Question about the logistics of open sourse

[RabbitWho]

I'm sure this has been discussed before and there's some obvious answer that just isn't hitting me so I'd like you guys to point it out...

Take for example 2 things like Chrome and Firefox.

The guys at Firefox work really hard, make a great browser.
Chrome use a lot of this to make chrome, and then build on it and improve it.
Firefox see what they've done, and are able to use the innovations to improve their own product. (The two are almost as fast again now)
Firefox can take whatever is popular in Chrome and incorporate it into their own browser while simultaneously working on their own innovations, which chrome themselves can take... till you have two almost identical browsers passing each other every few months in a wave like pattern
So in the end.. What's the advantage of innovating at all? How does it help the company that you increased your speed by .3 when in 2 months time the competitors will do the same?
Can't you just sit back and copy your competitor and as long as someone who's not open source doesn't suddenly overtake the two of you in terms of the quality of the product they're producing? then what's to stop everything from stagnating?

I'm not sure if I chose the best two examples because Chrome isn't 100% open source, is it?
But take any other two open source products, does competition exist within the open source community? Can it? Are they only ever competing against closed source companies, and if so does that mean that open source depends on closed source to keep it vital and evolving?

I think there's a limit to how good something can get if you take out the element of competition. I mean I'm quite happy with firefox, I can't imagine anything better, but if suddenly someone comes along and offers me something better then sure, I'm going to take it.. and if everyone is making "the software they would want themselves", at something they're going to think "Yeah, that's great, that'll do" and shin a bhuil ya know?

While Firefox only needed to be better than IE it's progress was a lot slower than it is now.

Competition gets people going, and it keeps them excited about what they're doing, and gives them deadlines and specific aims.. it's great.. it doesn't mean backstabbing or trying to form a monopoly it means producing a product that people will want to use because it's so great.
Correct me if I'm wrong! Perhaps the people creating these things are the creative/mad scientist types who are compleatly unaware of any extrinsic motivations and will work at the same speed no matter what the industry demands.
What am I missing here?

[juancarlospaco]

Evolution.

Firefox != Chrome

[NoaHall]

Chrome isn't open source, but it's built upon the open-source chromium web-browser.

[RabbitWho]

Chrome isn't open source, but it's built upon the open-source chromium web-browser.

So choose some other example. Open source music players maybe.

[RabbitWho]

Evolution.

Firefox != Chrome


If they're the same speed, and have the same add ons (as they will eventually) surely they're basically the same thing with a different theme.

[doas777]

I get what you are getting at, but I'm having trouble expressing it.

I look at it this way: would I rather live in the startrek universe, where we all work because we want to, to fufil our enlightened self interests and in so doing, enrich everyones lives, or do i want to live in a world where everyone is out for their own, and only cooperate for unenlightened self interest, and the goal is to kill off all the competitors.
I think the former will get us further than the later.

[Grenage]

What's the advantage of innovating at all?

Between the time where innovation is applied and a rival copies the feature, the user often increases. By stagnating and merely copying another product, there is little incentive for a user to change.

That obviously doesn't cover the 'idealist' crowd, but it's a relatively small crowd.

[RabbitWho]

I get what you are getting at, but I'm having trouble expressing it.

I look at it this way: would I rather live in the startrek universe, where we all work because we want to, to fufil our enlightened self interests and in so doing, enrich everyones lives, or do i want to live in a world where everyone is out for their own, and only cooperate for unenlightened self interest, and the goal is to kill off all the competitors.
I think the former will get us further than the later.

I would love that! But I just don't see how it's possible, I don't see it in myself and I don't see it in anyone else, I know I'll work harder if it's for some kind of monitory gain rather than some spiritual sense of satisfaction, especially since i don't have time to work or spiritual satisfaction when i need to put food on the table.
Ideally it's a combination of the two, but I think that, as I said, if you're working for your enlightened self interest you'll get to a point where you think "yeah I'm working hard enough" and "that's grand." Instead of thinking "gotta be better, gotta work harder" like you do if you're racing against the shadow of an unseen evolution in your opponents product.

