Transcript Open Source Software: Panacea or Problem?

Linux and Open Source: Panacea or
Problem?
Mark Ryland
Vice-President
Discovery Institute
[email protected]
February 4th, 2004
Outline of presentation
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Introduction and ground rules
Conceptual overview and preliminary economic thought
experiments
Historical overview of computing systems: the rise of UNIX
and mighty Wintel
Disruptive change: Linux and the GPL
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Types of exchange
The GPL: concepts and phenomenological anthropology
Applied GPL: Linus meets Richard
Other OSS issues: quality, security, diversity
Business models in the age of “free” software
Final thoughts
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What if the GPL is unenforceable? Does Linux need the GPL?
Introduction and ground rules
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“Dangerous” topic: Discovery’s hallmark of civility is important
Personal background (bias?)
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Level of talk: addressed to the intelligent observer of business
behavior, economics, and policy
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Background in philosophy, law, economics, and software
Early freeware and shareware author and supporter
Ten years at Microsoft (often advocating some very
countercultural strategies)
Now working for two software start-ups (neither “free” so far)
Some degree of computer savvy will help
Not for bit-heads, economists, or lawyers (but hopefully all can
benefit from a coherent summary)
Not enough time to discuss SCO lawsuit in detail
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Brief look at a key legal issue (with our without the suit)
Outline of presentation




Introduction and ground rules
Conceptual overview and preliminary economic thought
experiments
Historical overview of computing systems: the rise of UNIX
and mighty Wintel
Disruptive change: Linux and the GPL






Types of exchange
The GPL: concepts and phenomenological anthropology
Applied GPL: Linus meets Richard
Other OSS issues: quality, security, diversity
Business models in the age of “free” software
Final thoughts
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What if the GPL is unenforceable? Does Linux need the GPL?
Basic technical concepts
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Hardware—general purpose computing devices—computers
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Operating system software (our focus)
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Plus: software embedded in hardware
[Device drivers]
Application software
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[Linking and dynamic linking]
Computing market v1.0: vertically integrated
submarkets
Computing market v1.5: friction-free
computing
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Conceptual ideal for consumer of computing capabilities
would be an “open” system
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Interchangeability
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Complete “interchangeability” and interoperability of each
computing layer…
Resulting in brutal price competition and [radical innovation]
Horizontal movement across “stacks”
[Compatibility and portability]
Interoperability [limited discussion]
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Friction-free communication between “connected” systems
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From “sneaker-net” to the Internet
Overlap: development of distributed applications
Technical problem with 1.5 interchangeability
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Hardware modules have similar capabilities (enough to where
functional differences can be ignored) but the details (machine
architecture and code) are completely different
Operating systems (at least) must be recompiled (translated from
human-readable source code to machine code) and retested (!) to
move across (OS portability)
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Architecture-independent OSes possible but impractical at current levels
of computing power
In practice many applications typically must be recompiled (and
retested!) as well
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Architecture-independent applications (“write once, run anywhere”) much
more possible and practical
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Interpreted/JIT environments (LISP, Smalltalk, shell programming, etc.);
ANDF; Java, .NET
Will be more so as computing power increases, but…
Still some significant friction in our 1.5 release
Economic dystopia: non-innovation
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Bigger problem with 1.5: how does innovation work?
Innovation at any level either is ignored, or breaks the model!
“Coordinated innovation” theoretically possible,..
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But do we really want all high tech platforms and products
designed by committee?
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Actually happens constantly in narrower areas: standards
committees working on interoperability
What prevents an innovator from going it alone? Why should we?
We have a major problem with 1.5; let’s try a different
approach
Computing market v1.6: single-vendor solution
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Why not standardize the hardware and OS on a single
solution/stack and allow radical competition at the top
(applications)?
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Hardware and OS are boring substrate
Let a single vendor do both (a la Market 1.0), eliminate other
stacks, and provide perfect friction-free environment for apps
Coordinated innovation hardware/OS layers
Real end-user value delivered by applications, not hardware/OS
Problem: what happens without any competition for a single
vendor controlling 2/3rds of the computing stack?
Yikes!!!
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[May not be quite as bad as it sounds: hardware wears out slowly
and software never wears out, so installed base provides a kind
of “competition” since vendor needs continuing revenue stream]
Computing market v.1.7: double-vendor
solution
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Standardize the hardware and OS but have each supplied by
a different vendor
Forced to cooperate closely, but also provide some level of
checks and balances
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If hardware vendor becomes too strong, OS vendor will
encourage new entrants, promising almost-seamless portability
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And possibly even coordinated/targeted innovation to give new
entrant a leg up
If OS vendor becomes too dominate, hardware vendor will
encourage new entrants, targeted innovation, etc.
Apps still have completely friction-free/competitive
environment
Problem: better, but still too much concentration of power
Computing market v.1.8: scaled-back doublevendor solution
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Modularize the hardware and OS layers so that core
compatibility (and innovation) controlled by each vendor, but
seamless extensibility and competition possible all around two
centers of gravity
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Hardware: single-source vendor controls only core
(microprocessor); other parts of hardware (including innovation)
hidden behind extensible hardware abstraction layer and device
drivers at OS level
OS: system programming model can be extended: 3rd parties can
write arbitrary OS extensions, distribute, and evangelize them—
creating de facto submarkets and competition
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Such extensions sometimes called (misleadingly) “middleware”
Other hardware vendors and apps vendors are making lots of
money, which serves as a natural check on the duopoly; they
can encourage and fund new entrants too
Still problems, but getting better
Computing market v.1.8.1: dual vendors strike
back
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What prevents microprocessor vendor from competing with
others for surrounding hardware? Some obvious advantages
to this kind of integration
What prevents OS vendor from competing with others for OS
extensions?; huge advantages
What prevents OS vendor from competing at application
layer??? Advantages are not so clear-cut, but possible
Still many, many problems
But, worse than vertically integrated market solution 1.0?
Time for some real data…
Outline of presentation




