Open Sources: Then and Now

Recently finished reading Open Sources 2.0. That implies there was a 1.0 version. There was and it was published in 1999, and was subtitled 'Voices from the Revolution'. Open source was new then (and on a personal level, I was in the 9th grade, and probably had never touched a computer). On a recent landmark trip I came across the second installment. It was published in 2005, and is subtitled 'The continuing evolution'. Read the second and then reread the first (it is available online). Let me add that most of what I am going to say is well captured by the subtitles.

At the time of the first book, Open source was a new invention, and despite the technical prowess demonstrated by linux, gcc and so on, not many large corporations had embraced it. Programmers wrote most (I think all) of the essays. So we have, for example, essays by Richard Stallman, Linus Torlvalds, Larry Wall and Michael Tiemann, most of them focusing on why, as per the author, open source/free software works. By the time the second installment came out, open source software had established itself as the backbone of many organizations, and it focuses more on how that came about. One persistent theme is commoditization. Open source infrastructure components like OSs, databases and web servers reduce the overall cost of a software solution for the customer, which in turn allows corporations to expand their markets. As can be guessed, most of the essays in the second book are written by business guys. We also see discussions about open source business models (e.g. Dual licensing vs traditional support models), which may sound rather dull, but is not. While the first book focused exclusively on software, in the secod book we see open source principles being applied to law (groklaw), mass collaboration (wikipedia) and even biology. The books are a treasure trove of information. But in the interests of truth let me also add that three or four essays in the second book put me to uninterruptable sleep (none in the first did).

If I had to pick a favorite, Jeremy Allison's (a lead Samba developer) essay comparing and contrasting POSIX and Win32 is unquestionably the winner for the second book. Picking a winner for the first one is not so easy, but I would say Michael Tiemann's essay about the journey of Cygnus. I learned the most from it. Also the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate in the appendix. It is a mail thread from 1992 with Andrew Tanenbaum (creator of Minix and author of OS and Networking textbooks I am sure you read while in college) and Linus and others discussing minix/linux/portability/microkernels vs monolithic kernels and so on. Consider this, it was thought HURD/BSD would soon replace Linux, and SPARC will do the same to 386. How things turn out!

And here we are at the end, and I wonder, who will be the authors of the third version.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Improve yourself, that is all you can do to improve the world.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

I recently read the biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein by Ray Monk. It is simple to describe who Wittgenstein was. He was to philosophy what Einstein was to Physics, at about the same time. You might have heard Talent does what it can, Genius what it must. We find the most powerful expression of that 'must' in Wittgenstein's life (another would be Ramanujan's). Consider this, he constantly contemplated suicide before Bertrand Russell convinced him that he possessed philosophical genius, and hence (to his own mind) he was worthy of living. His best known work is the Tractatus. In essence, it says the structure of a propostion is similar to the structure of the reality that it describes, that is what makes it describe that reality (of course this is an imprecise approximation, but I hope it is not entirely misleading). But in later life he became dissatisfied with it. Instead of the traditional, analytic way in which all the leading practitoners (including Russell) did philosophy, he proposed that philosophical problems arise because of our confused use of language, and a proper treatment of these problems would make philosophy itself unncessary.

There is much else remarkable about Wittgenstein's life. Having come from a very prosperous family, he abandoned all of it to live on what he himself could make. Having volunteered for service in WWI, he tried (and succeeded) in getting himself transferred to the front, reasoning that a brush with death would make him a better person. I think you see the intensity behind the opening quote now.

There are books, and then there are books that push everything else aside. This definitely belongs in the later category. But why some books have this effect and not others? I leave you with what the Tractatus has to say

Anything that can at all be said can be said clearly; whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Interview with Prof. Andrew Tanenbaum

Here.

[Buzz is giving a lot of trouble lately. And I hear plug is going to be pulled soon. Resorting back to blog for links, short fragments etc (reluctantly, a post is a lot more work). In short, Gudlink is back.

Enjoy!

The divine invasion

Spent quite a bit of weekend reading Philip K Dick's The divine invasion. The book is clever at a lot of places, but I failed to see the overall point.

Enjoy!

The difference -- version 2

What's the difference between man and cat?

You can man a man ($ man man) but not cat a cat ($ cat cat).

P.S. Also, as was pointed out by a colleague, you can man a cat but not cat a man.

I totally love this

Who would've thought..

Ye Dosti..

Ye Dosti.. Hum nahi todenge..
Todenge dum magar.. Tera saath na chhodenge..

One of my closest (and longtime, we go back more than 8 years) buddies turns 20. Join me in singing 'happy birthday'..

The master switch

Recently finished reading The master switch by Tim Wu. A tour de force history of information technologies, beginning with telephone in the 19th century, through radio, television and cable, leading up to the present Internet dominated era. We see how each technology began with a lot of promise and openness, and ended a closed, integrated industry. That may or may not happen to Internet, but as Internet has subsumed most other networks, the stakes for losing its openness (so call net neutrality) are much higher. Lucid, highly informative and thought provoking. I think a must read for 'IT people'.