[aysiu]

Chrome use a lot of this to make chrome, and then build on it and improve it.
Firefox see what they've done, and are able to use the innovations to improve their own product. (The two are almost as fast again now)
Firefox can take whatever is popular in Chrome and incorporate it into their own browser while simultaneously working on their own innovations, which chrome themselves can take... till you have two almost identical browsers passing each other every few months in a wave like pattern
So in the end.. What's the advantage of innovating at all? You've actually pointed out (albeit using bad examples) what is so great about open source, and it's something critics of open source often miss: with open source there is less duplication of effort. You can share code and "stand on the shoulders of giants."

What prevents projects from being identical is that not everyone agrees on what is innovative or desirable. If I have project B based on project A, and you have project C based on project A, you may decide to add feature X to your project, and I may decide feature X would be terrible in my project. If everyone agreed on what's considered a desirable feature or implementation, then there wouldn't be multiple projects. Forking exists for a reason.

[RabbitWho]

You've actually pointed out (albeit using bad examples) what is so great about open source, and it's something critics of open source often miss: with open source there is less duplication of effort. You can share code and "stand on the shoulders of giants."

What prevents projects from being identical is that not everyone agrees on what is innovative or desirable. If I have project B based on project A, and you have project C based on project A, you may decide to add feature X to your project, and I may decide feature X would be terrible in my project. If everyone agreed on what's considered a desirable feature or implementation, then there wouldn't be multiple projects. Forking exists for a reason.

That makes sense, and maybe I understand the Hannah Montana build of kubuntu a little better now. http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/Site/Home.html

But surely that's all just customizable, what's to motivate someone to say.. integrate sensitivity to speech commands, except the fact that Microsoft are doing it and they might want to compete.
Or say, something, i don't know, crazy, like a 3D desktop.. (That probably exists? It seems like it would be easy with a projector and 3D glasses.. what i can't figure out is how you'd sellect/click on anything.. maybe with some kind of cross between that and "6th Sense" http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html) anyway that's just an example, i reckon people like to also sit comfortably on the shoulders of giants and figure, hey, i'm tall enough now, why grow?

[juancarlospaco]

If they're the same speed, and have the same add ons (as they will eventually) surely they're basically the same thing with a different theme.

No, its all different, starting from Gecko Core Vs Webkit Core.

[aysiu]

what's to motivate someone to say.. integrate sensitivity to speech commands, except the fact that Microsoft are doing it and they might want to compete. Everyone has different motivations. For some, it's money. For others, it's respect or bragging rights. Some people have an internal drive to innovate and create... or just have fun doing it. I would suspect a little bit of each is involved for most developers. Don't forget that a lot of open source software is commissioned or otherwise funded by large corporations (IBM, Google, etc.). It isn't all volunteer.

I can think of quite a bit of innovation that hasn't just been copying what Microsoft and Apple have been doing, though: Synaptic, Compiz, virtual desktops, live/installer CDs.

Don't forget that sharing goes both ways. If I make improvements to project B, and you make improvements to project C, and we're both based on project A, then all the improvements can be taken advantage of in A, B, and C. You aren't just benefiting from my work. I'm also benefiting from your work.

I think your question makes more sense for the BSD-style (as opposed to GPL-style) license. With a BSD-style license, you can just keep taking and never give back. In other words, someone spends a lot of time, energy, and money writing her software, releases it in a BSD license, then you take that software's open code, add in a few additions and tweaks and then release your own software under a fully closed-source license. So you have benefited from her work, but she can't benefit from your improvements.

[MichealH]

I like open Source in the way of If I have a Programming Idea I can make It out of those files!

[RabbitWho]

Everyone has different motivations. For some, it's money. For others, it's respect or bragging rights. Some people have an internal drive to innovate and create... or just have fun doing it. I would suspect a little bit of each is involved for most developers. Don't forget that a lot of open source software is commissioned or otherwise funded by large corporations (IBM, Google, etc.). It isn't all volunteer.

I can think of quite a bit of innovation that hasn't just been copying what Microsoft and Apple have been doing, though: Synaptic, Compiz, virtual desktops, live/installer CDs.

Don't forget that sharing goes both ways. If I make improvements to project B, and you make improvements to project C, and we're both based on project A, then all the improvements can be taken advantage of in A, B, and C. You aren't just benefiting from my work. I'm also benefiting from your work.

