Voice of the masses: 2015 was the year of Linux and open source software. What next?
It’s the start of a new year here in the Shire, and later this week we’re going to record the first episode for series 4 of our podcast. We’ve left this a little late, but here’s the first voice of the masses of 2016. Over on ZDNet.com, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes, “In 2015, Microsoft embraced Linux, Apple open-sourced its newest, hottest programming language, and the cloud couldn’t run without Linux and open-source software. So, why can’t people accept that Linux and open source have won the software wars?”
We want to know, is this correct, and if so, what does that mean for FOSS advocates? Can we all take it easy now that the fight is over, and should RMS start a well-earned retirement? Alternatively, is there some other digital fight that we should pick up such as the right to privacy online, ensuring children get a good computing education or narrowing the digital divide between people who can get digital services and those who can’t?
As always, let us know what you think in the comments below, and we’ll seamlessly meld your thoughts into our upcoming podcast.
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About The Author
Ben Everard
Ben Everard is the co-author of Learning Python with the Raspberry Pi and hacks hardware projects held together with a big dollop of Linux and Free Software glue. He's @ben_everard on Twitter.
Open source may have won, but what we really want is free software. The next challenge is to educate the masses on the difference, otherwise corporations will still run amok with our freedoms.
Once government s realise that mandating back doors and weak encryption in mainstream commercial apps does nothing to stop people using free software implementing their own security there are likely to be moves to outlaw free software.
You don’t have to read longer than the second paragraph to see how short a memory this guy has:
> I know way too many Linux users who think of Microsoft as “The Evil Empire.” People, that was yesterday. Get over it.
And then you read about how Microsoft is suing Corel for “All of the profit from Corel Home Office” https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/stupid-patent-month-microsofts-design-patent-slider for using their *slider design*. That’s not profiting off of hard work of Microsoft engineers, but pure greed feeding off a broken system. Just because they changed the boss doesn’t mean we can instantly trust them. Being friendly to those you mean to crush is just a common business tactic these days.
That said, the massive work to enable users to learn what their devices do and make them do whatever they bloody well want has only just got started. There are binary blobs in the official Linux kernel. Hardware is supported on closed platforms before more open ones. The most fundamental logic of basically every computer (BIOS, chipset) are locked down tight. EULAs allow companies to change your computer in any way they want, whenever they want. Companies trade your information without your informed consent. Fix these and then see where we stand.
So what’s next is more of the same: Lots of hard work by dedicated (and too rarely well paid or acknowledged) individuals to ensure the freedom of every user out there.
It definitely seems like open source is winning, due to it being the ‘pragmatically better option’. Let’s call this ‘transition 0’ – the process of corporations and other big-clout entities recognizing that even though it counters their intuition, sharing means that everyone ends up better off. Now it’s time for ‘transition 1’ – acknowledging that a) sharing is worth protecting and b) everyone’s knowledge is built on other people’s knowledge and keeping yours secret is a theft from your fellow humans. So I hope that RMS won’t be planning a retirement for a long time yet.
Closed infrastructure, ala AWS and its effective cloud monopoly.
The big issue I see is whether free software can persist in the face of government opposition to encryption and privacy. I hope it can, but it is not guaranteed.
We know that the Linux operating system stands second to none. To get the best applications though usually takes cash. As a satisfied LibreOffice user at home, I recognise that, at work, Microsoft Office and Windows software wins the day as its features and ‘smoothness’ is critical. You have found this yourself with DTP software.
For me, the issue begins with our education system. I’d like the Department for Education to encourage schools to use Linux and FOSS software as standard up until, say, Year 11 (where business apps can come in). Teaching the youngest school kids how to use business-level Microsoft products as standard right from the start means they will be reluctant to use anything else. There’s simply no need for this state of affairs to continue.
eh… forget desktops and laptops, the `battlefield’ is mobile now… so, we have lost the `software wars’… think of a **feasible** replacement for Android and iOS or google web products…
(btw Microsoft is not relevant anymore, and it’s as evil/good as any other company out there, there’s not difference among Microsoft, and, let’s say, IBM, Facebook, Intel or McDonald’s, they all want your money)
P. Penguin got there before me. It’s the difference between open source and free software.
As a non-developer, I don’t care about any of the examples in the sjvn article. Frameworks and toolkits that reduce the cost of building a website, system, app, network or phone that lock me in (or out), enforce obsolescence, spy on me or milk my money.
