Tag Archives: open source

Being a closed, unique community: a rant on “corporate exceptionalism”

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This guy has a point, albeit founded upon shaky premises. Apple, as a company, possesses much more of a closed mentality than Microsoft in regards to how it relates to open source projects, at least as far as legally tying hardware to software is concerned.

However, I think it has already been pointed out in that post’s comment section that Apple contributes to, and uses, a number of open-source projects.

But I think that, while I find the premise of Apple being an "open-source enemy" to be presently and patently flawed, the company’s practices in regards to software do need to be assessed from an FOSS standpoint.

Apple makes use of a number of FOSS packages and contributes back to them. However, the company makes sure to use FOSS strategically, by only using FOSS packages that can boost Mac OS X from the ground up but gradually decreasing the usage of FOSS at the higher-level, more-visible layers of the operating system. One of the few visible FOSS components of OS X is the WebKit framework (used by Safari and Dashboard for web rendering), which is derived from several projects of the more Linux-friendly KDE.

Otherwise, Apple tries to use as many proprietary bits in OS X as possible; a prime issue (and one that even I’ve expressed concern about) is how X11-native applications, when ported to OS X’s (closed-source) pet API and toolkit, have to be derived as forks of the main branch of the application in order to "integrate" with the predominant look-and-feel of the operating system and GUI. Camino was derived from Firefox in this manner, as was Adium from Pidgin.

Even third-party closed-source programmers have to face this hurdle, as porting an application or application suite between Win32 and Cocoa (or Carbon) usually results in the distributors stating that they will not be able to deliver the next release of a software suite for one platform (usually, the one that goes lacking is OS X).

I particularly notice that, when an application has finally been rewritten for installation on OS X to fit in the user interface of OS X, the developers (and sometimes Apple) will state "such-and-such-app comes to the Mac."

Comes to the Mac? It was recoded for Aqua to Apple’s HUG, not brought to some obscure hardware platform!

And I think that is the answer: by keeping the toolkit closed-source and keeping the operating system (upon which the toolkit is dependent) tied exclusively to Apple’s Mac-branded hardware, Apple is attempting to give off that idea that an originally-cross-platform software application has been ported not just to a proprietary toolkit, but to an entirely-different hardware platform. It is a matter of image control, whereby Apple seeks to maintain and preserve this ideal image of a distinct and unique computing platform that is exclusive toward all other platforms. Even the transition from IBM’s PPC to Intel x86 didn’t dissipate or dent this image, as the maintenance of the hardware lock-in+toolkit dependency would ensure that anything for OS X would also be for "the Mac".

Personally, this would lead me to assume that Apple is a hardware company with a higher degree of exceptionalism for its own operating system and application software.

It reminds me of how Macromedia (now merged into Adobe Systems since 2005) was an application software company that had a higher degree of exceptionalism for its own webware and file formats.

The trouble of this approach is that, if another company with the same approach (in this case, Microsoft, an operating system company that had a higher degree of exceptionalism for its own application software, webware and file formats) and a larger size and budget to grow on, decides to edge into your market (.NET 3.0, with the much-touted Silverlight, XAML and other such graphic niceties), what are you to do? How do you react, and with whom should you ally? Macromedia, which already had Flex, Flash, AIR, MXML and other resources, was bought by long-time rival Adobe (which was previously touting SVG as a competitor to Flash prior to the acquisition), with a gradually-open (and open-source-friendly) approach being adopted by Adobe in order to compete for influence with Microsoft in the multimedia production arena.

Apple, however, doesn’t need fear any such competitive threat from Microsoft or Adobe. At present, no other desktop computing hardware distributor has such a high degree of exceptionalism for its own operating system and application software as does Apple.

Many in both the FOSS and Windows user communities view any higher degree of exceptionalism for a company’s own proprietary trimmings as "arrogance", "pomposity", "bigotry", "ignorance", "hypocrisy", etc. But any company, IMO, would take such an approach if they could afford losing potential sales opportunities; Adobe and Microsoft have historically taken such an approach towards their own stacks as well.

Plus, a higher exceptionalism for your own stack often results in loyal, high-paying customer bases, rumor communities and vigilant keyboard armies. Apple, Adobe and Microsoft all have such customer bases and fandoms, all of which are accused of being as shrill and arrogant as the companies to which they give such fealty, devotion and attention.