I think your question makes more sense for the BSD-style (as opposed to GPL-style) license. With a BSD-style license, you can just keep taking and never give back. In other words, someone spends a lot of time, energy, and money writing her software, releases it in a BSD license, then you take that software's open code, add in a few additions and tweaks and then release your own software under a fully closed-source license. So you have benefited from her work, but she can't benefit from your improvements.


Cool, I think I understand it a bit better now.
I was listening to one of the online Berkley lecturers on computer science and the lecturer suggested that the reason why vista was so unstable was because it was trying out soooo many new things, which suggested that Linux and OSX must be less innovative as they're more stable. So I suppose it's a good sign that so many people had problems with Karmic!

in any case there will always be competition from closed source things. You mentioned the commisions from large companies, all those things come out of necessity, the companies need something invented or made.. so they can pay and people will do it.
Competition breeds necessity. I think there's a difference between "We want to be faster." "We want to be more user friendly." "we want to be lightweight." and "We need to be faster." "We need to be more user friendly." "We need to be lightweight."

[doas777]

That makes sense, and maybe I understand the Hannah Montana build of kubuntu a little better now. http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/Site/Home.html

But surely that's all just customizable, what's to motivate someone to say.. integrate sensitivity to speech commands, except the fact that Microsoft are doing it and they might want to compete.
Or say, something, i don't know, crazy, like a 3D desktop.. (That probably exists? It seems like it would be easy with a projector and 3D glasses.. what i can't figure out is how you'd sellect/click on anything.. maybe with some kind of cross between that and "6th Sense" http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html) anyway that's just an example, i reckon people like to also sit comfortably on the shoulders of giants and figure, hey, i'm tall enough now, why grow?

well part of that is evidenced via the fact that there are usually more than one project for any given usecase. folks just wanted to do their own, or found a specific lacking in the existing product.

the very fact that ubuntu is a usable free os is evidence that not everything need be motivated by capitalistic intent. profit motive is a goal that our cultures emphasize, but need it really be that way? I don't think so.

One of the things I like about linux, is that it exposes enough of it's soft underbelly, that I can look at it and inspect the way it works, learning new things and deepening my understanding of computing as a whole. no one is paying me to do it, and really, since ubuntu works for me, do I need to? no probably not, but I guess as you put it, I'm not tall enough yet. prolly never will be.

btw, thanks for posting this thread. good discussion.

[insane_alien]

Cool, I think I understand it a bit better now.
I was listening to one of the online Berkley lecturers on computer science and the lecturer suggested that the reason why vista was so unstable was because it was trying out soooo many new things, which suggested that Linux and OSX must be less innovative as they're more stable. So I suppose it's a good sign that so many people had problems with Karmic!

i'd say its more because linux and open source favour small incremental improvements between releases rather than all out rewrites.

only a few tings get updated at a time, but they are updated more often.

[RabbitWho]

the very fact that ubuntu is a usable free os is evidence that not everything need be motivated by capitalistic intent. profit motive is a goal that our cultures emphasize, but need it really be that way? I don't think so.


Canonical make millions off Ubuntu, it is free because it being free doesn't harm them but rather benefits them greatly, we are all (at least) beta testers for the LTSs and people who actually pay to buy it and get professional technical support. (Not to mention they get paid to keep google as the default search engine in Firefox and other things like that) It's a really nice way of doing business, it's wonderful, it's great, we get something free which is well tested and stable. But don't say it's not motivated by capitalistic intent. Just because you're trying to make money and run a business doesn't mean that's all you care about.
Money = food, clothes, books, college education for your kids.. Unless you're independently wealthy of course that will be your first priority! When you work you want that work to have a pay off, so you find something that people want, because there is always money in what people want, because they work hard and earn money so they can have what they want.



the very fact that ubuntu is a usable free os is evidence that not everything need be motivated by capitalistic intent. profit motive is a goal that our cultures emphasize, but need it really be that way? I don't think so.There's nothing wrong with capitalism! Capitalism means working hard to make a good product that will help other people with their lives in some way so that you'll get money you can feed your family with. It has nothing to do with harming anyone.
Money = tokens that you get to represent how hard you've worked and what a good job you've done, you can use them to allow you to benefit from the hard work of someone else, it's like a barter system and it works fine if it's regulated carefully to stop people from abusing it.

