Rebel Code 140
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.
SciFi review (Score:1)
I see it's a fictional book that's being reviewed this time around.
It's all about the ablity to learn... (Score:1)
Learning should be free, as long as you are willing to work at it!
ttyl
Farrell
Re:The end of the Microsoft era? (Score:1)
I disagree. Microsoft tends to make good money off of Apple owners who buy the Mac version of Office, etc. Linux is pulling people towards looking further for free versions of stuff, and rewards open source. Neither appeals to the folks in Redmond.
Re:Open Source != Free Software (Score:1)
The Iliad? Gilgamesh? Perhaps.
The question may be precisely backward. If literature, etc, started with openness as the norm, then the interesting question is how recently the first closed source project happened.
I'm reminded of something I read years ago. (Asimov? Silverberg?) The author suggested that the earliest writings were speculative (fantasy/science) fiction of their day, and mainstream fiction was the newer medium.
And don't get me started on Western tonal harmony... :-)
Re:Don't read this book - Write some code. (Score:1)
You'll get it wrong sometimes, and that's good - innovation's like that - but from time to time, a new model will come about. Having a good hard think about why OS works - as ESR did with The Cathedral and the Bazaar - can be productive in itself, and can work for hackers, not just management types.
Re:Don't read this book - Write some code. (Score:1)
We need to get not only the hackers believing, but the press, the public, and, possibly most important, managers and corporates. We've seen recent stories about restrictive terms and conditions of employment, which basically stop people contributing to the Open Source movement. If we can educate managers and organisations, then maybe they (we, I) can be convinced that OSS is a good thing, and not just Open Source Software, openness (freeness) in other fields of endeavour as well.
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:1)
This is patently false. Perl itself is released under the GPL version 1, ever since I can recall.
A first! (Score:1)
Re:Open Source != Free Software (Score:1)
Bill Gates was actually one of the first to think of source code as their property, of which there are countless records.
Just read about the climate back when RMS was coding away at MIT way back in the days.
Re:Helped end the Microsoft era? (Score:1)
And what of DVRs? (Score:1)
Microsoft is continuing to invade ever more markets, not fewer!
Re:I have a problem (Score:1)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
You must realize, even in the US, the grand land of freedom, justice, and capitalism we really truely don't have any freedom, justice, and capitalism. This is because the government has formed itself as an elitest group detached from society and serving it's own interests (not those of the people). Do you really feel like you have a choice of who represents you? Do you really like who you voted for, or was it just "the lesser of two evils"? Pretty sad if you really look at it.
People need to stand up and take back thier governments. Tools like the internet and philosophies like Open Source are making a good start at doing this. The revolution is near, keep up the good work.
Re:Open Source != Free Software (Score:1)
Re:New? (Score:1)
Jeroen
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:1)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
In fact, software is one of the few things that tends to be closed.
However, we are not anywhere near communism. We probably have the technology to support a society of equals, provided each person worked only 5 or so hours a week. Instead, we are working harder than ever. 40 hours/week is the minimum. 50 or 60 is common. And it's not because they enjoy working. The vast majority of people hate their jobs.
Basically, we, as a society, work way too hard, which gives us too much wealth, drives up inflation, and ultimately ends up in huge amounts of wealth for the people at the top. Consequently, we have multibillionaires like Bill Gates. Hell, we have so much wealth that we pay athletes enormous sums of money just to watch them play a game.
Most people are sheep. They don't have a clue what to do and need a higher authority to command them. That's why they'll spend 90% of their waking time doing stuff they hate no matter how illogical. And that's why equal societies unfortunately will never work.
Re:The Microsoft Era is over? (Score:1)
If Micro$oft has a true enemy, it is neither Open Source community nor GPL license - it's self-delusion and self-aggrandizement
This is more and more true nowadays then it has ever been.
Regards,
kovi
Just a little premature? (Score:1)
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Who says the Microsoft Era is over? (Score:1)
What makes you think anyone is going to start walking out of Best Buy with Linux PCs? How are they going to get half the peripherals to work? What about all those "IE Only" sites? What about funky browser plugins? How about all the ignoramuses who send everything in the latest Word or Excel file format as if everyone had them installed for free?