Introduction and ground rules
Conceptual overview and preliminary economic thought
experiments
Historical overview of computing systems: the rise of UNIX
and mighty Wintel
Disruptive change: Linux and the GPL






Types of exchange
The GPL: concepts and phenomenological anthropology
Applied GPL: Linus meets Richard
Other OSS issues: quality, security, diversity
Business models in the age of “free” software
Final thoughts
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What if the GPL is unenforceable? Does Linux need the GPL?
Mainframes and minicomputers
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Computing era from 1950s to 1970s
Full vertical integration of hardware and OSes
OSes “free” (developed at great expense but bundled with
hardware)
No compatibility between different OSes/hardware;
applications difficult to write/port
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Minor exception: “plug-compatible” mainframes after U.S. gov’t’s
monopoly lawsuit against IBM
Vertically-integrated “stack” of hardware (computer +
peripherals), OS, networking, and applications software
Customer experience: high-friction submarkets and de facto
vendor lock-in
Example of great importance: Digital Equipment Corp’s
VAX/VMS (hardware/OS) launched about 1980
First launch of “open systems” model: the
growth of UNIX™
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AT&T (regulated “natural” monopoly) legally disabled from
being in the computer business
UNIX developed as a research project at Bell Labs (along with
the C language)
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Eventually used extensively by AT&T in POTS network
infrastructure
Unix available
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In source code form
For free
Growth of UNIX…
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VAX/VMS launches to much acclaim
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Meanwhile, DARPA attempting to jumpstart computing
research on US campuses
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UC Berkeley CS departments buys VAX, ports UNIX to it
VMS is a much more powerful, rich OS, but source not available
DARPA want grantees to use single computing platform—obvious
synergies
Academic users (and DARPA) want access to OS source code
(for knowledge, self-support, and innovation)
DARPA asks DEC for VMS source code access; willing to restrict
all commercial use
Fateful decision: DEC refuses academic VMS source license
DARPA and grantees decide to buy VAXes and run UNIX
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Standard research computing grant is $100k, the cost of a VAX
Complex history of UNIX
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Sun begins wildly successful workstation business using
Berkeley UNIX
AT&T becomes unregulated mega-company; fights and
eventually settles with Berkeley over UNIX ownership rights
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IBM, DEC, H-P, and others license UNIX from AT&T to
compete in academic computing/workstation market
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Each maintains ownership over own stream from common source
Each begins to derive its own somewhat incompatible, “valueadded,” “free” (bundled/subsidized) version
AT&T owns UNIX and also becomes (clumsy) competitor
Beginnings of re-standardization attempt through POSIX
committees
Mach kernel with BSD layers is born at Carnegie-Mellon
AT&T buys 25% of market-leading Sun … everything changes
Birth of Open Software Foundation
Open Software Foundation
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IBM, DEC, H-P, Siemens, etc – Everybody But Sun (and
AT&T) join $1M per year club to undertake joint OS
development
OSF seeks to acquire rather than build from scratch
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Issues RFPs in various areas, concentrating on new common OS
(OSF/1) and new network computing infrastructure (directory,
security, RPC, DFS, etc.)
Selects from submissions by major and minor players Mach
kernel, Motif GUI (combining DECWindows API, X11 distributed
graphics model, Presentation Manager look-and-feel (joint
submission of H-P and Microsoft)
In networking space, picks up various pieces mostly from DEC to
form DCE and combines “PC interop” technology based on
Microsoft submission of SMB
Sun secretly funs major antitrust suit against OSF by losing
respondent to security RFP; major cost and distraction