[doas777]

There's nothing wrong with capitalism! Capitalism means working hard to make a good product that will help other people with their lives in some way so that you'll get money you can feed your family with. It has nothing to do with harming anyone.
Money = tokens that you get to represent how hard you've worked and what a good job you've done, you can use them to allow you to benefit from the hard work of someone else, it's like a barter system and it works fine if it's regulated carefully to stop people from abusing it.

I don't entirely agree. you are right, that is the way that it is supposed to be, but we have a dearth of opportunity, which has lead to the concept of "opportunity ladders". There is only so far that I will be able to rise, not because of internal limitations, but due to external ones. The american dream is only 1/3 true in that regard.


success = 10(luck [neopotism/contacts]) + 10(natural attributes [looks, voice, age, gender])+ 3(effort) + 2(learned skills) + 1(ethics) the only problem with capitalism is that it cannot function without an underclass. it requires that the majority of the populace be significantly poorer than the ruling minority. that to me is an undesirable design goal.

[mickie.kext]

This quote from GNU manifesto says it all:


“Competition makes things get done better.”

The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other strategies—such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into a fist fight, they will all finish late.

Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners in a fist fight. Sad to say, the only referee we've got does not seem to object to fights; he just regulates them (“For every ten yards you run, you can fire one shot”). He really ought to break them up, and penalize runners for even trying to fight.

[Pub0r]

Open source projects also benefit from greater critical appraisal due to more people being able to see your implementation. The code will be better re-factored to become more flexible, efficient, stable and reusable. This will not only help the current project but also the next one. Closed source projects often spiral out of control due to fundamental mistakes which could have been identified in an open source project.

[phrostbyte]

This quote from GNU manifesto says it all:

That's an excellent point. Open source is like science, where people share and publish their findings with other scientists. Proprietary software is like alchemy, where everyone hides their findings. Which one lead to an enlightenment? I'm pretty sure I know. ;)

[RabbitWho]

I don't entirely agree. you are right, that is the way that it is supposed to be, but we have a dearth of opportunity, which has lead to the concept of "opportunity ladders". There is only so far that I will be able to rise, not because of internal limitations, but due to external ones. The american dream is only 1/3 true in that regard.


success = 10(luck [neopotism/contacts]) + 10(natural attributes [looks, voice, age, gender])+ 3(effort) + 2(learned skills) + 1(ethics) the only problem with capitalism is that it cannot function without an underclass. it requires that the majority of the populace be significantly poorer than the ruling minority. that to me is an undesirable design goal.

Ah but you are changing the subject now!


It does not require that at all, that is an old myth people like Chuck Palaniuk make a fortune re-hashing and selling on and I gave up on it years ago. There can be a balance in capitalism if it is watched so that no one like a banker or a software tycoon breaks the law or does anything silly. Lots of capitalist countries don't have a single person starving (Not including the unfortunate people with substance abuse problems or the children with insane parents etc.) or going without needed medicine.
And of course there are poorer countries, and the richer countries are benefiting from them and making money from them, but most those countries are poor because their governments are corrupt, or because there has been war, or famine, or disease, or corruption in the past, or communism etc. What they need is more capitalism, if they could manufacture sell and export more products things would get better fast. Look how great China's economy has come on since they embraced capitalism? If only they had a democracy the people would be able to decide what to do with all that money that they made because of great organization and business sense and they could build a wonderful nation.

There are a lot of mistakes being made, ( http://www.lectr.com/video/248/The-future-of-medical-care ) but the solutions are better regulations and laws, and more open policies (more and more possible because of the internet) and free media. The world is getting better and better as it has more and more money, think of money as energy. If we can make more energy then we can put that energy into whatever we want, and that can be helping people just as easily as it can be buying faster cars.
I can't remember the website, but i know it was from unicef, hunger related deaths are down about 80% worldwide in 50 years, because the whole world is richer.
The last century had less murders (even including the second world war and the Rwandan genocide etc.) than any other century in the history of the human race. Because people are more educated and people are evolving and so is our sense of community and our empathy.

Almost all of the rich 20% countries have a birth rate below replacement level, which will mean in the future that human-beings will become a valuable export of the poorer countries, we will need educated young workers so it will be in the best interest of the west to provide people with health care and education. Cooperation is far more reliable and helpful than charity.

Things are good, believe me! Social Capitalism is really making a difference and people are really working on this problem and perfecting the system.