So a better question to ask of Apple would be this: "is Apple’s corporate exceptionalism a bigger open source enemy than Microsoft’s corporate exceptionalism?"

And my answer would be "Yes. Yes it is."

FAP post-mortem

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FAP closed early this morning, with all contents deleted and replaced by the infamous "RickRoll" video from YouTube. The private last-minute negotiations for acquisition fell through, according to both Ekigyuu and Belliachi.

This, however, was an interesting development.

So now the questions about the acquisition can be (partly and temporarily) laid to rest. However, it will be interesting to see how others will make use of Ekigyuu’s "openFAP" server software (openFAP is not an official name for the project, since Ekigyuu hasn’t even named it).

EDIT: The codename is Guava, and both it and the fAPI will be released under the GPL.

On FAP

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Furry Art Pile, ran by Ekigyuu (noodlesandbeef ) achieved a bit of notoriety on August 27th with the announcement of its closure (slated for tomorrow, September 1st). This announcement engendered both severe criticism from commenters on both his journal and that of the
furryartpile community (and respondent criticism from friends and associates of ekigyuu that the critics were "whiny furfaggots") and lots of interest in the acquisition of the site from such people as toribelliachi, owner of MyFursona (myfursona )(although Ekigyuu denied that the site would be sold or given to new management). Ekigyuu has also expressed interest in releasing a source code version of the site’s server software under an open source license (maybe the GPL?) to allow others to build their own web galleries.

This happening, on the eve of the initially-intended date of closure, raises more questions, IMO, than answers.

  • Will the release of the FAP source code to open source development include the release of the fAPI within?
  • Is it true that Ekigyuu’s keeping open the site for another two weeks to find new managers in clandestine negotiations, according to Tori?
  • Does Tori’s age and British citizenship prevent him from accessing, let alone administering, a website with adult content contained therein?
  • Why the sudden announcement within days of the runout of donations?
    • And, given the proximity of time between the announcement and the planned date of closure, as well as the likelyhood that donations were being given to Ekigyuu during the month of August, is it really true that the possibly-ample donations are to run out at the end of the month?
  • A question asked by several commenters on his blog: Why would Ekigyuu expressly deny or resist handing the site over to new management on the rationale that it is his "baby" and "portfolio", and that he’d rather end its existence on his watch rather than hand it over to another party?

I think that we won’t find out the answers to such questions for a while. But it is, to me, interesting to see the oncoming politics unfold.

Plus, editing the relevant WikiFur article to take all of this into account (even after they deleted the News post for undisclosed reasons nevermind per below) is fun to do.

Open-Source Government

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Open-source….Man, how this term has been buzzing in people’s ears since Linux, Mozilla, and quite a few other phenoms first entered onto the computer scene within the last decade or more.

Basically, the term itself says it all: the allowance for developer wannabes who, mind you, have the skill, tact, and resources to have their way with the development of a particular computer feature, be it a simple application, script, plugin, extension, or maybe an *entire* operating system. Or, if the guy or gal is *that* ambitious, he/she can use the source code (which has been posted for all the world to gaze upon in awe) as the basis for the creation of a whole ‘nother feature of his/her own (or, even better, his/her fellow developers).

It doesn’t rely that much on money, and it doesn’t usually use money as a linchpin for further development. In fact, with the further decrease (and, in many circles, decrying) of the importance of proprietary rights, money will sooner or later be thankfully phased out as an issue in the ongoing evolution of the computer industry.

OK, so enough about the computer industry. That diddy only serves as the preceding example or basis for an expansion of the topic at hand: “Open-source”.

Now, a while ago, there was this now-defunct company in Toronto called “Opencola” which created collaborative software, including a desktop application which, according to the article of the same name from Wikipedia, “which enabled users to search, acquire, manage and share information from multiple data sources, including the Internet, peers on the Opencola network, and existing proprietary databases, from a single interface.”

However, before the company and its desktop thingy was sold to Waterloo’s own Open Text Corp. in the summer of 2003, the company was able to achieve notoriety, not for its desktop application (which, I guess, didn’t get the company that much money by way of propriety), but rather for a soft drink which had served, originally, as a promo tool for the explanation of open source software. The company’s idea caught on, and, before folding, was able to sell some 150,000 cans of the caffeinated concoction.

