Walk Alone

I was accompanied part of the way home today by a colleague from Cartesian - that’s a sort of group company; linked with Direxions. Well, Cartesian’s top guy is also my HoD. This lady is a cheerful person minding her own business; and not minding minding others’ too. You know the type - you can get amused at them, exasperated with their cheerfulness but you can’t get angry with them. The missy is intelligent too, if you go by the stuff she does. I don’t see too many women in the crunchy numbers department.

Now the point is, the boys (and girls) at Cartesian are developing web apps. The missy asked me what ASP and PHP were. Succinctly, they are scripting languages - my answer. The next question was about MySQL. She had a problem with its interface. Well, that depends on what client you are using to do your job. A jargon gap (we are in different fields, after all) prevented me from explaining that to her. That can be fixed; I hope to do it tomorrow. Her next question floored me.

How can MySQL be free?

I’m using Linux since April 2003. I have been reading up on Free Software and Open Source since then. ESR’s essays. Followed a couple of mailing lists. Blogs by Linux users. Lots of stuff. I have “got” the theory - ideals, nuts-and-bolts - whatever - of free software and open source. I believe I understand why software should be free. And why quite a lot of it is free.

I’m basing my toolkit on LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl. I know their merits and demerits(!?). I know various tools, frameworks and applications that help me on the way. I can do a pitch for any of these to my colleagues (in Interactive) or to my boss or to a tech friend.

But how do I explain to the missy why she can use MySQL for free? As concisely as possible?

You see, missy, I subscribe to the belief that software should be free. Free as knowledge is free. Free as in freedom. Free as in mukt. That’s the way software was in the seventies and early eighties. Before IT became a money earner and the big corporations stepped in with patents and licenses. And there is an amazingly large group of people who share my belief. This group is large enough to give me a free operating system, a free web server, a free scripting language, a free database and a lot many more free software.

How does free software work if there is no money involved? Simple - we all help out. By participating in actual development, doing bug reporting, improving documentation, introducing the software to new guys and helping the new guys to get up and running; and in many other ways. Its co-operative. Collaborative. So long as you are willing to help out, to help yourself, to learn - the software and its community is there for you.

But why would anyone make software for free? It is not at all altruistic. Part of it is ego - we make this superb software.

Part of it is simple need. You got an itch? Scratch it!

The creators of Apache needed a good web server. They created Apache. A lot of people found that Apache also served their requirements and pitched in to help the original team. I use it too. Larry Wall wanted a scripting language good enough for his needs. He created Perl. Along with millions of other coders, I find Perl damn indispensable. Rasmus Lerdorf replaced a bunch of Perl scripts (that he used to maintain his website) with a better tool he created - PHP. Hopefully, you will be seeing a lot of PHP code in the comings days, missy!

Then how do companies like Red Hat and MySQL make profits? Why would people pay them if the software is free? They don’t! Selling software like it is a tangible, physical object is history. What people pay for is support. Service. The guarantee that a certified tech will be there to hear out your problems and solve them. If you want to skip out on that and instead depend on the community (like I do for all my free software), then the software is also economically free - muft.

Did I answer your question, missy?

Henry Ford said about the Model T :

You can have it in any color, so long as it is black.

Something very similar is often said by FOSS advocates - “You can choose any software, so long as it is FOSS”. I’m of course, referring to the dissent being voiced whenever we hear about some large scale adoption of Microsoft software. Other proprietary software products are also adopted on large scales, but MS has a special place in our hearts .

Are we being hypocrites? If choice is one of the many things FOSS stands for, then shouldn’t we accept others’ choice, even if it happens to be a non-FOSS one?

I think there are more factors than a simple FOSS/non-FOSS choice involved here.

One is interoperability. When you use proprietary software, you are alienating those who have opted not to use the same product. Office 2007 has a lot of features and bells and whistles - not found in any other office suite and very essential in enterprise environments. But if my boss mails me a docx file to read over the weekend, what am I supposed to do? I am supposed to get a plugin for OpenOffice.org which will convert docx to xHTML and display the result. It will be an axiomatic statement if I say office documents will never reach the same level of portability as HTML. But is it too much to expect MS to release just enough specs so their files can be read and edited using other products? Natively? Apparently, yes. And hence, we protest.

Another is standardization. An ODF file can be opened in any ODF-supporting applicaton. While MS says its Office Open XML is really open and has also released a specification document which is in the process of being ratified as a standard, there are questions and criticisms.

You will rarely hear protests if someone ditches OpenOffice for KWord or Abiword. I say, those are real options. That is what we mean by “FOSS gives you a choice”. A pity we won’t be seeing MS Word in the list any time soon.

Yo momma, bring it on. I’m ready. We all are ready.

First this - Microsoft says open source violates 235 patents

Lots of action; I saw it through posts on Slashdot, including this - Sue me first, Microsoft

Finally this - Microsoft has said it has no immediate plans to sue after alleging patent infringements by open-source vendors.

And yes, that is MicroSCOft (got that from /. too)- it is time to stop pretending otherwise. It can also be MicroSHAFT - as in “You got shafted”!