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October 10, 2006
Five myths of open source
The open source movement today is a lot more than a motley crew of hobbyists hacking in their free time. Based on the simple but rigorously applied principles of technical openness and freedom to tinker, it has become a force to reckon with even where serious money-making businesses are concerned. Major technology companies are committed to open source and are starting to build strategic and tactical business models around it.
Open source (OSS) projects have come to be identified with the values of individual freedom and democracy that arise out of leveling the playing field among users and contributors. This thinking in the geek community is rooted in two factors: a sense of relief that credible, technically sound alternatives to proprietary software are finally cropping up and an instinctive reaction to Microsoft's bullying and anti-competitive practices over the years. Although the birth and evolution of OSS projects is unequivocally a step forward for computing technology, these perceived values are not always borne out by actual experience. Enough negative experiences can alienate prospective user and contributors. Here's a list of myths about OSS projects, which, if dispelled, will help set more realistic expectations about them in prospective users and contributors:
- Myth #1: An OSS project is a democracy.
- An OSS project is not a democracy but a meritocracy. Anybody is entitled to have ideas, but is not entitled to recognition and wide adoption of those ideas. Ideas compete on their value to the influential people in a project. Successful OSS projects assess the value of an idea upon the right mix of technical and non-technical considerations, such as value to the user community. Linus Torvalds, who leads the development of the Linux kernel, has gone on record that the Linux project follows the model of a benevolent dictatorship. Although the inner circle of Linux developers (yes, there is one) makes every effort to listen to as many voices as it can, ultimately it alone makes executive decisions that influence the project.
- Myth #2: Any user of an OSS product can change its direction.
- Somewhat paradoxically, new users of an OSS project are best positioned to offer useful feedback on its biggest holes in functionality, because they haven't adapted to its idiosyncrasies. If a novice user suggests to a project that a feature is missing, however, a common retort they hear back is 'write it yourself'. It is not always practical for just anyone to write a feature themselves. The code base of a successful OSS project is often complex; it may take some time before a new user learns its internal conventions and is able to contribute working code. Sometimes they may be just offering a suggestion as a helpful user without having an interest in developing it themselves. If the requestor has enough money (say it was an organization), they may be able to hire enough labor to make their request come to fruition and contribute it back to the community. One benefit of giving a feature back to the community is that the community will often help support and maintain it. Even if an independent user effort does succeed, there is no guarantee that their feature will be merged into the principal distribution of that project (see #1 for why), which would only leave them with an additional support and maintenance burden on their hands.
- Myth #3: Contributors work on an OSS project purely on volunteered time.
- This may have been true 10 years ago, but isn't the case anymore. As commercial adoption of open source increases, key developers of several successful open source projects are on the payrolls of major corporations. These corporations have an explicit interest in making a project they sponsor succeed by entrenching it, which means that ordinary users simply cannot be ignored. The products ordinary users like best are those that get out of their way and "help them kick ass." If a user complains about some aspect of an OSS product and asks for a fix, they are frequently told that they should have no such expectation because hacker time is donated, or that nobody is forcing them to use that product. These sanctimonious and demeaning responses are incredibly off-putting and ultimately detract from the overall success of a project. Moreover, it's just not true to say that all time on an OSS project is donated; corporations that sponsor an OSS project in particular almost have an obligation to listen to what users say (also see #2).
- Myth #4: Decisions regarding an OSS project's direction are made purely on technical merit.
- Forks and other schisms in an OSS project can occur because of differences of opinion of a non-technical nature or even personality clashes. The XOrg fork of the X server from the main XFree86 project arose from disagreements over license terms. The IceWeasel fork of Firefox arose from a push to develop a purely free version, untainted by any non-free artwork or plugins. The Wine project maintains a number of concurrent versions targeted at different user bases. It is conventional wisdom that forking a project is inconvenient from a technical standpoint and frequently results in a loss of focus and direction. Sometimes, however, a decision with demonstrably lower technical merit may still win out because it is the realistic thing to do or because of popular support.
- Myth #5: The principles of open source are important to users of an OSS project.
- This may be a bitter pill to swallow for some, but it must be said out loud. Although the motivations and the initiative behind starting an OSS project may be laudable, average Joes care less about the philosophy behind a project and more about how well it works for them. OSS contributors, who frequently have an analytical bent of mind, love to argue about the correctness of their point, often to the point of acrimony. Their efforts will have been in vain, however, if their OSS product doesn't work well for their users. Functionality and correctness count for a lot more with users than infinite choice and conformance with a particular philosophy.
Posted by Vishy at October 10, 2006 10:08 PM