Jul
12
Written by:
Stephen
7/12/2010 9:11 AM
And the band played on ....
The debates rage again. The initial thrust of the discussion started with Simon Phipps blog editorial about his view of the failings of the open core open source business model, following on his call for a renaissance of the Open Source Initiative. The debate broadened with posts from people that have lived in the space (Henrik Ingo and Brian Aker responding to Marten Mickos) and continues with excellent commentary from Matt Aslett (451 Group), Stephen O'Grady (RedMonk), and two editorials from Brian Proffitt.
I want to build on an idea that Brian Proffitt began in his discussion. He tries to get people away from the debate around the social value we call freedom and people's desire to create a spectrum for freedom with "free" at one end and "not free" or "closed" at the other end. This view of the world as freedom spectrum goes back to Microsoft's early Shared Source messaging from 2003 through 2005. This conflation leads to debates of order and purity and line drawing on things that are absolute and whether you're in the club or not, all of which are divisive. Brian instead offers the idea that it's more of a Venn diagram with a set of projects that are "free" and the rest are not, and within the free set there is a gradient as it moves to the middle of the set's circle.
I'm still not happy with that debate because I don't think it addresses the underlying problem of value systems and terminology. Having a debate about software freedom versus open source software (and then debating who is more free or more open) suffers the same problems and tensions as arguing that free speech is better than free markets or that democracy is more important than capitalism. They are different ideas. The ideas themselves are each extremely important in their own domains of debate (politics and commerce). The ideas can be synergistic. I would happily debate if one is a necessary foundation of the other, or whether one particularly enables the other, but I think debating whether one is somehow better than the other or more important than the other is an empty debate. All you do at that point is identify yourself to the other participants by the value system in which you choose to expend your own time and skills. (I made my choice a long time ago and stepped into the commercial sphere. It doesn't mean that I don't care about politics and democracy and don't vote my conscience in elections, but rather that I believe I can best contribute in a commercial sphere.)
The Free Software Foundation has done an extraordinary and valuable job for the past 25 years of defining and evangelizing the idea of software freedom. The FSF treats the software asset as property in terms of collaboration in the Commons. It's a discussion about free speech. The Open Source Initiative has expended a lot of effort over the past dozen years formulating a definition and language for how the market needs to think about open source software focusing on the licenses through which the software is developed and distributed. The OSI treats the software asset as property in terms of the market exchanges that need to be addressed. It's a discussion about free markets. Neither view is more correct than the other. They should be synergistic and Simon's desire to bring a renaissance to the OSI is a good one if they find ways for the two organizations to support each other's goals.
8 comment(s) so far...
Software Freedom and Open Source Software (on CodePlex)
I just posted my opening thoughts on the current debates over software freedom versus open source software as a foundation for a discussion about open core as a business model. They are over at the CodePlex Foundation blog.
# Once More unto the Breach
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Re: Software Freedom, Open Source Software, and Jane Jacobs
Debate? Other than what Microsoft manufactures here, there is no debate. It's very simple, "open core" is simply another term for "bullshit".
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