Open Source is Inevitable

In these early days of economic rebound in Silicon Valley, you can’t help but notice the return of a constant stream of airplanes buzzing in and out of San Francisco International. In the beginning of February, you also could hear the buzz of the top pilots of open source at OSDL’s Enterprise Linux Summit held in Burlingame, practically on top of the runway. Linus Torvalds, Andrew Morton, Brian Behlendorf, Mitch Kapor, and others, were all there to convey how Linux and open source are ready for supersonic flight in IT.

The highlight of the summit was the keynote panel featuring open conversations with Torvalds and Morton — maintainers of the 2.6 kernel, Behlendorf — chief of Apache, and Kapor — head of the OSA foundation and inventor of Lotus 123. Each addressed, from their own perspectives, the fast-paced adoption of Linux and Open Source in the enterprise.

Torvalds emphasized the need for open standards to demand open source reference implementations so that companies are compelled to adhere to, implement and contribute to those standards. Successful open source projects can also form the basis for open standards. Commenting on software patents, Torvalds asserted that patents are as harmful for open source as they are for proprietary software. The fact that IBM, Sun and others, are granting patents to the OSS community, was welcomed by Torvalds as a step in the right direction. Not surprisingly, he didn’t expect Microsoft to follow this buzz. But count him out for grand visions. Torvalds claims to be the Anti-Visionary of OSS (for now). He refuses to hazard predictions — he merely wants ‘to fix things today, tomorrow and every day’ and, in his own practical way, make Linux better and better.

Lacking the reserve of his distinguished colleague, Morton bluntly put forth that ‘open source is inevitable’.

Behlendorf reinforced Torvalds’ view that open standards must be maintained and that open standards and open source are synonymous. He added that just like the development of open standards, OSS development thrives by consensus and contributions. His own project Apache is one of the OSS world’s shining examples. And like success in biological systems, success in OSS will be determined by ’survival of the fittest’ in a market driven, global economy.

Kapor sees open source as a force that can move the immovable. Citing the success of Wikipedia, he described open source as a decentralized, self-assembling system of unlimited potential. He also went into why patents are bad for software. Currently the patent process has deteriorated to the point where thousands of patents have been issued in the last 15 years, without reference to prior rules by the US Patent Office. The result has been a lethal stockpile of toxic patents waiting to explode. Kapor reiterated the call for immediate patent reform and expressed concern that Microsoft, in a desperate last stand, could use its own version of a “patent Bhopal” as a weapon of mass destruction.

Sessions on open source licensing and discussions about SCO’s doomed litigation were popular. Larry Rosen, a leading attorney on licensing, talked about too many variations of OSS licences being ratified by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The proliferation of licences is causing confusion in the global OSS community as well as promoting islands of OSS development due to incompatible licences impairing code sharing across the federation of OSS projects.

OSDL’s Enterprise Linux Summit offered a gallery of snapshots from the cockpits of today’s OSS leadership. Some snapshots pointed to the sky above, while others focused closer to the ground. But from every vantage point, the pictures show progress and the promise of even higher-speed travel ahead.