[-empyre-] free code article...

[sam de silva <sam@media.com.au>]

hi,

i wrote a small article called 'free code' for the 2001 media circus 
reader ... 
you can access it via

http://www.antimedia.net/mc-reader/

(click on the 'accessing the networks' section ...

i've cut and pasted it below also:

			
July 2001 / Rogue States - the Media Circus Reader
	
Free Code and the divisions within
by 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 was ordered them to 
divide in to two companies. 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 into 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 Torvalds. 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 can have it for free 
if they want 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'1.

In 1985, he founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF)?aiming to further 
promote the right to 'use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer 
programs.'2 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'3.

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.'4 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'5.

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'6. 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 practiceperhaps 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:

www.gnu.org
www.fsf.org/gnu/manifesto.html
www.opensource.org


1 www.stallman.org/
2 www.fsf.org/fsf/fsf.html
3 www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt
4 tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedralbazaar/
5 www.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/04/cov_14feature.html
6 www.opensource.org/docs/history.html




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