Just For Fun: Extract 3 - The case for being open

IBM is a company with a history of screwing people over. It made its money by getting a captive audience and making sure nobody else got a foothold. That's how most computer companies worked, in fact. It's how some of them still do. Then, when IBM developed the personal computer, it unintentionally opened up its technology for anyone to replicate. That single act did more than anything to spur on the PC Revolution, which in turn has spurred the Information Revolution, New Economy - whatever it is they are calling the massive changes taking place throughout the world.

It's the best illustration of the limitless benefits to be derived from the open source philosophy. While the PC wasn't developed using the open source model, it is an example of a technology that was opened for any person or company to clone and improve and sell. In its purest form, the open source model allows anyone to participate in a project's development or commercial exploitation. Linux is obviously the most successful example. What started out in my messy Helsinki bedroom has grown to become the largest collaborative project in the history of the world. It began as an ideology shared by software developers who believed that computer source code should be shared freely, with the General Public License - the anticopyright - as the movement's powerful tool. It evolved to become a method for the continuous development of the best technology. And it evolved further to accept widespread market acceptance, as seen in the snowballing adoption of Linux as an operating system for web servers, and in its unexpectedly generous IPOs.

What was inspired by ideology has proved itself as technology and is working in the marketplace. Now open source expanding beyond the technical and business domains. At Harvard University Law School, professors Larry Lessig (who is now at Stanford) and Charles Nesson have brought the open source model to law. They started the Open Law Project, which relies on volunteer lawyers and law students posting opinions and research on the project's Web site to help develop arguments and briefs challenging the United States Copyright Extension Act. The theory is that the strongest arguments will be developed when the largest number of legal minds are working on a project, and as a mountain of information is generated through postings and repostings. The site nicely sums up the trade off from the traditional approach: "What we lose in secrecy, we expect to regain in depth of sources and breadth of argument." (Put in another context: With a million eyes, all software bugs will vanish.)

It's a wrinkle on how academic research has been conducted for years, but one that makes sense on a number of fronts. Think of how this approach could speed up the development of cures for diseases, for example. Or how, with the best minds on the task, international diplomacy could be strengthened. As the world becomes smaller, as the pace of life and business intensifies, and as the technology and information become available, people realise the tight-fisted approach is becoming increasingly outmoded.

The theory behind open source is simple. In the case of an operating system - is free. Anyone can improve it, change it, exploit it. But those improvements, changes and exploitations have to be made freely available. Think Zen. The project belongs to no one and everyone. When a project is opened up, there is rapid and continual improvement. With teams of contributors working in parallel, the results can happen far more speedily and successfully than if the work were being conducted behind closed doors.

That's what we experienced with Linux. Imagine: Instead of a tiny cloistered development team working in secret, you have a monster on your side. Potentially millions of the brightest minds are contributing to the project, and are supported by a peer-review process that has no, er, peer.

In tomorrow's final extract from 'Just For Fun', we hear more about the future of open source, and why Linus thinks Bill Gates is wrong to criticise the approach. And remember, you can still buy a copy of this just released book at silcon.com, at the reduced price of £16.20 - http://www.silicon.com/goto-Linus-ex .