You seem to think, as many people do, there is some relationship between socialism and open source. There absolutely is not. None. Whatsoever. Zip. Zilsh. Nothing. Nada.

Free software for everyone = allright idea because you can copy a piece of software 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 times without it changing or taking much more energy.
Free bread for everyone = idiotic idea because every time you make a loaf of bread you loose like 3 hours of your life, so if you give out bread to everyone without them giving back to you the 3 hours of their life the bread is worth, suddenly you're down thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of your life... and you can never retire. And why should you make better bread? Surely if you're loosing thousands of hours of your life you should try and find some kind of bread that only takes 5 minutes to make, quality be damned. Money = hours of your life.
Capitalism is a very natural system, both the worst sides (like greed) and the best sides (like charity) of human nature can make it stronger. Human beings are very clever now and we can control it, it's not an idealism in itself, it's just the way things are, if i make cheese and the cheese takes me 5 hours to make and learning how to make the cheese took 3 years and you make orange juice and the juice makes half an hour to make and only took 10 minutes to learn how to make then of course I should be able to get a lot more orange juice for a little cheese. But maybe you don't want cheese, maybe you want jogurt, so instead of me having to trade the cheese for jogurt and then jogurt for orange juice i just trade the cheese for money and trade the money for orange juice and then you trade the money for jogurt. What on earth could be wrong with that? Seriously? That system has independently started in every single human society or culture I've ever heard of.
In old Irish Breton law apparently there were huge lists of approximate values of different animals and vegetables. for example 6 chickens = sheep etc. What's wrong with that?

So we don't need to change capitalism, we need to make "charity" organizations self sustainable. Such as setting up a university where everyone who gets a free degree has to come back and lecture for free (someone can work out how long it takes before they get lazy and stop caring (E.g. 3 years) and that can be the standard cut off point after which they get paid so long as they're good) . That sort of thing. (Bill Gates seems to be very focused on long-term self sustaining types of charities as far as I can tell)
And it's happening. So stop your fretting and giving out and take part in one of these movements. I guess if your contributing to open source then you are :)

[RabbitWho]

The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other strategies—such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into a fist fight, they will all finish late.


This is exactly what I'm saying about laws and regulations, those types of actions are illegal and if the laws were better enforced and the companies more closely and independently monitored they wouldn't happen.

I think that with this monitoring the personal gain and the greater gain of the planet will overlap.
I think that the fistfights come more out of the fact that top business people are addicted to success and think they're playing a game more than they're looking for monitory gain. At some point the money made must just look like High Scores. If you're playing a game you don't feel bad about hurting other people, because they're just playing a game too.

I like the analogy of it being like science. ( i know it is a science, but you get what I mean)
I think it makes the most sense that way.

But I still think that the competitive element of closed-source software is always going to be there and is always going to add something in the way of motivation and goals, because if at any point you said to yourself "well, what they're doing is much better." That would be time to either try harder or give up, and no one wants to do that!

[mickie.kext]

But I still think that the competitive element of closed-source software is always going to be there and is always going to add something in the way of motivation and goals, because if at any point you said to yourself "well, what they're doing is much better." That would be time to either try harder or give up, and no one wants to do that!

Price of software development is rising with complexity of software, and less and less small companies are making success in software market. We all know that best innovation comes from small companies, when companies get big, they stop innovating and start finding ways to maximize profit(i.e. they start fistfights). They start picking on small players and use their size to stuff competition.

In open source world, this automatically get punished. Open source companies do not dare to try something like that because they know they will get punished. Punished by market and community, not regulators. Someone will fork their product and take their place. So they must stay honest with customers and that is what Red Hat and Canonical does.

In closed source world, only size matters. If you are Microsoft, you get to do what you want, buy out competition, spy on users, lock them in, then make crappy products and price them high. By the time regulators start paying attention, big company had its way and then is hard to put genie back in the bottle.

Open source is much more friendly for customers, there is no doubt about that.

[JDShu]

That's an excellent point. Open source is like science, where people share and publish their findings with other scientists. Proprietary software is like alchemy, where everyone hides their findings. Which one lead to an enlightenment? I'm pretty sure I know. ;)

This is a great analogy. I would also make a light twist: Proprietary software is also like corporate research in the sciences, which usually gets patented.