Open minds like open source
By CHRISTINA DYRNESS
In May, Microsoft honcho Craig Mundie raised the hackles of the virtual
community of open-source programmers by calling the practice of sharing a
software's source code "unhealthy" and saying it leads to substandard products.
This Thursday, Mundie will debate the topic with Michael Tiemann, chief
technology officer at Durham-based Red Hat, at the O'Reilly Open Source
Convention in San Diego. Connect's Christina Dyrness sat down with Tiemann recently to
talk about the debate, Red Hat's stance on open source and his feelings about Microsoft in
general.
Q. Is this debate something you're preparing for? Or are you just
reiterating Red Hat's standard line on open source?
A. We don't want to go in unprepared. [Laughs.] There are a lot of facts
pertaining to Microsoft that are very, very important to what makes it even
more important for open source to be better understood. And without
properly preparing we would lose the benefit of history, the history of
Microsoft's practices, promises, and in some cases -- what should I say? --
transgressions.
Q. Before we get into that, because I definitely want to hear some of the
things that you'll be bringing up, just for our readers who don't know: What
is open source? How does Red Hat define it?
A. There's actually a definition, which has about 10 different points to it,
that's on a Web site called opensource.org. But fundamentally, open
source provides the ability to share and modify source code and to do so
in a way that does not discriminate against individuals, fields of endeavor
or business models -- where business models might include charging or
not charging for the distribution of software. So it's a very, very general
concept that basically brings with it the ability to read and modify source
code.
Q. And source code being the recipe that makes software run.
A. Correct. Now there's another category of software that's related that's
called free software. And free software is about preserving software
freedom. So free software carries with it the restriction that you cannot in
the process of distributing free software make it less free. You cannot take
away freedoms. So what open-source software says is that there are
things that you can give. What free software says is there some things you
cannot take away.
Q. And with free software, we're not just talking about giving it away, right?
Isn't there more to it than that?
A. We're talking about free speech, not free beer.
Q. Now Microsoft has introduced this concept called "shared source,"
right? And how does that fit into the picture?
A. Microsoft has a relatively long history of announcing things long before
they ever exist. And this has been true with respect to technology, and this
has been true with respect for applications, with respect to operating
systems, and now with respect to licensing agreements. Microsoft has said
that there's this thing called shared source, but to date, none of us have
been able to find a definitive licensing agreement that defines shared
source. The common excuse is, "We're still working on it." We've seen a
number of interesting things this summer where Microsoft promises to
introduce one thing and then they take it back and say, "Oh no, I'm sorry,
we didn't mean this or we didn't mean that." Sometimes it's good that they
didn't mean what they said.
Q. What's an example of that?
A.An example of that would be the initial Passport license -- Passport is a
component of HailStorm [user services offered as part of Microsoft's .NET
initiative] -- and the initial licensing agreement basically said that any use
of the Passport system [an online service allowing users to have a single
sign-in and e-commerce wallet], any data stored on Microsoft machines,
any technology or ideas that data represented, anything that you parked
or communicated with Microsoft, the intellectual property would transfer to
Microsoft. And you can imagine that this created somewhat of a stink. The
idea that if you send an e-mail message through a Microsoft server, that
the entire contents of that e-mail becomes the intellectual property of
Microsoft.
Q. But they've since taken that back.
A. Right. So that's an example where it's a good thing where Microsoft is
not always true to their word. But we don't know what they will give and we
don't know what they will take away when it comes to shared source.
One thing that they have been very clear about is how much they hate the
concept of software freedom. They have had a number of executives -- Jim
Allchin called the General Public License, which is the classic free software
license, un-American. Craig Mundie called it an intellectual property
destroyer. Steve Ballmer called it a cancer.
Q. That was my favorite.
A. And in all these cases, Microsoft has clearly shown what shared source
is not going to be. If you take a step back and say well, regardless of the
promises Microsoft makes, what is it that has made people fall so much in
love with Linux? What is it that has made people so excited about what is
happening with GNOME [open-source desktop environment] and Perl [a
popular open-source programming language] and Apache [open-source
Web server] and all these other programs? It's this property of software
freedom. And Microsoft is saying, well, whatever shared source is, it's not
going to be that.
Q. Do you think Microsoft is reacting to this sort of passion for Linux and
other open-source programs that they see as a threat? Is it that simple or
is there more to it than that?
A. I think you can never underestimate Microsoft. Two years ago at a Linux
trade show, people printed up T-shirts with a quote from Gandhi. And the
quote said, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight
you, then you win." It's very interesting that this T-shirt was out two years
ago, because two years ago was just at the inflection point of going from
ignoring us to laughing at us. And now we've gone from them laughing at
us to fighting us. In the open-source community we're optimistic that there's
one final step.
