Open Source & Linux rant/thoughts...

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Recently I set up my first Linux machine for a college course on Linux. My teacher decided that he wanted to teach a course on linux but kept putting back his personal education on the subject. Yes, it was a very bad deal. He knew nothing about the OS and just read slides each class and assigned book chapters graded on compleation (my education on the subject fell back to my own interest and curiosity). I liked the notion of people giving away their code to help others...

I've always released my games and software free of charge under the phrase "It only takes me time to make, it should only cost you time to play". I've been scared to release my source because I fear companies stealing my ideas for profit (companies like gameloft who product mostly clones). I'd have no problem with the fellow programmer improving my ideas but I want credit to some extent.

Another aspect of closed source is the pure driver hell it has caused me with setting up Linux on various machines. The same things always cripple a system and take hours to solve at all (when possible). The companies that produce drivers for wifi, graphics, and sound are always causing problems with my Linux OSs.

I guess that brings me to another thought, closed source might provide more jobs (maybe?) but open source furthers knowledge by making code available.

Thoughts? (Sorry, just botched Debian drivers earlier today so my mind is set on the battle between ease of use and freedom.)

[hellfire]

You're hitting a rather complex topic.
A thing like Linux wouldn't exist without open source.

I've been scared to release my source because I fear companies stealing my ideas for profit

They can steal your ideas anyway, even without looking at the source code.
Someone who can't turn an idea into code on his own won't benefit much from a piece of existing source code anyway.
And, thinking about commercial projects, a bunch of mindless coders who just get the stuff done is cheap to hire.

Looking at other people's source code often helped me to extend my horizon and I usually don't mind giving source code away as long as it has some sort of educational value (which means it's not totally hacked together and dirty as hell).
On the other hand I think a good explanation how something works is often much more helpful because getting it done by yourself feels much better.

I'd have no problem with the fellow programmer improving my ideas but I want credit to some extent.

That's what the GPL is for.

[Jim]

Share. It will pay you back what you put in.
Jim

[rain_storm]

Closed source, Open source.

Another aspect of closed source is the pure driver hell it has caused me with setting up Linux on various machines. The same things always cripple a system and take hours to solve at all (when possible). The companies that produce drivers for wifi, graphics, and sound are always causing problems with my Linux OSs.

Without those closed source Binary Blobs being injected into your "Open Source" Linux kernel, your Distro's hardware compatibility would suck even worse then it already does. True all those high end Graphics Cards could be forced to run in VGA / VESA mode. But with WiFi there is no standard Legacy Mode, each vender defines their own protocols.

Closed source works only for small(ish) projects. Anything up to the size of a competative Web Browser or a mature compiler is suited to be purely open source. Anything as large as an Operating System would only be held back if the developers would to go purist on the Open Source philosophy.

[benny!]

Speaking of games, I think the majority of games could release their sources. Those LOC does not really matter.
IMHO it is the team, the combination of creativity, code, graphics, sounds, ideas etc who creates a unique game.
Some lines of code does not matter. Everybody can recode/reverse engineer certain stuff - that is in most cases
not the problem. The special something that gives your final product a special note/character.

It is like opening a bar. Everyone can buy some beer and opens a bar. But if you provide a special service, have a
certain theme - this makes you special and hard to copy.

[Shockwave]

As for sharing source codes and wanting credit for it, I kind of get what you mean.  I've ranted on here in the past about it when someone has blatantly ripped off something but I was more pissed off that the person responsible had not linked back to the community it had come from, not me... Not that anything I do is that good anyway!

Personally I subscribe to the notion that you get back what you put in too.  I know only too well how many times some article on the internet or this site has come to my aid and it's really great when something you do helps someone else. 

Usually I find that people who are overly protective of thier sources are either hiding the fact that they contain ripped material in the first place or they have an inflated opinion of thier own ablilities when the reality is that no matter how good you may be, you can be assured that there are always people who are better.

As a rule I think that the most enlightened people are the ones who share the most and the ones who make up the numbers are those who jealously guard thier programs and refuse to give anything back to the places and people that they learned from.

[Moroboshisan]

Speaking of games, I think the majority of games could release their sources. Those LOC does not really matter.
IMHO it is the team, the combination of creativity, code, graphics, sounds, ideas etc who creates a unique game.
Some lines of code does not matter. Everybody can recode/reverse engineer certain stuff - that is in most cases
not the problem. The special something that gives your final product a special note/character.
It is like opening a bar. Everyone can buy some beer and opens a bar. But if you provide a special service, have a
certain theme - this makes you special and hard to copy.

I'm not in the game/software industry (never was, never will... too much competitive) but I "feel" what benny! said... oper or closed source is such a pointless point... reading others sourcecode coming from complex projects (anything larger tha a breakout clone for whatever platform you choose) can be more time consuming than writing your own code from scratch... nowadays I see that most indie developers rely more onto a bunch of available libs to achieve some practical results than reinventing the weel.
Speaking about linux vs. windows ... you must think about what kind of tools you will need (@work I'm actually using Adobe CS suite the most followed by CorelDRAW and a couple other tools), how many time you need to excahange data with proprietary software (AutoCAD, ProTOOLS, Adobe, SolidWorks, Maya, Office... just to name a few)...
When considering linux vs. "the-rest-of-the-world" by an hardware point of view you need to choose it carefully to have the most out of it... or you will face strange behaviour here and there (wifi, touchpad, gfx).
Don't get me wrong, I'm actually using Ubuntu (dual-boot)... I like the idea lying in the deep of linux philosophy... but i still choose Windows (80% of the time), MacOS (15%) and Linux (5%... aggregating more than a distro; mainly Ubuntu, Redhat or Mandriva).... Personally I will prefer a linuxbox to set-up a simple mailserver or a proxy or Apache... I surely won't use it on a daily basis. A different approach could be taken if you rely on a fully closed environment you can control from start to end.
I hope not to have missed what you meant... otherwise... have some beer and forget about my messy thoughts!

[Moroboshisan]

Share. It will pay you back what you put in.

quoting 100% ... unless you become sealed by some sort of written contract (read: NDA)

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Great discussion!

I really think that open source is great and plan to contribute myself. I was mostly worried about companies profiting from my work which would be intended to be free. I see now that there are alternate licences as mentioned earlier. It will be interesting to see how open source software  and programs grow in the future.

Many programmers probably made the same mistake as I thought earlier. Open source does not mean letting people walk on you when you use the right licensing.

I wonder if open source will always be a second player when it comes to software? Will current marketing trends always make open source a distant second?
I sure hope not, it seems that more and more people are willingly selling themselves for online services that put a stranglehold on what they may and may not do with their own data and programs. On the other hand, burdensome restrictions from "cloud" based services may cause a backlash for more open products. Especially when people realize what a stranglehold cloud computing could be.

Perhaps I'm mixxing some issues here but there is much on my mind. Upon really using Linux for months my perspectives have changed and I'm starting to see hidden dynamics at work with technology. The average user just wants something to work they don't care about their own freedoms and rights... I see open source a savior to the tech savvy tecnician who wants to be their own master.

Forgive me for throwing so much out, there is a lot on my mind...