need is established).
3. given 1) and 2), there isn't always the passion factor. Therefore, people are paid to write it.

I don't think that makes commercial software evil - it is just based on very different conditions. Both can exist. It shouldn't surprise anyone that impassioned people can create a better product. But that said, I think people might be surprised at how much passion there IS in commercial software. Most developers I know care quite a bit about their projects. A good developer can work anywhere they want; they have chosen the jobs they have.

...

*gurgle* Yeees master....

Let's see... ZDNet wrote a wonderful article once again.. unhindered by the facts though they may be....

My list of OSS developers:

ESR - Wrote some articles. Carries a gun. Has a short temper. Wants somebody to take his job. Probability of going postal (or cobol) within the next 6 months: 75% Could use a beer.

RMS - Wrote alot of code. Has long hair. Doesn't carry a gun. Gets into frequent fights with ESR anyway. Wishes people would stop calling open source "free". Wants free speech, but not free beer.

RM - Made some nerds for news site. Drinks lots of free beer.

WTF - Mythical god of programming. Usually invoked whenever something doesn't work, ie: "WTF, why did you do that?" Drink some beer and he'll go away.

Linus: Coded the greatest operating system known in 6 days. On the 7th day he rested. We've been releasing new kernels ever since. Claims teenage girls don't throw their underwear at him but we know better. Currently unemployed - "This company is not yet here." He's one reason alot of programmers started drinking. =)

Alan Cox - Linus' right hand man. Whatever linus breaks, he fixes. Often has a new kernel ready to before you've even finished downloading the present release posted to kernel-dev ten minutes ago. Has long hair. Beer status unknown.

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It's the time.

Working in this industry, you usually have long hours. Then with the passion of the geek, we work on Open Source when we get home. I personally love the code, but trying to raise two kids, and working full time as well as going to school for my MS in CS it gets hard. I tried to work with Xfree86, I'm still on the development list. But I have yet to submit anything. I was able to work with GTK a while ago, but that slipped too. Now my only saving grace is with college, I can work on a Open Source database for my thesis.

I'm not alone, the hardest thing for Open Source people is time to do it. The learning curve, then the work. And if you get pulled away from it for a while then it's hard to catch back up. When things get slower I want to start my own little project, but that is for later.

Also, looking at the Talk Backs, a lot of reference is made by clueless people that Open Source is done to take down Microsoft. This is sooooo untrue. I don't even think about Microsoft when I work with Linux. Of course RedHat and Caldera have to, to help get MS newbies over to Linux, but those that are writing code, do it for the pleasure of it. How could you accomplish anything if you only work to undermine something else. Negative energy is not easily turned into positive energy. But coding for the love of it will never die. Linus wrote Linux because he wanted an OS that he could live with. Not to undermind MS, but to not have to be stuck with it.

Steven Rostedt

I've got news for you...

Most of the professional shops I've seen have been understaffed, overworked, and too busy putting out fires (Immediate customer problems) to settle down and properly design anything OR innovate. Open Source projects have none of these limitations.

It has been my experience time and again that Open Source software is almost always of higher quality than anything that comes out of the "Professional" industry.

"...watching the World wake up to History..."

OK, yeah, the article was cheesy and shallow. Complain all you want about the "not hippies like you expected" jist.

But the question - "Who are the people behind this social movement, and what are they like?" - is a great question to ask. The fact that it may be impossible to answer conclusively doesn't detract from the potential value of the pursuiting an answer.

History will want to know "What happened here to cause this? Who were the men and women who joined in and supported this cause? What were their motivations? How did it fit into their lifes and their livelihoods? What made them different than all the people who did not take up the cause?"

There are some trivial answers to some of these questions, but there are also richer answers. It's all well and good to say "people contribute to OS because they want to give back", but that, for instance, misses the obvious predicate "and they aren't satisfied with the available cost-ware and its affordances." Our explanations to ourselves often overlook such fundamentals, because we are like fish discussing water.

I fervently hope that more anthropologists, social commentators, and just plain clueful reporters pay close attention to what's happening in the OS movement. This is what "journalism" means : to "journal" - to chronicle - history as it is being made.

This is it. This is history. Come'n get it.
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Coming to your town - lock your doors

...Bar your windows, the Evil Open Source Longhaired Communist Anti-Business Hippies are on the way!!
From the Propaganda Department of the United States of America, subdivision Microsoft, Inc.

Protect your children! These developers will stop at nothing to bring the flourishing networked economy to a grinding halt in the name of satanic flightless birds, and some crazy guy named after one of the Peanuts characters!!! (Linus)

Oh, and you just KNOW they're all *COMMIES*. How on earth could anybody give anything away for free, without being some kind of hippe beatnik pot smoking red commie pinko of a subversive! They're not AMERICANS like you or I - their hearts pump no blood like ours, but rather, a thick, vomitous black fluid that oozes and stinks of their evil intentions.

Resist this creeping evil! Do not be fooled by Open Source Programmers who mindlessly chatter about how they offer more stable and secure software than Microsoft. The very concept is absurd! Now shut up and listen to Mr. Paperclip.

(Warning: The above was a joke - if you didn't gather that, please look up the term LART and apply it to thyself)

Re:I've got news for you...

Nonsense. I dare you to list all the open-source programs that are clearly better than their commercial counterparts. You won't find many.

This is going to be fun. Especially since "better" is clearly undefinable.

Oh well, here goes.

• Apache,
• Bind
• Sendmail
• PHP3
• Mozilla (Not quite done yet, but already strong)
• KDE/Gnome
• Gimp (Yes, Adobe refers you to gimp, as a replacement for its graphical apps on platforms it doesn't support)
• Kaffe
• Perl

That's enough for now. Simply said, there are dozens of open source applications that no one would consider replacing with closed clones. -Brent
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Re:I've got news for you...

Well .....

most of the professional coding I've done (yes, I admit it: I write code for money - I've got to pay the rent somehow, after all ) hasn't been for general release. If my experience is indicative of the industry in general (and I have no particular reason to doubt it), most code is written for bespoke systems commissioned by a client to match their (perceived) business requirements. And as such, the customer is always right. Even when they're laughably, self-evidently, brain-numbingly wrong. After all, they're the ones paying the bills, and hence paying the wages of me and mine.

In this branch of the business, the model is as follows: the client puts out an invitation to tender. Various internal and external coding shops submit a tender based on the outline functional specification the client has provided, the client picks one and a contract is signed for (generally) a fixed amount of money to do the job. Once the contract's in place, the client spends the next (80% of the allotted development time) revising/rewriting the specs - after all, they're the ones with the money - while the development team sweats, works 16-hour days and generally gets jerked around from pillar to post.

This isn't, as you rightly point out, an ideal environment for innovation. But equally it's not the section of the industry in which the Open vs Closed Source debate is happening (unless I missed something ).

Re:I've got news for you...

Nonsense. I dare you to list all the open-source programs that are clearly better than their commercial counterparts. You won't find many.

That wasn't the original claim. The original poster said that open source apps are better *designed* than the closed source ones. The closed source apps generally have more programmer time thrown at them, and thus the poor design elements get worked around. I know this from experience; I work on a large commercial app. It generally does the job, and it's certainly better than what little open source exists of its type, but there's some horrific code in there. And that code makes it harder to modify and harder to keep reliable. But if you sell software, you have the money to throw more and more programmers at it.

Sometimes at home I write particularly elegant code for release as open source. But a lack of time keeps me from doing nearly as much as I do during working hours.

So the real question is whether the money in selling software is going to stay enough to fund development in this style. So far it looks like it will, but more advanced open source apps may start eating away at the profit margins.