Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

Re: Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

simeon — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 16:42:14 -0000

Richard said:
>Stallman has overseen the re-writing of some code-munging tools, compilers and utilities, nothing new there. His editor is, as I've already said, a joke.

Richard it's ok if you don't get emacs. Some people like IDE's, want to use a mouse, etc. There are tons of programmers who swear by vi and emacs however because they have entirely different requirements from your average Eclipse or Visual Studio user. Saying emacs took a long time to use anti-aliased fonts is like pointing out the Visual Studio can't run in console mode: illuminating but not actually damaging from the point of view of people who use it.

I tend to agree that Stallman is an extremist as an ethicist but serious programmers tend not to underrate his very real hacker credentials (and tend not to underrate Lisp which is certainly not limited to or even best expressed by Emacs Lisp).

Re: Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

Richard Bennett — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:07:11 -0000

Your two biggest names, enigma, follow my model: TBL created his little web and his browser on his own, and Linus created his little OS on his own. Afterwards, they gave their stuff away, but the creative act itself was more or less solitary.

But neither of these count as "radical innovation" in my book. TBL essentially delivered a discount version of Xanadu, and Linux is a nothing more than a Unix clone. So where's the paradigm-shifting breakthrough?

Stallman has overseen the re-writing of some code-munging tools, compilers and utilities, nothing new there. His editor is, as I've already said, a joke.

These examples simply prove my point (echoing Lanier) that Open Source makes things cheaper but it doesn't drive radical innovation.

Re: Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

eee_eff — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:33:36 -0000

Richard Bennett said above:

Genuine advances in technology tend to the the work of the lone genius and an army of drones, and in Open Source you only have the drones. Drones don't do much that's revolutionary.

Richard, then the following folks are drones?

Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Andrew Tridgell, Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee

Re: Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

Tim Pritlove — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:13:15 -0000

You wrote: "Apple's OS X is another example, built on the same core (well, nearly) as the open-source FreeBSD OS. " Well, this is not true, not even a bit. Mac OS X ist built around Mach and an "BSD" Layer, that is UNIX compatible but anything but FreeBSD.

What is true is that parts of the FreeBSD userland is in use but this does not count as "core" as it is not part of the "core" (and not used at all by Mac applications).

Re: Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

simeon — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:18:13 -0000

>but just the more modest point that it isn’t best for certain and important kinds of development. Why that is so controversial in some circles is beyond me.

Maybe some of the confusion is in not grokking the different outlooks of Open Source and Free Software people.

Now arguably all software professionals should prefer Open Source software for a variety of reasons (although the argument that programmers should oppose Open Source software since it drives the cost of software and hence our own profitability towards zero is interesting if futile). Open Source proponents (technically exemplified by Linus Torvalds, philosophically by Eric Raymond) further argue that a certain style of development (the bazaar) is inherently better at producing certain kinds of software. Interestingly the arguments are primarily about bugs (given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow) and security, not about innovation.

Free Software proponents (Stallman) on the other hand believe philosophically that certain actions are moral and immoral. Preventing users from modifying their software is immoral. It doesn't matter whether the software resulting from open or closed processes has a higher quality - it's about a moral argument (one I don't place much credence in, fwiw, but a moral one none-the-less). Saying to Free Software types "you shouldn't oppose closed source development because you'll hinder innovation" is to fail to understand their argument.

I myself feel a bit conflicted about the argument. Let me make an analogy that will place you on the horns of the same dilemma: as a libertarian you probably feel that as a moral rule people should not be prevented from entering into any contract (with perhaps some Rothbardian exceptions around voluntary slavery). Undoubtedly you feel this is likely to lead to a "better" society as a whole but your faith in this proposition is not based upon obtaining maximally good results in every contingency (fascism might yield a more prosperous society given certain conditions but this would not commend it to you).

Given this libertarian position, DMCA backed DRM seems abundantly defensible. One party enters into a contract with another party not to circumvent the digital restrictions on bits of software and media as a condition of obtaining them. If the first party does not like these conditions then certainly it is free not to make the purchase and enter into the contract. Et voila! We all have Liberty.

And yet. Read Stallman's dystopian tale The Right To Read which strikes me as a plausible preview of an increasingly digital world in which DRM applies to everything (no really, go read it! Or if you must, you could read the DiveIntoMark Cliff Notes application to today.) Through a combination of technology and freedom of contract, freely exercised by everyone, we may yet get a totalitarian society!

Now if you're morally committed to libertarianism it seems to me that this possibly future is no argument against freedom of contract - any more than innovation in closed source shops is an argument against Software Libre. Of course the possible implications, the ends of our ideologies ought to make us think about our moral commitment to a set of means. I feel uneasy about uncompromising purity of moral vision which is immune to such qualms (libertarianism no less than Stallman's software-has-rights-too theories).

Re: Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

Don Marti — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:30:06 -0000

The GPL's impact on proprietary software innovation is overrated.

Every copy of Mac OS X includes Samba.

Re: Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

Richard Bennett — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:51:53 -0000

As luck would have it, I've been checking-out the EeePC for my archaeologist wife. It's essentially a conventional laptop with two exceptions: very small size & weight, and a flash drive instead of a hard drive. It comes with Linux simply because it's cheaper than Windows, and many EeePC users on message boards explain that the first thing they did when they got it home was install Windows. Given that Firefox, Thunderbird, and Open Office provide the necessary functionality, I don't plan on replacing Linux with Windows when we get ours, but that will depend on the primary user's preferences. The EeePC still has some issues with the tiny 7 inch screen size, which could be made wider, battery life, and limited storage (4 Gigs shipping now, 8 gigs promised, and it really should have more like 16.)

It's hard to see any particular connection between this machine and the Open Source religion one way or another.

On Lanier's actual point, I'd have to agree with him that Open Source is like offshore manufacturing, good at making things cheaper, not good at making things better. I've yet to see a single example of an innovative new technology coming from either offshore manufacturing, prison labor, or Open Source. Firefox is nice, but it's just a browser, and we've had browsers for nearly twenty years now. Samba is great, but it's just an implementation of a 25-year-old proprietary protocol, and the list goes on.

Genuine advances in technology tend to the the work of the lone genius and an army of drones, and in Open Source you only have the drones. Drones don't do much that's revolutionary.

The Lisp Machine narrative is interesting to me because I once worked for the company that did the most with it, Texas Instruments. TI's Explorer group ultimately created the MicroExplorer, an add-on board for the Mac II that put Lisp in the hands of the great unwashed. It failed in the marketplace because Lisp is a PITA, not for want of effort.

Programmers familiar with Stallman's Emacs, the last surviving example of Lisp, are well aware that Stallman is a kook of the first order. His flagship product is just now getting support for anti-aliased fonts, something that Windows had fifteen years ago. What a joke.

Re: Re and Expanding on Jaron Lanier on Closed Source Software

eee_eff — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:51:36 -0000

As Lanier explains, closed source is the font of nearly all paradigmatic innovation—the great revolutionary leaps.

If this were true than why were the first web browsers open source? The browser nexus (originally called worldwideweb) developed by Tim Berners-Lee is open source. (Although not GPL)

I'd also point to the filesystem ZFS, as state-of the art file system.

Or how about blackbox, or Celestia?

One thing I note in Lanier's article is anecdote--he does not supply any metrics by which we could verify his hunches.

Of course some points he makes are obviously true--that for example closed and open exist iteratively, and some projects are better being closed for a certain time.

But he hasn't demonstrated that there is anything open source can't do.