If you really want to end the Microsoft regime, you need to stop thinking like amateur communists and start acting like slimy, devious capitalists... like Microsoft. Maybe someone needs to convert some rich bastard to Linux so he can start PAYING people to install it on their PCs.
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
End of the MS Era? (Score:1)
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OliverWillis.Com [oliverwillis.com]
wtf? (Score:1)
End of the Microsoft Era (oh boy here we go) (Score:1)
Ugh. I groaned when I read that. I just knew the comments were going to be filled with tons of people who take that quote out of context and pointed out that the MS Era hasn't ended, and then get modded up +5. Admit it Katz, you were trolling.
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
By this definition, Linux is non-free as well. Heck, you need a ~$1000 computer to run it, plus a few dollars a month for electricity. This does not make Linux non-free. The bandwidth to download it is non-free: many people find it cheaper to buy a $2 cheap bytes CD than to pay for the bandwidth.
Is Linux free as in "free beer"? To the end user it isn't, it costs a few bucks to install. As far as the market is concerned, it is: the cost is exactly zero, and the economics of unlimited goods apply, rather than the standard supply and demand of scarce goods that everybody understands.
Re:The end of the Microsoft era? (Score:1)
The reason here is simple: Microsoft has no control whatsoever over any opensource project. But they have a firm grip on Apple. Once Apple becomes a thread (which is unlikely), they just drop their software for it (Office, IE,...). Problem solved.
Everyone would laugh if they try that with Linux. So the only weapon they have is to publicly denounce open source. Everyone still laughs.
I think, unpopular as the view may be, that MS will always be around. Instead of Microsoft Hate, we should promote Linux Love - convince people that we have a viable alternative - not just a rebellion.
That's right, but Microsoft doesn't make this easy for us. :-)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
Socialism is a very broad term, and is usually considered to encompass Communism and Anarchism (not to be cofused with Libertarianism). Communism is usually used to mean state capitalism, while you seem to be using the term to refer to the usual understanding of Anarchism. I've seen some of your further posts, which make this distinction clearer, but without ever mentionism Anarchism.
No criticism is intended, I agree with the distinction, but following the usual understanding of techincal terms often reduces the need to explain...
Re:I see a battle like Star Wars going on. (Score:1)
Use the source, Luke!
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:1)
Must a book begin at the beginning? Moody does know the history of "open source" software and explains it in the book. Most people don't have a problem with achronological narratives.
Problem with theory (Score:1)
Re:Rebel code (Score:1)
Hmmm... Linus Skywalker, Eric S Kenobi... Princess Stallman?
Consider GCC (Score:1)
GCC is a large, complex project of well over a half million lines of code and a complexity that can take months to master. Yet it stands as an exmaple of a large project with its origins in free software (unlike Mozilla).
Yet it steadily attracts contributors, most of whom tend to master small portions of the system leaving the rest to others.
Of course GCC has quite a bit of corporate sponsorship, which doesn't hurt any...
Re:I'd rather read about Microsoft (Score:1)
development work on the original version of MSDOS
Practicly stolen from Tom Peterson.
Windows 1.0
Just a port of Mac OS to an IBM box, and a poor one at that.
cut down version of a 1970s operating system then I'd go buy myself a PDP 11 or boot up that C/PM machine in my attic.
Unlike Win95/98/ME, which is based on DOS, and still has code from the early '80s (you're a few years more advanced! Horray!). At least Linux was a total rewrite of that 1970s OS, and that its base OS was much more solid to begin with.
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Re:I see a battle like Star Wars going on. (Score:1)
I've been thinking more along the lines of Babylon 5. Last year was a lot like season 3:
The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed.
And all hell breaks loose. Reminds me a lot of DeCSS, absurd patents, and other such giant corperate mischief. Just replace "Babylon Project" with "Internet" and "peace" with "freedom", and you'll see what I mean.
Heres a mutilated version of season four's opening:
It was the year of fire . . . It was the year of chaos . . . It was the year of great sadness . . . It was the year of joy . . . It was the year we took back what was ours.
