Home ›

The Generation Gap

Issue 72

From Issue #72
April 2000

Apr 01, 2000  By Brian Marshall
 in
An examination of the issues involved with the use of open-source software components in closed-source applications.
Generations of the Internet

The Internet has gone from being tiny to small to huge to gigantic. The use of open-source software has gone from being tiny to small to huge. The parallels between open source and the Internet are particularly interesting, because the cultures overlap—the infrastructure of the Internet was developed by and is maintained by hackers.

The Internet and its culture can be viewed as having passed through four generations:

  1. The U.S. Defense Department connects the ARPA-net with other defense networks to support military research. This proves to be a great way for researchers to communicate and share information. Demand for networking grows, but access is limited to a small community of computer science researchers, government employees and government contractors. A culture based on sharing is established.

  2. The National Science Foundation commissions the NSF-NET to connect colleges with five supercomputer centers. The NSF pays for campus connections if access will be generally available to students. Anyone at a four-year college can get on the network. Everything still revolves around sharing; commercial use is forbidden by the people providing the funding.

  3. Demand for networking increases, and commercial Internet Service Providers appear. Commercial use of the Internet is still frowned upon (and sometimes flamed upon), but for people and businesses paying for their own access, there is no one to forbid it. The emphasis shifts from sharing to using—surfing, chatting, e-mailing, browsing, finding cool stuff and being entertained. Commercial use increases. The idea of a business having a web site goes from being flaky to being obvious. The original culture, with its strict mores enforcing an ethic of sharing, is apparently losing its dominance.

  4. Millions and millions of people are on the Internet. You can do just about anything you want. Strict mores have given way to true freedom. It's changing the world. More people are sharing on the Internet than ever before. It's the hacker spirit on a gigantic scale.

Conclusion—Closed Source as Users of Open Source

Linux began as an operating system used primarily by programmers. Now it is used by all kinds of people, and the proportion of Linux users who are programmers is steadily decreasing. Most of these non-programmers know very little about the traditions of the hacker culture. Many of them use Linux simply to make money, and it's just about the best thing that could have happened to the Open Source movement.

Open-source software isn't going to replace closed-source software any time soon. People write closed-source applications because they believe they can make money renting them, and they will continue to believe this. Companies write software for their own use, and want to guard their trade secrets.

Closed-source development is a wonderful market for open-source components. The more companies use open-source components, the more they will contribute to open-source development.

It's great that programmers can create something like Linux in their spare time, but they also spend a lot of time at their paying jobs. Component development may be where the Open Source movement invades company time.

Resources

Acknowledgements

Brian has been a software developer in Calgary's oil and gas industry since 1981. He is deeply into C++ and object-oriented design. His career began vowing never to learn Cobol; it progressed to never learning VB and now involves never learning MFC. Brian first got into UNIX in 1991 but he has only been using Linux for about six months. Brian Marshall can be reached via e-mail at bmarshal@agt.net.

______________________

Webcast
More Resources
How to Build an Optimal Hadoop Cluster to Store and Maintain Unlimited Amounts of Data Using Microservers

Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.

Learn More

Sponsored by AMD

White Paper
More Resources
Red Hat White Paper: Using an Open Source Framework to Catch the Bad Guy

Built-in forensics, incident response, and security with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Every security policy provides guidance and requirements for ensuring adequate protection of information and data, as well as high-level technical and administrative security requirements for a system in a given environment. Traditionally, providing security for a system focuses on the confidentiality of the information on it. However, protecting the data integrity and system and data availability is just as important. For example, when processing United States intelligence information, there are three attributes that require protection: confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Learn more about catching the bad guy in this free white paper.

Learn More

Sponsored by DLT Solutions