Q. I hear the term "open-source community" a lot. Do you have any sense
of the size and depth of it? How would you define a member of the
open-source community? Are they just programmers?
A. I don't think it's just programmers. Actually, that's what makes the
open-source community so dynamic and so diverse, is that the
open-source community by its very nature includes the users. When I use
a piece of open-source software, even if I'm not familiar with the internal
[code] for that software, I know that because of its nature I have the
opportunity to talk with other people about what is good or what could be
better. And this network of communication leads to program improvements
that no single vendor could necessarily take responsibility for. So we see
the Linux operating system, for example, getting better in many ways. I
certainly don't want to diminish the great contributions that Red Hat has
made, but by the same token, Red Hat is not the only company that's
making Linux a better operating system. The same could be said for
databases, spreadsheets, word processors, desktop utilities, you name it.
Unlike the proprietary software world where users are in a completely
separate class, and users don't really have the opportunity to say I would
like Feature X or Feature Y.
Q. And what about the community that Microsoft is trying to create around
its new platform .NET? Is it in tandem with what Microsoft is saying about
open source?
A. I think that Microsoft has an overly simplistic view as to why people are
members of the community. What drew me into the community -- and this
was back in 1987, a while ago in Internet terms -- was the idea that I could
be a first-class member of the community. When Sun Microsystems came
up with their so-called community source license, it was a very one-sided
license that basically said you can donate all your work to Sun, but you'd
be lucky to get anything back in return. Microsoft seems to be taking the
Sun approach one step further. I think that by and large, Sun was
unsuccessful in creating a community around their community source
licensing.
Q. When was that?
A. Sun started doing it about four years ago. Sun did join the GNOME
foundation and Sun has participated in some true open-source projects,
and I think Sun has seen benefit in that participation, but when they try to
create a community where the only beneficiary is the company, those
communities do not remain very robust. And I don't expect Microsoft to be
any more successful than Sun in this particular regard.
Now it's certainly true, that with $26 billion of cash in the bank, they can
throw some great parties for developers. There's certainly a lot of incentive
Microsoft can give to be part of that so-called community. But we all know
the results of governments trying to buy votes. Sooner or later, those
governments collapse.
Q. Well, touching on that topic of money and the relative power that it gives
Microsoft, what do you say to someone who brings the topic of stock prices
into the debate about open source? Does that even play into the debate?
A. From my perspective, the true way of evaluating what's best is
evaluating what's best for the customer. And if Red Hat has a more
efficient and more equitable way of serving customers and oh, by the way,
it takes us 20 years to achieve the kind of strong financial position that
Microsoft has achieved? Well then, guess what: That's not necessarily a
bad thing because it's taken Microsoft that long to achieve that position.
[Laughs.] We can't forget ... that Microsoft was founded in 1975 and Red
Hat was founded in 1994. And the fact that, seven years after our company
was founded, we have become the most substantial threat to the most
powerful company in the world -- it says we must be doing something right.
And what I think we will talk about is that what we are doing right is in the
customer's eyes, not in some theoretical sense.
Q. In the debate, will you have specific customer case studies that you will
be presenting, or will it be in more general terms?
A. You know, it's going to be difficult to say. One thing we've seen
Microsoft doing, on sort of a weekly basis, is they've been changing and
modulating their own position. And they could change it and modulate it
again. I remember back in 1995 when Microsoft announced they were
going to make the Internet their new strategy and they introduced the
Internet Explorer Web browser. At that point in time, I said "Well, this poses
no real threat because it will be a Windows-only solution." And then
Microsoft announced that IE was going to be ported to Unix in six months.
And of course that's what really took the wind out of Netscape's sails. Now
Microsoft, to my knowledge, never produced any of those ports, but they
created the illusion that they would. Which is classic Microsoft: to basically
announce something which either is not true or has no intention of
becoming true, just for the purposes of destabilizing the competition.
There's a lot of time between now and the debate where they could
substantially change their position, so we're really not clear yet on what
we're going to do. On the other hand, what we are doing is preparing
ourselves with information and facts about Microsoft's past practices,
because they can't change history.
Q. What's the format of the debate?
A. Craig Mundie is going to have 20 or so minutes to present Microsoft's
shared-source position and I'm going to have 20 or so minutes to present
the open-source position, and then there's going to be a panel session
with lawyers and policy makers and other luminaries to basically ask
questions that we will have a chance to respond to.
Q. But it's at an open-source conference. So you'll have home-field
advantage.
A. I will have home-field advantage; there's no question about that. But at
the same time, because open source has expanded the envelope so
much, this conference has been doubling in size every year and it's in San
Diego for the first year because they've exceeded the conference capacity
in Monterey, California. One of the goals of the conference organizers is to
bring people in who are completely new to this concept of open source. So
it's not quite the home-field advantage that you would expect.
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