Good Morning Silicon Valley: An interview with Linus Torvalds

June 22 2005

Linus on Microsoft, mostly....

Microsoft really is a fairly interesting vendor in this space. Unlike most proprietary vendors, it's one of the very few ones whose bread and butter comes directly from its commodity market, and even its specialized offerings often sell because of its near dominance of a market that certainly looks to be commoditized over the next decade or so.

So it's no wonder that Microsoft is one of the very few players who really don't seem to like open source. Most other vendors seem to see open source as a platform that they can ride on, while to MS it's a threat to how they do business.

That said, I don't see the MS market going away very fast, and I don't see why MS couldn't continue to function as a software company even if they don't control the commodity market any more. In many ways I think MS is in the same situation that IBM was in two decades ago, losing control of the basic market -- and thus the dominance of the market -- but not necessarily going away or even necessarily shrinking.
There's an anonymous comment to this blog entry that says, "The future is *free software*".  For some reason, that comment stood out for me.  Is that really a realistic view?  Think of how much software -- not just for PCs, but for game machines, pervasive devices, etc. -- is out there today.  Is there some altruistic movement afoot that will make all software free?   I think not.  Pecuniary gain is ultimately the primary motivator for many developers and engineers, so the idea that software should be free just isn't a realistic business model.
Link: Good Morning Silicon Valley: An interview with Linus Torvalds > (via John Head)

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  In the news  Add/View Comments [22]

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  1. 1  Julian Robichaux http://www.nsftools.com | 6/22/2005 9:53:32 PM

    Keep in mind that there's the free speech vs. free beer definition of "free". IBM is making plenty of money by leveraging (and sponsoring) free software on the WebSphere side of the house.

    - Julian

  1. 2  Dan Sickles  | 6/22/2005 10:20:28 PM

    and JBoss isn't exactly hurting. They pay developers to write the software (jboss app server & portal, Tomcat, Hibernate etc...) just like any other software company but they earn revenue excusively on services, not license fees. Is this THE future? I think it will be a growing part of the future. Free software is moving up the stack from protocols and is working it's way through middleware.

  1. 3  vowe http://vowe.net | 6/23/2005 12:48:29 AM

    You are falling into two traps. One was pointed out already. Free means open. Not only protocols but also the implementation. The other one has puzzled Gates to no end:

    That has to be the view of a sales executive. However, I strongly suggest that pecuniary gain is not the most powerful motivator for everyone.

  1. 4  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 6/23/2005 6:43:00 AM

    @3 - no, not everyone -- but when you consider the universe of mainstream software produced today, the vast vast majority is developed with the idea of selling it.

    However, if free means open, then I get the assertion.

  1. 5  Rock http://www.lotusgeek.com | 6/23/2005 7:15:29 AM

    Well, I don't know if software will ever be "free" (i.e. beer), but I do see the open source movement expanding. If you build a product, and that product warrants a following, then you will also get a loyal group of geek fanatacists who are willing to put in extra effort to make that product better. Why? Quite a few reasons:

    1) it helps them understand the product better themselves

    2) as they contribute to the product they are increasingly recognized as "experts" on the product

    3) there peer reputation from doing something like that is very addictive

    4) same for the recognition in the user community

    5) all of this exposure (both technical and community) helps that geek become a more marketable commodity - (s)he makes the product better, more people want the product, people need help with the product, he's there to help and is found by word-of-mouth, blogging, reputation in general, etc.

    The result of this community is that a much greater "army of geeks" is available to the softare developer to help maintain the product - help adding features, fixing bugs, responding to critical situations (critsits), etc. If your product and company have enough good "Geek Karma" then you essentially have a staff of hundreds (thousands?) to help you keep your product fed, healthy, and thriving.

    I also see a trend in (open source) softare as well - OK not really a trend, this technique has been around forever - it seems many softare developers are offering two versions of their product - a "free" version that may (not) have a subset of all the features, and never comes with tech support; and a "Pro" package that contains all features, tech support, and sometimes even some packaged services. If anything, I think sofware will move towards open source, and this marketing/offering model.

    OK, enough of this. Time for some caffeine... ;)

    --Rock

  1. 6  Dan Sickles  | 6/23/2005 9:36:24 AM

    @6 Yes, contributing to OS projects is great for the resume. But remember, free (as in beer) software != free programmers.

    { Link }

    IBM pays programmers to contribute to Eclipse and Mozilla. Other key Mozilla developers are on the payroll of Mozilla.org, SUN, Google and many other companies. This is the most misunderstood facet of OS. IBM promotes python, ruby, php and recently purchased Gerinimo. Is the ultimate goal to make money? Sure. License fees are just one way to profit from OS software.

  1. 7  Brian Benz http://www.softwaresoapbox.com | 6/23/2005 11:10:22 AM

    Manual Trackback: { Link }

    .....2 valuable lessons:

    1) Peer popularity <> marketability

    2) If you want to make money you need to be in business, and a successful business needs paying customers.

