 |
 |
 |
|
Kind of an Open Source Link List
Here is a slightly edited version of a response I just sent to a student working on a paper. Thought it might be helpful to put it on the Web. At least it works as a collection of links. Doc
Re: As a major participant in the trade press that deals with the issues of GNU/Linux and the Open Source Movement on a day to day basis, I wonder if you would please answer a couple of questions for me to aid me in my research. After several drafts, I realized that I'd like to flesh out certain areas of the paper, and would like more input of people such as yourself.... I'd like to know how Linux and Open Source first came to your attention. Were you a computing professional and heard about it word of mouth, or was it in the press? How do you feel the mainstream media, like newspapers and television, present the idea of Open Source software? Are they more or less prone to pandering to the dominant technology than say, a trade publication would be, with advertising dollars at stake? These should answer some of your questions:
Also have a look around <http://www.linuxforsuits.com>; I think lack of comprehension and alien frames of reference matter far more than pandering -- if there is any. (Frankly, I think Microsoft is just as misunderstood as Open Source.) In the broadest sense, there are two open source conversations: one among those who create open source software and put it to use, and one among the rest of the world. The latter includes the mainstream media, nearly all of which are far more familiar with closed source software simply because that's what they use every day. That world likes to cover open source, but it barely understands it. I believe this is one reason why Eric S. Raymond (who should be your first source for this paper) <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/>; refers to his comrades in open source development as a 'tribe.' Check out ESR's writings in general <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/>;, and Homesteading the Noosphere in particular <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/>;. Although his thinking on open source is lucid, literate and highly influential, the mainstream press frankly still barely understands it, and developers outside the tribe are often at odds with it. Dave Winer <http://www.scripting.com>; has probably done more than any other software developer to challenge both the assumptions of open source advocacy and its put-downs of other development methodologies. (Do a search on his site for particulars, since he represents his position far better than I can). Dave's thinking out loud, and his public dialogues with others (e.g. Tim O'Reilly and myself), provide perhaps the best source of open source conversation from outside the 'tribe.' My own favorite source of challenging thinking is Craig Burton, who drove Novell's inventive and highly successful strategies in the Eighties. See my interviews with him at <http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue41/searls.html>; and <http://www.searls.com/burton_interview.html>;. This week somebody told me that Craig says that ubiquitous infrastructure can *only* be open source. (I need to check with him on that. The best books on the subject -- to me at least -- are ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar (which is also on the Web, among the writings listed above), O'Reilly's Open Sources: Voices of the Open Source Revolution (which you can buy from O'R, but also find in its entirety on the O'R site somewhere), and Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning was the Command Line, also available on the Web: <http://www.spack.org/essays/commandline.html>;. My own take: Linux is building material, open source is a building method, and the software industry is gradually becoming very much like the construction industry from which it borrows its favorite metaphors. The construction industry is run primarily by its practitioners, not its suppliers. It's a mature industry with few secrets about its methods and no Microsoft deciding what everybody can and can't use. And it's a $trillion+ industry with plenty of multi-$billion players and room for many more. As for ubiquitous infrastructure, I believe grows around three virtues:
As Dave likes to say, "Ask not what the Web can do for you. Ask what you can do for the Web." I believe on that issue he finds agreement with the open source folks. And with me. By the way, no piece on open source would be complete without also reviewing its origins in the Free Software movement <http://www.fsf.org>;, and the work of Richard Stallman <http://www.stallman.org/>;. Open source and free software remain distinct but highly related conversations. Best, Doc
|