Is this what 2001 will be like? I can only hope.
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Open Source != Free Software (Score:1)
Free Software and Open Source are not the same thing, despite their various similarities. Their underlieing philosophies are diffrent, even though they often come to similar conclusions.
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Re:Actually I know all this.,.. (Score:1)
Re:I'd rather read about Microsoft (Score:1)
A recommendation (Score:1)
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:1)
Hmmmm, a cheap metaphor: the world of software was balkanized (commercially (naturally) as well as in the research community (No Minix For You!)) and Torvalds' "hobby" project --slowly-- ignited the firestorm (cue brass section)...
The nice thing about the linux community effort was that it was volunteer, hacker-driven ("for fun!"), and followed the Do It Yourself ethic (tired of waiting for GNU Hurd?, D.I.Y. my friend...)
Re:Don't read this book - Write some code. (Score:1)
I'm not sure I agree with him on that point, though. Lots of people are very curious about exactly what all the Free Software stuff is about, and may grab this book off the shelf of their bookstore.
He is, however, on to something when he says that it is kind of silly for busy hackers, who were around to see all these events happen, to waste any time reading this book. If we all spent a little less time reading about the "history" of Open Source, and a little more time creating our own, Mozilla could get past the 0.x versions a little more quickly.
The part of Jon's review that caught my attention was this:
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.
First of all, isn't it way too early to judge what the impact of the Open Source movement "was"?
Also, this is the second time in which Jon has written a review speaks of Microsoft as if died away recently, and as if we were all aware of this "fact". Is his FUD supposed to be a humorous effort to hoist Microsoft on their own pitard? Or did he perhaps ignore Nietzsche's warning about what happens when you fight with monsters?
Re:Don't read this book - Write some code. (Score:1)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
Re:Bandwagon. (Score:1)
In that case I direct my chagrin at whoever wrote the the total misdirection in the top paragraphs...
All your open source are belong to us.
FP.
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Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
It's called "anarchism", and Debian is a pretty good example of how an anrcho-syndicalist organization would work, albeit a non-profit one (note that there is no reason why Debian should be non-profit). There are large (and very successful) syndicalist cooperatives in Europe, but very few in the US.
Kudos to RMS, but give credit where credit's due.
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Re:I see a battle like Star Wars going on. (Score:1)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
I wish I had a point to mod the parent up; however if the previous poster did
I think that OSS is almost a blend of the populist meaning of 'anarchy', in that the fluff eventually gets weeded out, but in terms of its sharing mechanisms and its viewpoint, it's more the 'ism'. Shame we can't get the point across to policymakers, while Allchin gets his oar in and strikes a first (albeit stupid) blow for the establishment...
Re:Spelling (Score:1)
If you're going to indulge in spelling flames, at least amend your .sig. The correct spelling is Póg mo thóin!
Re:I'd rather read about Microsoft (Score:1)
IIRC, the core of VMS is written in BLISS, which was a sort of portable assembly language. BLISS abstracted away some of the machine specifics so programs could be ported between the different Digital machine architectures (PDP, VAX, etc.) Most the libraries that make up the VMS runtime environment are written in higher-level languages.
From the OpenVMS FAQ [decus.org]
So your assertion that VMS was programmed "on the metal" in assembly language is half-correct. The fact that VMS requires exotic hardware with multiple privilege levels... well, Digital were designing both the hardware and the OS, so it's not surprising there are strong ties between the VAX architecture and the VMS OS. Portability to non-Digital hardware was not an issue when VMS was conceived.
I think what the original poster had in mind is that NT and VMS are similar conceptually (not surprising as one man, Dave Cutler, was responsible for both).
Yadda yadda yadda, we all read this breathless marketroid shite back in 1991 when NT first appeared. If NT is so damn portable, why has it bombed on every platform except x86?
And, IMNSHO, NT ceased to be a "microkernel" when they moved the GDI into kernel space just to squeeze a few more cycles out of the GUI.
AFAIK, the porting strategy for Linux goes like this:
This is undesirable how?