  1. 8  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 6/23/2005 11:22:17 AM

    Along the lines of #1, software like Apache, Postfix, Sendmail, qmail, ClamAV (the last two are used by Yahoo for their email services), MySQL and countless others ARE free as in beer, but you're on your own unless you are willing to pay for a support contract ('cept for qmail --you're on your own period). There is an economic trade that is made between free as in beer, and free as in time, and that exchange depends on what your own goals and incentives are.

    But I think it's worth pointing out that some of the most used and relied upon software don't have any direct monatary cost.

    I think, Ed, if you look at WHY IBM has been slowly shifting away from software sales and licensing and more towards services (or at least a healthier mix), and WHY IBM has been trying to put a proprietary layer on top of Open Source frameworks(so as not to compete with other Eclipse-based service offerings) you will see a prediction has been made, that as many Open-Source softwares approaches critical mass, it will be very difficult to survive using todays licensing models.

    My $.02

  1. 9  Vilhjálmur Helgason  | 6/23/2005 12:57:54 PM

    Java is free. Scott McNealy said in a recent interview, that had it not been for Java, MS would have total dominance on the server market (he may have said total dominance - period). Free as in beer software saved Sun (I still hope IBM buys Sun - that would be great:)

    Eclipse helps sell WSAD and the WebSphere server (along with everything WebSphere).

    It is like giving away razors to sell the blades, or consoles to sell the games, or MySQL to sell services.

    MS is already giving away software, to help sell other software (and kill the competition). It is only because of their monopoly, that they do not give away Windows to sell Office.

  1. 10  Dan Sickles  | 6/23/2005 2:03:54 PM

    Java is free but it is not open source.

    { Link }

  1. 11  Carl Tyler http://www.iminstant.com | 6/23/2005 2:51:02 PM

    @10 Interestingly enough in the early days, Microsoft did give away Windows to sell Office, they also gave away Office to sell Windows (well the individual apps like Word and Excel)

    Lotus also used to ship an OEMed version of Windows that only worked with Lotus Ami.

  1. 12  Andy Broyles  | 6/23/2005 3:57:44 PM

    @10 Some say that MS is intentional not enforcing their licensing abroad and allowing/psuedo-promoting piracy so that Linux doesn't gain any stronger foothold.

    I just wish I could remember where I saw the article referencing this.

  1. 13  jon johnston http://bingo.cbsol.com | 6/23/2005 4:50:15 PM

    With open source, Ed, we can literally build anything. It's up to our imagination (along with our customers) to come up with the ideas of what people need within their organizations to utilize technology.

    With Microsoft, we get "you can build everything that we let you as long as you use our tools".

    That's the difference between "free" and "not free".

    Given that analogy, over the years, there will be fewer and fewer developers using "not free" tools because they're too damned restrictive.

  1. 14  Mike Lazar  | 6/24/2005 11:20:47 AM

    I think the main thing here was only briefly discussed. It's all about support. Perhaps things will change, but right now, no CIO in the States will hang his hat on a product that doesn't come with enterprise support. That means a corporate entity with a long history (in software time) and a solid infrastructure. We are very far away from the time where there will be a push by large corporations going to open source products for their software. Remember the addage, "No one has been fired for choosing IBM/Microsoft/HP/insert giant vendor here." People have been fired for making a bold choice in an effort to save money or improve productivity if it failed. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. It's just the way it is.

  1. 15  Richard Schwartz http://smokey.rhs.com/web/blog/poweroftheschwartz.nsf | 6/24/2005 1:17:04 PM

    @4, Ed: When you say "when you consider the universe of mainstream software produced today, the vast vast majority is developed with the idea of selling it", I think you're defining your own truism with the word "mainstream".

    Looking at the total picture of software development, however, I would suspect that what you consider "mainstream" is just a small portion -- probably coming in third or fourth place in total quantity, after internal-use business applications, software written in academic and research settings, and maybe even after software written as a hobby for no particular purpose. Of that small portion that might be "mainstream", the non-free software has the distinct advantage of having marketing budgets and established support, so more people have heard of it and more people trust it, but there are really relatively few non-specialized areas in which there are commercial packages with absolutely no free/open source alternatives. So while it's probably true and not surprising that the vast majority of "mainstream software" _in use_ is not free, I don't think that it's fair to say that the vast majority is developed for sale. And certainly, the vast majority of all software is not developed for sale.

    -rich

  1. 16  Alan Bell http://www.dominux.co.uk | 6/30/2005 8:44:46 AM

    I get paid for writing software, my customers pay me for my time. The software that is the end result of my time is free. Software can be funded in lots of ways, for example perhaps a company using OpenOffice.Org needs a more intelligent tool to compare two versions of a document and highlight the differences. That company can pay for programmers to build the feature, it then benefits that company. The company has no objection to other companies having the benefit of an improved comparitor so they release the work back into the project. If the company didn't want other people getting the benefit of the modification they are under no obligation to release it back. (really, they are not - read the GPL if you doubt it)