1. Linus Torvolds on open source
- Posted by Jules <jdavy at ds??pipex.com>
Jul 23, 2007
-
Last edited Jul 24, 2007
In a recent interview, he said:
"I think the real issue about adoption of open source is that nobody can
really ever “design” a complex system. That’s simply not how things work: people
aren’t that smart - nobody is. And what open source allows is to not actually
“design” things, but let them evolve, through lots of different pressures in the
market, and having the end result just continually improve.
And doing so in the open, and allowing all these different entities to
cross-pollinate their ideas with each other, and not having arbitrary boundaries
with NDA’s and “you cannot look at how we did this”, is just a better way.
I compare it with science and witchcraft (or alchemy). Science may take a
few hundred years to figure out how the world works, but it does actually get
there, exactly because people can build on each others knowledge, and it evolves
over time. In contrast, witchcraft/alchemy may be about smart people, but the
knowledge body never “accumulates” anywhere. It might be passed down to an
apprentice, but the hiding of information basically means that it can never
really become any better than what a single person/company can understand.
And that’s exactly the same issue with open source vs proprietary products.
The proprietary people can design something that is smart, but it eventually
becomes too complicated for a single entity (even a large company) to really
understand and drive, and the company politics and the goals of that company will
always limit it.
In contrast, open source works well in a complex environment. Maybe nobody
at all understands the big picture, but evolution doesn’t require global
understanding, it just requires small local improvements and a open market
(”survival of the fittest”).
So I think a lot of companies are slowly starting to adopt more open source,
simply because they see these things that work, and they realize that they would
have a hard time duplicating it on their own. Do they really buy into my world
view? Probably not. But they can see it working for individual projects."
I agree 100%. Maybe open source isn't so bad, after all. :)
2. Re: Linus Torvolds on open source
Jules wrote:
>
> In a recent interview, he said:
>
>
> "I think the real issue about adoption of open source is that nobody can
> really ever “design” a complex system. That’s simply not how things work:
> people
> aren’t that smart - nobody is. And what open source allows is to not actually
> “design” things, but let them evolve, through lots of different pressures in
> the market, and having the end result just continually improve.
>
> And doing so in the open, and allowing all these different entities to
> cross-pollinate
> their ideas with each other, and not having arbitrary boundaries with NDA’s
> and “you cannot look at how we did this”, is just a better way.
>
> I compare it with science and witchcraft (or alchemy). Science may take
> a few hundred years to figure out how the world works, but it does actually
> get there, exactly because people can build on each others knowledge, and it
> evolves over time. In contrast, witchcraft/alchemy may be about smart people,
> but the knowledge body never “accumulates” anywhere. It might be passed down
> to an apprentice, but the hiding of information basically means that it can
> never really become any better than what a single person/company can
> understand.
>
> And that’s exactly the same issue with open source vs proprietary
> products.
> The proprietary people can design something that is smart, but it eventually
> becomes too complicated for a single entity (even a large company) to really
> understand and drive, and the company politics and the goals of that company
> will always limit it.
>
> In contrast, open source works well in a complex environment. Maybe nobody
> at all understands the big picture, but evolution doesn’t require global
> understanding,
> it just requires small local improvements and a open market (”survival of the
> fittest”).
>
> So I think a lot of companies are slowly starting to adopt more open
> source,
> simply because they see these things that work, and they realize that they
> would
> have a hard time duplicating it on their own. Do they really buy into my world
> view? Probably not. But they can see it working for individual projects."
>
> I agree 100%. Maybe open source isn't so bad, after all. :)
Hi there,
Every programmer loves open source unless it's their own creation
sometimes. I'd like to see MS Windows (XP, Vista) go open source (ha ha).
Take care,
Al
E boa sorte com sua programacao Euphoria!
My bumper sticker: "I brake for LED's"
From "Black Knight":
"I can live with losing the good fight,
but i can not live without fighting it".
"Well on second thought, maybe not."