Depends on what you define as a "complete" system. A lot of these ports are special-purpose projects (e.g. embedded systems), in which case only a fraction of the full functionality of a desktop or server Linux system is required. Not much point in porting a GUI to a system that's intended to be used in a car's fuel injection system, you know.
Re:Bandwagon. (Score:1)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:1)
Just a comment on your definition of communism as "the State owns everything, and directs how it is used." It's one of those unfortunate historical facts (like the fact that electricity flows in the opposite direction than the terms "positive" and "negative" imply") that the word "communism" has come to mean what you say. Marx thought of communism as an "advanced form of socialism" in which the state no longer existed, let alone controlled anything. Yes, that's right: communism is so far left that it's anarchism, libertarianism, and (if you relish ironies) far, far, right.
Marx thought the only way to get there from here, however, was a transitional period of socialism while the state still existed. Communism could only happen, he stated, in wealthy industrial countries that had the infrastructure, e.g. Germany, U.K. It's another historical irony that the only countries that had pro-communist revolutions were poor agricultural societies like Russia. There was nothing to do but hold onto power for dear life and wait for those damned Westerners to get with the prophecy. As it happened, they waited 70 years.
I'm not a communist myself. However, I'll happily argue with anyone who states that communism has failed that it hasn't even been tried on any scale larger than, say, the Oneida Colony.
Gareth
Re:wtf? (Score:1)
That said, I have nothing against JonKatz's writing or opinions infact I think he's quite good.
Sorry about that...
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Re:I'd rather read about Microsoft (Score:1)
Actually I know all this.,.. (Score:1)
Also reviewed in Sunday Times (Score:2)
I especially liked the last paragraph of the review which read
The review was published before Balmer's and Allchin's recent intrusions on free software territory!Don't you ever wonder if... (Score:2)
Intriguing book... (Score:2)
Now, I'm not going to choose sides, but I =do= agree with the basic premise. Everything happens in a context, and if you miss the context, you miss the entire point of the event.
Besides, not everyone has their initials in every college physics text, the world over. :) How can I disagree with an international star? :)
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:2)
I actually believe the GPL is a _little_ too restrictive, and plan to use the LGPL for most stuff I do. I want improvements made to my stuff to be available to me so I can learn, and available to the world so it can benefit.
I agree with you about the role of BSD actually. :-) I have a lot of respect for BSD, but I won't use it until I see the anti-Linux and anti-GPL zealotry in that community die down. Feels icky to me, seems too much like a 'kill the other guy' competition. Perhaps I seem a bit of a GPL zealot to you, but I'm more of an anti-anti-GPL zealot zealot. *grin*
Re:moron (Score:2)
*shrug* We'll see. You can't predict what will happen, only experience it. If I were building a company around Open Source, I know exactly how I'd structure it, and it would make money. A lot of it.
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:2)
I'm sorry, those restrictions are necessary to prevent my code from being stolen for commercial gain. If they want to use it, they have to give back. It keeps the whole thing from degenerating into the horrible scarcity based system it was in the 80s and early 90s.
Re:put up or shut up (Score:2)
When I get some money to invest, I'll probably put some into SuSe, Redhat, or maybe Va Linux. I think they are much better buys than Microsoft is right now.
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:2)
Someone mentioned that you were using the mistaken 'communist == Soviet Union' equivalence. If you want a very interesting take on the differences between communism and capitalism and how they might apply in a world of nanofacturing, read "" by Ken MacLeod. Excellent book with a very European slant on politics. [fatbrain.com]
Re:Oops, should've used preview. *sigh* (Score:2)
The correct link is "The Cassini Division [fatbrain.com]".
Re:Helped end the Microsoft era? (Score:2)
This may be 'offtopic' but there is some truth in it. Microsoft has played very creatively with how they account for options, and used various other financial tricks to enhance their apparent profitability and consistently beat analysts expectations by a very consistent amount.
can they make a movie/docudrama of it? (Score:2)
According to the "rules of drama" you got have
a dramatic conflict, interesting characters,
and a climax. In the nerd series the conflict
was newcomers versus the establishment and each other.
There is no shortage of eccentrics like Jobs,
Gates, McNealy, and Andraessen.
