Give Me That Open Source Religion.

I don’t mean to talk about religion in the conventional sense — the belief in a divinely revealed  guide for a proper life, and all the philosophical and ritual trimmings that come with it.  I’m generally a fan of the “strive to do good and avoid evil” message that religions usually preach.  I have my way of living toward those goals.  And  yet I admit the irony that preach and do remain two separate realms.  Religion is blamed for much evil too, rightfully so.

There’s another way we use the term “religion” — separate from the divine, philosophical, or unanswerable questions about meaning, spirituality, and life (pre, during, and post), and separate from the creeds and deeds that they proscribe.  I’m talking about the behaviors and attachments to ideas that are not falsifiable.  In other words, the realm that is not science.  When people argue about such matters, we might call them “religious arguments”.

There’s also a grey area where technically speaking we are in the realm of testable analysis — but have suspended logic in lieu of arguing our deep-seated beliefs about the way things ought to be.  The Internet enables this behavior at a global scale.  Discussion forums, blog comments, emails chains, especially around topics like Open Source (my concern these days) are filled with sharp opinion-expression.  The slightest degree of anonymity — like the ability to hide behind a username — magnifies this.  The behavior I’m talking about is predicated by the following thought:

The world would be a much better place if you simply agreed with my opinion.  Therefore in my virtuous attempt to improve the world I will make you submit to my opinion. How? Simple!  I’m going to respond to your email with a detailed, point-by-point, and emphatically written explanation of why you are wrong.  I’ll then intersperse links to other articles written by those with whom I agree.  You are welcome to respond in kind, but I’ll persist until you are really tired and have to go home and eat dinner.  In fact, I’ll make sure to respond to any attempt on your part to disagree with such speed, that I’ll create a false sense of urgency.

This pattern is corrosive to communities.  Ironically this is also found in one of the larger and most successful communities I encounter — the Open Source community.

I’ve been reluctant to write about the Open Source community, since they breed argumentative geniuses who hunt for blog wars.  I don’t welcome that here.  I’m a  pragmatist.  I don’t believe in the movement, but I don’t deny their importance and relevance.  I’ll share more  in future posts.  But you’ll find me looking at articles like this one, not the ones that argue virtues and vices. I’ll also share some observations about the Open Source movement, some issues that I deal with in legal matters related to Open Source and the workplace, and communities of share faith.

Since my blog is still dedicated to Enterprise 2.0 (my true passion), I’ll continue to frame the conversation to remain relevant to my readers in the E2.0 space.  But the next few posts will have an Open Source angle to them.  Let me clarify what I mean by Open Source — since there is a denotation and a connotation of the term, and they differ.  I’ll do my best to be very clear when I mean which.

The basics:  Computer programs have two manifestations – source code and a running program.  It’s like music — where you have the “sheet music” — a static representation of the music on paper (screen) — one that fully describes the music but makes no sound.  And a performance  (or recording) of the music — that carries the sound.  Composers write compositions, performers play the music.  Similarly with computer software — developers write source code  describing the program behaviors.  The code is then compiled (or interpreted) to make a running program (sometime called a binary or  executable).

Think about song writers who are hired to compose songs for movies.  They contract with a studio, and they are paid for this creative task.  The song is then performed, recorded, and added to the movie.  Before writing the song, they negotiate  terms  dealing with basic questions  – like who owns the rights to the song?  Can the song be used by a different studio? Who gets the royalties? If someone steals the song, who would hire the lawyers to take legal action?  If you don’t agree with the terms, then the studio may hire some other song writer.  If you are really famous, you might be able to negotiate better terms.  If you are in a union, the union might have already done that for you.  And studios cannot just take any song and use it in their movies without permission — that’s stealing.

Similarly in the world of software, a company hires developers to write code which the company will then use in products.  They engage in an employment contract which determines who owns the code, who is liable and responsible for it, etc.

But Open Source changed the dynamics of this contract.  In the case of Open Source, the person or entity who owns the code can choose to license the code in a manner that allows others to use that code under certain terms stipulated in the contract.  There is a category of terms that if present in the license, render the source code “Open Source”.  Actually there’s more than one definition for what makes a license “Open Source” and it really depends on which sacred text you quote from and which Open Source denomination you adhere to.

To continue the loose analogy: a composer gives away her music to any movie on the condition they put her name in the credits in really large letters.  She’s giving the music for free so that she could get fame (and concert ticket sales?).  A budget-conscious film might be attracted to free songs.  But this can get very tricky.  The composer can stipulate any term she wishes on her music, and those terms might make her free song much less appealing. What if she says that if you use her song in the movie, you must only use other “free” songs too, and are restricted from paying any songwriter? Or she stipulates that if you use her free song, then you have to publish the script of the movie so that other actors can remake the film — and if you don’t like those terms, you could pay her for the song instead.  It’s not as “free” anymore.  But it could be considered “open” in some sense of the word.

As it turns out, this songwriter analogy is not the most accurate explanation of what Open Source is, but it’s good enough for the uninitiated.  In the next few posts we’ll see how “religion” and legal matters enters the picture and makes this marketplace into a very complex stew of legalities and emotions.  Stay tuned.

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Tagged as: behaviors, community, culture, legal, Open Source