Today: OSF Results, UNIX (almost) end game
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Motif very successful—GUI for all non-Sun UNICES
DCE had some initial success (at least conceptually), but now
irrelevant
OSF/1 a spectacular failure: only DEC ever ships, other UNIX
vendors forge ahead with their proprietary versions
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By late 1990s, mature UNIX markets provide much commonality and
compatibility, but not true portability
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OSF/1 just too late; submarkets already mature
Sun/AT&T threat disappears with divestment
Still-blundering AT&T starts USL to update and commercialize UNIX
Lower-friction submarkets
Sun UNIX (now substantially re-written and renamed Solaris) is the most
unique and proprietary and powerful version
Pure proprietary OSes (MVS, VM, VMS) still hugely important, but
threatened
Meanwhile, second variation and launch: the
MS-DOS/x86 revolution
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IBM ships first PC in 1981
Two decisions that turned out to be earth-shaking
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Accept free MS-DOS license from MSFT in exchange for MSFT
retaining full rights to license to future PC-compatible vendors
(first dual license )
Use standard Intel microprocessor and don’t try to protect
hardware architecture from cloning (via licensing, patents, trade
secrets, etc.)
Eventually results in a vast, highly competitive hardware and
application market—an entire ecosystem—built around two
oligopolistic vendors: Intel and Microsoft
Intel and MS reap huge profits but also innovate and reinvest
vigorously to go after higher-end markets (RISC and UNIX,
minicomputers, mainframes).
The rest is history
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Technological PacMan:
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UNIX vendors moved up the ladder eating (or cannibalizing) and
growing minicomputer/mainframe business
Wintel moved up the ladder even faster eating UNIX
workstation/minicomputer business
Trend continues to this day; outcome is basically inevitable
Databases still a huge, distinct, competitive “system software”
business (Oracle, IBM, Microsoft)
Microsoft’s one remaining major weakness is lack of a
portable server app programming model
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UNIX is far from dead (although dying), Linux is coming on
strong, and Apache and J2EE allow common server development
for both Microsoft and UNIX/Linux OSes
Summing up Wintel’s (present) success
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Some funny things happened along the way
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Microsoft beat powerful, entrenched competitors in the
applications space (Lotus, WordPerfect) and networking space
(Novell), as well as coming to dominate the Macintosh app space
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Various interpretations of how and why this happened
But distorts the model and makes MS appear much more threatening
than in three-layer model
Microsoft also staved off one (or two) apparent “inflection points”:
Internet apps/Netscape, and Sun Java on desktop
Intel came to dominate chipsets and motherboards
Hardware vendors making relatively huge revenues but
relatively small profits; lots of discontent with Wintel model
Consumers have been huge winners … but what about those
big duopoly rents???
And then along came Linux…
Pause to re-apply economic models
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Significant part of market (Wintel) has now achieved our
model 1.8.1
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Putting aside a lots and lots of messy and important details
(Macintosh, Linux, remnants of UNIX, mainframes, etc.)
Duopoly providing great value, but threatened or real
hegemony
Still lots of other submarkets to keep the duopolists hungry
and honest, but ….
And then along came Linux...
Outline of presentation




Introduction and ground rules
Conceptual overview and preliminary economic thought
experiments
Historical overview of computing systems: the rise of UNIX
and mighty Wintel
Disruptive change: Linux and the GPL






Types of exchange
The GPL: concepts and phenomenological anthropology
Applied GPL: Linus meets Richard
Other OSS issues: quality, security, diversity
Business models in the age of “free” software
Final thoughts

