"Messy Buu",

we have had this before. You don't know much about Open Source software and your opinion about it seems to be based on nothing but hatred; and that is quite sad.

If you had ever met Open Source luminaries, you would know that most of them are indeed selfless individuals who only want to help the world. And, incidentally, they do. They actually do do something about their dreams and let everybody participate, whether they want to invest their own time and labour or not. I use Open Source software regularly, every day, in fact. My OS of choice of Mac OS X, my editor is Emacs, I use the GCC, my server runs GNU/Linux, and my Web browser uses khtml.

But if you dislike Open Source software so much, you certainly have the option not to use any of it. And please, do consider the possibility that your uninformed opinions are, in fact, not "revelations".

While it is perhaps true that many Open Source luminaries are truly self-less. The public "tude" that is given by Open Source advocates is a real turn off.

Brad,

you are, of course, correct. However, this has nothing to do with "Messy Buu"'s statements. He deliberately mixes up Open Source developers and "fanatics" and "argues" that a claim "Open Source developers are selfless individuals" is somehow proven wrong because some fanatics (who are not usually developers) are not. He also speaks of an "obvious inferiority" as if that point was already accepted as true by everyone (it is not). And he very arrogantly then speaks of his own opinions (and fallacies) as "revelations".

The plain fact of the matter is that working for free and giving the product away IS usually a selfless and moral act. It is generosity and generosity was ALWAYS, until now, considered a good thing. The fact that some people don't like generosity doesn't make generosity any worse.

And all that means that "Messy Buu"'s opinions and statements are not so much "revelations" as they are simply wrong.

Yeah, the problem is that the Linux community comes across more like Nick Burns (from the SNL Computer Guy sketch), with an air of superiority. I'm a fan of Linux myself, and I can't deal with 99% of the Linux users I've had to deal with. Linux is like the Academic Elite of the computing world, and its users act accordingly. People in elite groups like to snub their noses at the lowly unenlightened masses. Linux will have this negative aura around it until a few large companies make it their pet project and do some serious PR spin (IBM is doing it with it's new Linux ads, though they're a bit obtuse and intimidating) and support effort behind it.

But then again, the people who bring about great advances in technology usually lack in the people skills area, so Linux and it's hordes of champions shouldn't really have to be different.

Lets face it, no matter what your ulterior motives may be to publishing open source software, even if it's to make a name for yourself, the fact that you're putting your complete program out there for free, code and all means you're making a contribution to the mass of public knowledge, which is a noble end.

Studies prove that they are NOT selfless. That only "interesting" parts of open source code get worked on. They do it because it's fun, and they learn. That is not selfless.

so one guy wrote a program and nobody volunteered to help him. and that´s significant enough to write an article an "The Selflessness of Open Source"?
well, this article is nonsense and that should be obvious, be it alone from the tone of the author. of course on a big blog site there are many of those kind, a lot of them probably even more irrelevant. but who features such stuff?

Jeremy,

such studies do NOT "prove" anything, they merely tell you something about how often something happens. Just because an act isn't 100% selfless doesn't mean it isn't selfless at all. There are people who give to charities because they like the feeling. But it's still an act of generosity to give.

Working on interesting parts of a project, having fun while programming, and learning can all be done by working on proprietary software as well. But giving the results away is the selfless act, and Open Source programmers do give away their work for others to improve or learn from.

You can't set up a study to "prove" that giving stuff away for free isn't selfless, you can merely point to evidence that creating such stuff isn't selfless, but the creation of software is not what differentiates Open Source and proprietary software. Both types create software, and learn from it.

I acknowledged that there are a few Open Source developers out there that are decent. Whether they are selfless or not is debatable. As for the obvious inferiority of Open Source software, I think comparing Linux, GCC, and khtml to their commercial counterparts is evidence of that.

Inferior? I guess it depends on your needs and points of comparison. For the average desktop user, Linux is overkill and doesn't have the tools they need. For the IT professional or server administrator, or hobbyist developer, Linux is the perfect choice. It's better than MS in many areas (and worse in others) GCC is actually considered to be one of the best compilers hands-down. Please frame your comments a bit better. Everything has it's use, and both Linux and Windows have their "best" and "worse" environments. You're doing nothing here but showing blind zealotry.

Messy,

Comparing Linux, GCC, and khtml to their "commercial" (I assume you mean proprietary) counterparts is evidence of what?

Do you think it is obvious that other kernels, other compilers, other HTML renderers are better? What is your argument for claiming that a given C compiler is better than, say, the C compiler that is part of GCC?

It seems that all your claims are always "obvious", to you. But what is your actual evidence? Did you test C compilers and GCC came last or did somebody else?

btw: wtf has Open Source to do with communism???? it´s pretty clear you know nothing about both topics.

Open Source and communism actually follow similar philosphy in a way.

Linux Art

IBM, SUN or RedHat seem to have a different opinion than you though. you´re younger than 20 right?
btw: i´m not sure you will get far with that "graphic arts" thing. better concentrate on your strongpoints.

I've thought about it, and I've realized that while I've been criticizing Open Source as a whole, it's actually only "Free Software" (as defined by the FSF) that suffers from the flaws I state. Except for hobbyist developers, I haven't seen anybody prefer Linux to BSD, a commercial UNIX, or even Windows.
Also, if giving something away freely is selflessness, then one can argue that Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, etc. are selfless as well.

Alex,

Open Source has nothing to do with communism on the grounds that "Open Source" is merely a marketing scheme for Free software. But Free software is based on a communist philosophy indeed. That is, if one defines communism as an economic system that doesn't emphasize private but public property and works with the principle "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs".


Messy,

no software suffers from the flaws you state, because you stated no actual flaws. You simply made up a few claims and didn't provide any evidence at all. Why is GCC worse than any other compiler collection? You made the claim, but didn't support it.

IBM seem to prefer Linux over the BSD kernel. So does Novell and, nowadays, Sun. IIRC IBM even spoke of Linux eventually replacing the AIX kernel in their strategy. Go figure.

Microsoft and Adobe do not give much away for free and they never give you anything for real, meaning that they allow you to do whatever you want with it once you have it (which I consider an important part of "giving"). Apple do give software away, very frequently too. Microsoft and Adobe give you permission to use the software, they don't give you the software itself. What I consider selfless is when you _produce_ something and then give it to others for free. But Microsoft and Adobe merely allow you to use what they have produced, they do not give it to you to keep and do with it what you will.