The climax has usuallly been someone getting
fabulously rich off their products.
This book has the first two. I'm sure if the
process has a climax yet.
The movie "Antri-trust" had open-source as a
secondary subplot and climax.
Re:The Microsoft Era is over? (Score:2)
Microsoft's greatest enemy is its own delusion and own self-aggrandizement, as you said. And what is missed by the OS community is that their enemy is the very same traits. Ever minute spent contemplating the Flaws of Bill is a minute lost contemplating ones own potential for mistakes.
That is why I would prefer the book reviews here be more focused on the books themselves and not propaganda, even if it is supposedly "correct." Every heartbeat spent creating FUD for Open Source is a heartbeat spent legitimizing the FUD from closed-source advocates.
Capitalism (Score:2)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:2)
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:2)
The ideas behind open source are about individual freedom and power, as opposed to state power.
Nothing like communism whatsoever. In fact, its closer to a form of anarchy than anything else. ie, a ruthless application of Darwinian survival of the fittest by the people. In open source its the fittest code that survives. In anarchy, its the fittest people.
Re:Open Source vs. Free Software (Score:2)
All of the above + BSD, Apache, Perl, Python...
I think Stallman is right that he is being written out of history. This is either sheer ignorance on the part of the author...
That's crap. There is quite a big, and largely complimentary, piece on him in the book. Besides, history will take care of itself. In a hundred years time, Linux will be gone. Will students be writing papers on 'the FSF and the end of intellectual property rights'. Maybe.
Re:Just a little premature? (Score:2)
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:2)
Well, yes. It's a book about Linux more than anything else. Check the title.
It does go back and try to put things in some sort of perspective. But it's not a book about the creation of the Internet, or the history of Unix. It does touch on other things: GNU and the GPL, Apache and Mozilla, Perl.
I take the point, that it's a wrong view to take the story of Linux in isolation. However, I don't think the book makes that mistake, and focussing on Linux does give it some narrative coherence.
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:2)
What you have just described is not Anarchy, it is Nihilism. Classical Anarchy, as a political philosophy, began when Michael Bakunin [pitzer.edu], an early colaborator with Karl Marx, split with Marx on the issue of implementing a communist society. Bakunin coined the term "Red Bureaucracy" to describe the Marxist proposal of the dictatorship of the proletariat and predicted that such an institution would outdo the evils of any tyrant (he seems to have been correct). Anarchism holds that the only way to achieve the ideals of Marx is to eliminate all power structures between people. This would include government and corporations as some of the first structures to be dismantled. In order to survive, however, an anarchist society would require a high degree of (voluntary) cooperation between citizens -- nothing like the social darwinism proposed by Nihilism, but very close to the ideals of Free Software/Open Source.
Re:Open Source != Free Software (Score:2)
The Iliad? Gilgamesh? Perhaps.
But I wonder if, in fact, the first *sanctioned* open source project -- a project with the same sort of "hierarchical blessing structure" that the current OS movements has -- might not be the compilation of the old and new testaments. (There might be better non-western examples -- if so, please let me know, as I'm curious about the whole hierarchical structure with promotes the cyclical path of authorship and interpretation -- canon formation, in other words. The Koran, maybe? It, like the biblical texts, was "dictated to" Mohammed by a 'divine' voice, but I'm not sure of how its actual formation -- its life after dictation -- came to be.)
There are debates about the Iliad. While it's true, they probably *are not* the result of just one author, we don't know enough about either to pin down the structure of their composition. Obviously, the Iliad was primarily oral -- a song, perhaps, or a long poem meant to be spoken/sung -- but I'm not sure if we know how what has come to be accepted as the official text actually came to *be* the 'official' text.
Stallman "leader of Free Software 'movement'"??? (Score:2)
-bluebomber
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:2)
Well, "as practiced in the real world", Open Source is a bunch of hobbyists struggling to reproduce a 1970s operating system, some of whom have managed to dupe venture capitalists for long enough to become unprofitable companies, but I didn't see you criticisng that.
Re:Rebel code (Score:2)
However, if you draw a parallel between Star Wars and the Open Source revolution then Tatooine would be Finland and Redmond would be Coruscant.