What if the GPL is unenforceable? Does Linux need the GPL?
Types of exchange
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Economists and sociologists sometimes distinguish between
three kinds of personal interrelations or modes of exchange
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Gift economy (family, friendship, etc.)
Exchange economy (reciprocal mutual benefit: what we usually
think of when we think of economics)
Command/coercion economy (e.g., Hobbesian rights, or gov’t
rules protecting unimpeded exchange and enforcing market)
And of course these types are often intermixed and combined
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Potlatch exchanges; families with maturing children, etc.
Intro to the General Public License
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GPL is peculiar and very important form of “free” software
license
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Users have a moral right to use, modify, and redistribute
(modified or not) free of charge all software that they obtain
Source code must be distributed to enable these moral rights
Author can charge any amount of money tolerable to any
user, but after that the user can do whatever he/she wants
Any piece of software that is integrated with a piece of free
software must itself be free
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Frequent refrain: “Free” as in “free speech,” not “free beer.”
To whatever degree of remove from author
The so-called “viral” quality of the GPL: “infects” code and travels
with it eternally
Odd combination of gift and exchange (and command)
economy
Important qualification: the Lesser GPL
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The promoters of the GPL recognize that pure GPL would
seriously diminish use of their systems
No device drivers from hardware vendors who want closed
software
No applications from software vendors who want closed
software (e.g., Oracle, BEA, IBM, etc.)
Thus, the Lesser GPL, which permits usage of GPL software
by proprietary software
Note: purely pragmatic accommodation, explicitly disliked by
authors and promotors of GPL
Can be removed at any time for future releases of any given
product
From whence the GPL?
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Richard Stallman and his quixotic quest for “digital freedom”
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See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html
A phenomenological investigation of the free software advocate
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Permanent grad student surrounded by hardware…
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… and software
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Impenetrable; requires techniques of (post)industrial revolution
Personal, malleable, a product of individual artisans
Without traditional IP protection hardware is hard for the grad student to
replicate—so ignore it (including fact that most value is intangible)
Without traditional IP protection software is easy to replicate, and
pleasurable to customize
Thus was born one of the great anachronisms of our era: a hightech socialist/anarchist movement based on simple and practical
distinctions between tangible and intangible property
Further paradox: using [contract/licensing] to destroy IP
Outline of presentation




Introduction and ground rules
Conceptual overview and preliminary economic thought
experiments
Historical overview of computing systems: the rise of UNIX
and mighty Wintel
Disruptive change: Linux and the GPL






Types of exchange
The GPL: concepts and phenomenological anthropology
Applied GPL: Linus meets Richard
Other OSS issues: quality, security, diversity
Business models in the age of “free” software
Final thoughts
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What if the GPL is unenforceable? Does Linux need the GPL?
GNU project meets Linux
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GNU (GNU’s Not Unix) project formally founded in early
1980s to create a complete free operating system and apps
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Funded by grants, individual contributions
Contribution of huge amount of free labor
Built some very good tools (compilers, editors)
By late 1990s many of pieces in place still lacking a free
kernel
But starting in 1991 Linus Torvalds decided to write his own
386/486 UNIX-like OS which he called Linux
Two GPL streams become a torrent: GNU and
Linux
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Inspired by the GNU project, Linux was released under the
GPL and quickly captivated a whole generation of
programmers world-wide
They saw the opportunity to contribute to something that
could change the (computing) world, and seized it
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See http://ragib.hypermart.net/linux/ for a good short history
(Rather than being thrilled that his quixotic idea has become a
world-wide phenomenon through the emergence of the Linux
kernel, Stallman refuses to call it Linux and says it should be
called GNU, or at most GNU/Linux)
The wacky world of GPL culture
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A few random snipets from GNU documents:
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“Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money;
free software developers need to make advantages for each
other. Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software
developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library
that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it.”
“Semi-free software is software that is not free, but comes with
permission for individuals to use, copy, distribute, and modify
(including distribution of modified versions) for non-profit
purposes. PGP is an example of a semi-free program. Semi-free
software is much better ethically than proprietary software, but it
still poses problems, and we cannot use it in a free operating
system.”
Profit is bad
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From Client-Server News (Aug 18th, 2003): Bruce Perens at a
recent address at LinuxWorld:
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“Perens … also faults Red Hat for 'proprietary open source' and
locking users of its Advanced Server into Red Hat service, the
basis for its business model. Perens called the Red Hat policy
'within the letter of the GPL, but outside its spirit.'“
Outline of presentation




Introduction and ground rules
Conceptual overview and preliminary economic thought
experiments
Historical overview of computing systems: the rise of UNIX
and mighty Wintel
Disruptive change: Linux and the GPL






Types of exchange
The GPL: concepts and phenomenological anthropology
Applied GPL: Linus meets Richard
Other OSS issues: quality, security, diversity
Business models in the age of “free” software
Final thoughts
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What if the GPL is unenforceable? Does Linux need the GPL?
Other open source software issues
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Proponents of OSS claim other advantages besides the
strange economics (more on that soon)
Quality
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Some very good software has been developed using the OSS
process; not clear if it is objectively superior in quality to closed
software systems
“Many eyes” advantages have been present to some degree in
proprietary software for many years
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IBM mainframe OSes from the 1960s; Microsoft’s aggressive NDAbased source licensing schemes of today
Not clear ultimately that “non-fun” aspects of large systems
development can be done as well in the OSS model (i.e., testing),
at least as unaided by for-profit companies
Other issues…
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Security (a specific kind of quality claim)
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Same response: much more fun to hack an MS OS; but Linux
has had major flaws exposed as well, more so recently
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Maybe hacking Linux is starting to be considered fun
Diversity or “bio-diversity”
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Diversity is definitely in advantage in terms of combatting security
problems
Outline of presentation
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