Supposedly inspired by this, an Italian “spinoff” of sorts, with no commercial value, was started up by a few FLOSS ethics activists. This version is clear (like Sprite or Fresca), by the way.

Furthermore, the rather-rudimentary recipe for Vores Øl (“Our Beer”) was published under the Creative Commons license by students at IT-University in Copenhagen, in association with Superflex, a Copenhagen-based art collective, in order to, as put by Wikipedia, “illustrate how open source concepts might be applied outside the digital world.” Initially derided by many online brewing afficionados because of the lack of numerous necessary details within the recipe, the idea soon caught on, since one of the leading developers, Rasmus Nielsen, admitted that the creators behind the recipe were (by any means) lacking the experience and knowhow in the development of a *perfect* recipe (thus asking for help from others who may possess such resources); furthermore, Nielsen stated that the brew was meant as a statement against “dogmatic notions of copyright and intellectual property that are dominating our culture.”

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So, open-source beverages, you say? OK, so now the open-source revolution can be extended outside of the realm of IT?

So now, we can have open-source this, open-source that, open-source etc…

Now…what about open-source *government*?

You read that right. Open-source government.

That means: open-source executive, open-source legislative, open-source judiciary, open-source bureaucracy, open-source electoral process, open-source defense and public order, and so on.

Now, I bet that you’re wondering, “How can there be such a thing as an open-source government, of all things?”

Well, let’s first talk about government in the basic.

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Everybody loves democracy, whether it be the term itself, its definition, or its implementation. However, all three features of this term are shrouded in the utmost controversy of debate, since, like most other things in life, it comes in a spectrum of shades and colors rather than in simple black and white.

The interpretations of democracy, as a principle and ideology, vary wildly from extreme to extreme. You have the anarchist definition, the communist interpretation, the bureaucratic approach, the militarist stance, the free trade/speech construing, and, of course, the fascist dismissal (“bunch of hogwash”).

However, as the etymology of the term derives from the Greek for “people’s rule”, I guess that the concentration of our query should center even further upon “rule”, and what that actually consists of.

Now, the “rule” is most often taken as being “law”, the “as is”, the “standard”, the “endgame”, the “final and ultimate say-so on most matters”. So, if this thing called “law” or “rule” is in the hands of the people, the public, the common for its molding, shaping, and total use, then how is it that, in a supposedly-democratic nation, the same common hands its possession of the rule to a few select men?

Think about that.

Now, let’s look, once again, at the concept behind open source, as I quote from the “Open Source Definition”, as explicitly stated from OpenSource.org:

“Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria:

1. Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

2. Source Code

The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.

3. Derived Works

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

4. Integrity of The Author’s Source Code

The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of “patch files” with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

7. Distribution of License

The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.

8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program’s being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program’s license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.

9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software

The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.

10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral

No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface.”

(Copyright © 2005 by the Open Source Initiative, opensource.org)

Furthermore, let us also take notice, via Wikipedia, of how the Participants in the development of Open Source software are basically constituted:

“Participants in OSS development projects fall broadly into two categories. There are the Core and the Peripheral.

The Core or Inner Circle are developers who modify codes that constitute the project.

The Peripheral are usually made up of users who use the software. They report bugs, and suggest fixes.

The participants may then be further divided into the following.

1. Project leaders who have the overall responsibility (Core). Most of them might have been involved in coding the first release of the software. They control the overall direction of individual projects.
2. Volunteer developers (Core / Periphery) who do actual coding for the project. These include:
* Senior members with broader overall authority
* Peripheral developers producing and submitting code fixes
* Occasional contributors
* Maintainers who maintain different aspects of the project
3. Everyday users who perform testing, identify bugs, deliver bug reports, etc. (Periphery)
4. Posters (Periphery) who participate frequently in newsgroups and discussions, but do not do any coding.”

Now, in those definitions of the essence of Open Source, I believe that we now have laid our eyes upon a link between open source and democracy that could forever revolutionize the way that government is operated.

[With that being said, I’ll stop at this point in order to let you think about it. In the meantime, I’ll begin work on the world’s first open-source constitution and human rights charter (the counterpart to “source code”), which I’ll eventually post on a website for distribution.]