I want share and share alike. I want software (no, tools) that I can use freely and I can give back to in the ways I’m able. Open source didn’t keep me from having to buy a new laptop when I was out of work, Free Software did. (I.e. BSD-based Macbook versus refurbishing an old Windows XP paperweight. It’d be nice to be rich, though… maybe then I would be more silicon valley less dark alley)
Let’s face it…Free software has not by a long shot come close to winning the software wars. True the vast majority of folk do all the computing in a browser window. True Libreoffice has near parity on features with proprietary office applications. But for those of us who have to go outside these boxes life is a continuous series of paper cuts. I put up with these purely out of principle, others would prefer the convenience of proprietary software.
There is no motivation for industry to use free software. So consumers who might want a free solution are trapped by the producers who fear that open source confers an advantage to their competitors. Take XYZ Printing 3D printers. I had the misfortune to be given one…a nice posh looking machine.. built on open source technology, technology that was driven and well supported on Linux, has been reconfigured to exclude Linux by design. Naturally clever folk had optimised the firmware to allow enhanced performance and improve platform compatibility, find that rather than accept these offerings, XYZ have decide to ensure that anyone trying to install modified firmware now bricks their machine. This is pure malicious behaviour that can not possibly improve sales figures.
Not meaning to be politically incorrect, what Open source lacks is a fundametalist, extremist, jihadi movement (no offence meant to the agnostic, heathen, proprietary-software-using nancys out there). A victory that cant be seen is one that cant be seen to matter. Dominance in the cloud, the browser, the server space is an invisible dominance. Being confident of a victory leads to complacency. A complacent minority risks extinction. A vocal and belligerent minority on the other hand is noticed.
The plethora of “permissive” Open Source licenses being used is a concern.
For me, the success of Free Software is the enforcement of “copyleft”: any work derived from Free Software must also be made available under the same Free Software licence. This is how Free Software has continuously improved and become all pervasive.
Establishing proper copyleft Free Software licenses as the “go to” licenses is a battle that still needs to continue.
The majority of software used by people everyday is still closed source, insecure and disrespectful of privacy.
Yes, we made ground but we certainly didn’t win anything.
The war is far from being over. Linux and the open source community as a whole have won many battles over the past year, but there’s still way too much closed source software running in the wild. Including the ever growing number of non-traditional technology we don’t instantly think about when talking about software. The first thing that comes to my mind are cars and the very recent Volkswagen scandal. This was big news and a great opportunity to show the world the need for open software, but I haven’t seen anything else come of it. Also, until government agencies decide to stop adding people to a watch list for just look at Tor and lose the idea that encryption is the root of all evil then we will continue to have this fight on our hands.
How to make this the year of the Linux desktop. SIMPLE!
First, remove from distrubution the lowest 80% downloaded, as per Distrowatch, distrubutions. Leaving us with only 1 Million (US) distrubutions. Except for the 5 ‘speciality’ distros. You know those for people too lazy to install a stock distro and then add/remove what they want, instead of having it spoon fed to them like pablum.
Second, quit creating even more window managers, we only need 9 or 10 total. 4 for older/ less powered hardware. 7 for modern hardware, split between tiling and full screen types.
Chose 1 package manager. How? you ask. Again easy, pick 5 random senior citizens from the local old age home, and have them chose from scraps of paper in a hat. The winner would be one one that gets selected most. This is too important of a decision to be given to anyone who actually uses Linux as we’re all predjudiced and cry and pout like children when our favorite is denied.
Next, choose 4 file systems, 2 for desktops and 2 for servers – as here we need a greater choice, depending on usage.
Stop the insanity of 6 month releases. DON’T stop the bug fixes and enhancements, take the time to fix whats broken before releasing newer broken crap.
Developers, quit scratching your own itches, get some topical cream, see a doctor so the programs already available are the best they can be. For example, the average end user doesn’t care that you need 42° corners on your application when the stock application comes with 41° corners.
Kernel developers, 99.9999999999% of the worlds laptop computers come with Broadcom wireless and Bluetooth chipsets, can you get it please working before kernel version 666?
None, repeat NONE of the distros that I tried: Mint, Ubuntu, Arch, Gentoo, Slackware, or even Linux From Scratch has gotten Bluetooth to work on these chips.
Surely, someone knows how to write a working driver.
If and ONLY IF ALL of these problems are cured will Linux be popular among the masses.