Introduction and ground rules
Conceptual overview and preliminary economic thought
experiments
Historical overview of computing systems: the rise of UNIX
and mighty Wintel
Disruptive change: Linux and the GPL






Types of exchange
The GPL: concepts and phenomenological anthropology
Applied GPL: Linus meets Richard
Other OSS issues: quality, security, diversity
Business models in the age of “free” software
Final thoughts

What if the GPL is unenforceable? Does Linux need the GPL?
Business models in the age of “free” software
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Hardware vendors
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Simple choice under right constraints
Built-in limits
Software vendors
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Sale by convenience model
Service and support model (Red Hat, Sun)
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Dual license model (MySql)
Split license model (Darwin)
“Public” interest/foundation/consortium model (OSDL, Apache,
etc.): in practice hardware vendor driven
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Hybrid of two models common
Huge competitors cooperate against common enemy(s)
Hardware bundling model (appliances; RTOS company)
Hardware vendors
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A no-brainer for computer system vendors
Need a “free” alternative to Microsoft
Cooperate with competitors against a common “enemy”
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Software dev costs cross-subsidized by hardware sales
Works for awhile…
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They’ve done it many times before, e.g., OSF/1
As cooperative OS gets stronger, temptation to innovate and “add
value” in proprietary ways will become overwhelming
Can easily work around GPL by embedding innovations in
hardware
The hardware vendors (PC, workstation, server, CE) are a
huge reason for the growing success of Linux…
… but ultimately not friends of the radical ideals of the GPL
Software vendors
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Sale by convenience: people are used to paying money for
CDs full of software; if price is low enough copying seems
more trouble
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Simplest; can be combined with other models
Service and support model
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Red Hat’s server infrastructure costs roughly the same as
Microsoft’s (probably a bit cheaper because no CALs)
Customer can copy freely – pay $1500 and make 1000 copies
But 999 servers will be unsupported!
Problem with model: invites poaching and price competition
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I support Red Hat Advanced Server for $500 per copy
Red Hat making huge investment in development and testing that
can’t be recovered by licensing
Economic distortion and cross-subsidization: recurring theme
Software vendors…
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Dual license model
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License for free a GPL version
License for money a non-GPL version
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Get lots of users who probably couldn’t afford your product anyway
while retaining payment from others
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Market segmentation
Perfect solution for tools that are used by downstream vendors who
cannot or will not GPL their own products
MySql and other databases
Many OSS people find this model irksome, to say the least!
Split license model
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Give away portion that’s useful but not highest value; license
remainder (e.g., Apple System X and Darwin)
Similar benefits to dual license model
Software vendors…
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Hardware bundling model
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Sell (relatively) commodity hardware preconfigured with GPL’s
software at sufficiently higher price to cover development,
integration costs
Very common for “appliances” (bug tracking systems, email
servers, web servers, etc.)
Even high-value software systems are moving this way (long-time
RTOS vendor)
First type is generally ok (pay for convenience of bundle); second
time is another major economic distortion
Outline of presentation




Introduction and ground rules
Conceptual overview and preliminary economic thought
experiments
Historical overview of computing systems: the rise of UNIX
and mighty Wintel
Disruptive change: Linux and the GPL






Types of exchange
The GPL: concepts and phenomenological anthropology
Applied GPL: Linus meets Richard
Other OSS issues: quality, security, diversity
Business models in the age of “free” software
Final thoughts
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What if the GPL is unenforceable? Does Linux need the GPL?
Final thoughts: what if GPL is not enforceable?
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Is the GPL enforceable? Not absolutely clear
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Strange combination of copyright concepts (derivative works,
which continue ad infinitum) and license/contract (normally
requires contractual privity)
Seems to be a kind of “right against the world,” like copyright; but
federal copyright law (which clearly creates such rights, but limits
them) arguably preempts an attempt to do something similar but
different using state contract/licensing law
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IBM in SCO defense: a “public agreement,” a “public covenant”
Clearly some serious issues
Does it matter?
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Linux and freeware phenomenon will continue with strong and
growing momentum regardless of status of GPL; but major
centripetal force will be lost, fragmentation much easier and more
likely