Just for Fun: Extract 4 - More standing on the shoulders of giants

The first time people hear about the open source approach, it sounds ludicrous. That's why it has taken years for the message of its virtues to sink in. Ideology isn't what has sold the open source model. It started gaining attention when it was obvious that the open source was the best method of developing and improving the highest quality technology. And now it is wining in the marketplace, an accomplishment has brought open source its greatest acceptance. Companies were able to be created around numerous value-added services, or to use open source as a way of making technology popular. When the money rolls in, people get convinced.

One of the least understood pieces of the open source puzzle is how so many good programmers would deign to work for absolutely no money. A word about motivation is in order. In a society where survival is more or less assured, money is not the greatest of motivators. It's been well established that folks do their best work when they are driven by a passion. When they are having fun. This is as true for playwrights and sculptors and entrepreneurs as it is for software engineers. The open source gives people the opportunity to live their passion. To have fun. And to work with the world's top programmers, not the few that happen to be employed by their company. Open source developers strive to earn the esteem of their peers. That's got to be highly motivating.

It seems that Bill Gates doesn't understand this. Is it possible that he is now embarrassed by an off-putting rhetorical question he asked in 1976? "One thing you do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?" he wrote in a letter to the open source programmers.

In fact, one way to understand the open source phenomenon is to think about how science was perceived by religion so many centuries ago (if not today, by some creatures). Science was originally viewed as something originally dangerous, subversive, and antiestablishment - basically how software companies sometimes view open source. And just as science wasn't born out of an effort to understand the religious establishment, open source wasn't conceived in order to detonate the software establishment. It is there to produce the best technology, and to see where it goes.

Science on its own does not make money. It has been the secondary effects of science that create all the wealth. The same goes for open source. It allows the creation of secondary industries that challenge established businesses, much the way the spinoffs of science challenged the church. You find small companies like VA Linux taking advantage of open source and suddenly being able to compete with traditional corporations. In the words of Sir Isaac Newton, standing on the shoulders of giants.

And yes, as open source gains momentum in the world economy, and as its developers earn recognition, they are becoming increasingly more bankable as employees. Companies search credit lists, which are traditionally appended to open source software contributions, to determine who is making multiple contributions. And then they instruct their human resources departments to offer deliver a wheelbarrow full of money and stock options to potential employees. In a previous paragraph I pronounced that money is not the greatest motivator, and, no, I haven't changed my mind in the ensuing sentences. But I must say that money isn't such a bad thing to have as a reward for hard work. It certainly is handy when it comes to filling up the gas tank in my BMW.

Like science itself, open source's secondary effects are endless. It is creating things that until recently were considered impossible, and opening up unexpected new markets. With Linux, as with other open source projects, companies can make their own versions and their own changes, which really isn't possible any other way. It's exciting to realise that just about everything that's ever been done with Linux was not remotely on the radar when we started. It is even taking off in China. Traditionally, software development in Asia has primarily been about translating American or European software. Now folks in that part of the world are using Linux to develop their own software. And I'm really proud of the guy who came up to me at Comdex and wanted to show me the gasoline pump that was running Linux. It was a prototype gasoline pump that was running Linux because he wanted to have web browsers so gasoline customers could go to CNN.com during the three minutes they're waiting for their tanks to fill. Standing on the shoulders of giants.

It's inspiring that people use technologies like Linux to just make better gas pumps. That sort of innovation is not likely to happen within the confines of a company, because if you were a company taking Linux to market you would go for the obvious, which right now is the server market or the high end desktop market. But open source in general allows companies to make their own decisions about what they want to do. So it's Linux in embedded devices. It's Tivo running Linux and the Transmeta Web Slate running Linux and Telephony using Linux. This is how billions of dollars in wealth is being created from open source.

It is like letting the universe take care of itself. By not controlling the technology, you are not limiting its uses. You make it available and people make local decisions - to use it as a launching pad for their own products and services. And while most of those decisions don't make sense in the larger scale of things, they actually work really well. This is not about trying to spread Linux. It's about making Linux available and then letting it spread itself. And this doesn't apply only to Linux. It applies to any project that's open.

Open source makes sense.

This is the final part of silicon.com's Just For Fun serialisation, but you can also buy the book from us http://www.silicon.com/goto-Linus-ex at the reduced price of £16.20. For analysis and opinion on Linus and open source, visit our Linus Week microsite http://www.silicon.com/goto-Linus-ex .