Hmm now who's Yoda? Stallman?
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:2)
And, let's face it, there probably never will be.
In order to preserve a stable communist state, protecting it from both external threats and from all those uncooprative stubborn people who would rather be rich capitalists, you need to establish a military.
In order to establish a military, you need to either create incentive for people to become soldires (by offering wealth or special treatment), or else force people to become soldiers (by drafting them).
Either way, once you take the steps neccessary to establish your military, you no longer have a communist state, because (to lift from Orwell) "some people are more equal than others".
This is why communism has only been successfully demonstrated on Gilligan's Island reruns, and not in the real world.
about the word communism... (Score:2)
And I think you need to look less at how it's been practised in the Soviet Union and China and more at the definition of the word. AFAIK, the point of communism was about communal sharing -- from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Ideologically, I don't see that it's inextricably linked with the idea of authoritarian control.
However, seeing as we've been through a few decades of cold war, the term and ideology of Communism have been demonized. Though some still consider it a dirty word, I think it's better to talk about socialism.
Even if the Soviet Union isn't still around, socialism is alive and well around the world. Here in the States we have social security and a graduated income tax. You don't have to call these communist if you don't want to, but I believe they were originally part of the communist party platform.
Now...as for open source...can money be made off of it? Yes. Does that make it more capitalistic than socialistic? No. I'm guessing that if Torvalds is doing alright financially today, it's probably more because he's semi-famous and not because of all his Linux royalties... Open Source is sharing something people would often be forced to pay for. Isn't that communal? Isn't that the point of communism?
Re:A flaw in the book? Or the review? (Score:2)
Actually, I read the first chapter when it was published in Computer Weekly and it started with the 60s. Maybe this doesn't feature majorly in the book, but the extract I read spoke all about how open UNIX originally was (bug reports freely given out etc) and went on to talk about Bill Gates' rants against free software in the mid-70s. BSD was certinally also mentioned.
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Target Audience (Score:2)
So J.K. apart, who will go and buy the book?
And who will really read it entirely?
Re:Also reviewed in Sunday Times (Score:2)
I think it looks like a good background text on the beginnings of linux, so I bought it.
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I see a battle like Star Wars going on. (Score:2)
Steve Ballmer to Bill Gates: "What is thy bidding, master?"
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation. (Score:2)
Okay.
Technology is moving slowly.
There is nothing particularly world-changing about replacing 90Mhz processors with 1.5GHz processors. What did we get? Active Desktop, and Solitaire was upgraded to FreeCell. Power structures are still the same, the reasons people live and die are still the same, the organization of societies follows the same principles as before 512K processor caches became de rigeur.
I think computer technology stands a decent chance of having a noticeable impact on the way the world works, but it hasn't happened yet.
Uh huh. I forget - which was coming first? Practical home fusion generators or personal jetcars? Or was it household robots to do the vacuuming and walk the dogs? These things have been "coming" since 1955. So far we have AIBO to show for it.
No argument here. But this, just like the libertarian paradise that certain idiot savants are always harping about, is untenable. There is a fundamental naïveté at work here.
Some of the people in the world are extremely predisposed to greed. This in itself is not a problem; shun them Amish-style, or lock them away, or check their pockets on the way out, or whatever you need to do. The problem, however, is that greed is contagious. Once you have a smart greedy person setting an example by getting more than other people have, a share of onlookers will want to do the same. That in turn will lure still more away from the communitarian acivity du jour. At some point, the pie-in-the-sky system will break down.
It's interesting that the extreme left (communism) and left (libertarianism) fantasies suffer from the identical problem: They're constructs championed by fairly smart people who are for some reason utterly unable to comprehend the ramifications of the apparently obscure fact that not everyone will share the same motivations.
The only system that seems to be able to cope is market capitalism, which - surprise! - evolved on its own as a gradual response to how humans are inclined to behave.
Open Source vs. Free Software (Score:2)
I think Stallman is right that he is being written out of history. This is either sheer ignorance on the part of the author, or an attept to capitalize on hot buzzwords like "Open Source" and "Linux".
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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