fud wrangling
Matt Assay asks over at The Open Road if open source is capable of spreading FUD and if so, then is there a double standard at work. This is my quick response.
Matt, there's nothing wrong with making people afraid, uncertain, and doubtful of proprietary companies doing bad things. But since open source organizations never do bad things, it's definitely wrong when FUD is directed at them.
Just kidding :-)
But there's more than a grain of truth in what I wrote. Convincing people to be afraid of real dangers is different than causing fear, uncertainty, and doubt where no real danger exists.
For example, when telling people that condoms can protect against the very real dangers of STDs, it's a reasonable time to spread some fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I'd even argue that sometimes, and with some audiences, it's reasonable to be a bit melodramatic when describing the danger in order to make sure the message is heard.
Looked at from another direction, FUD really requires that the spreading party have some authority and/or that the receiving party lacks information or the ability to digest that information. If that power imbalance is abused, it's almost always a bad thing.
A major difference, I believe, between most open source efforts and some of the commonly cited proprietary efforts, is that open source model tends to be employed by people or organizations who want to educate and distribute information and power while many proprietary efforts seek more control of information and power. As I see it, that makes open source efforts less likely to engage in the abusive use of FUD.
Another common differentiator, and a variation on the dissemination vs. control of power (information, money, access, etc.) comment above, is that many open source efforts have put in place institutional mechanisms that make the it less likely that bad FUD can be used. These controls range from governance, which is often distributed across enough different kinds of people to prevent the coordinated tactics abusive FUD often requires, to the project transparency that makes those in glass houses less likely to throw stones.
The opposite is often the case in proprietary organizations where a top-down hierarchy can enforce or coordinate message cohesion that makes FUD attacks most effective. Similarly, the opacity of most proprietary processes or organizations makes it much easier to accuse others of the kinds of wrongdoing, ulterior motives, or mal-intent that the proprietary organization may itself be engaged in.
Finally, I believe that a lot comes down to motivation. When institutional mechanisms require that a company optimize for, say, shareholder profitability, using FUD as a weapon is probably going to be more likely than with organizations that are motivated by a public-benefit mission.
It is worth noting, just to make sure no one writes this off as the rantings of some open source fanatic, I'm not an open source fanatic. I'm a pragmatist working for a public-benefit organization delivering public goods to the world. I believe that open source is an extremely valuable tool for what we're doing -- and that we probably couldn't do it any other way, but there are certainly other people working for other kinds of organizations who can effectively and ethically operate with proprietary processes. That is, to state the obvious, not all closed companies are bad or spread FUD in abusive ways and open source efforts are not necessarily immune from spreading FUD themselves.
I think the more interesting question is "when, if ever, is it a good thing to mislead" and as I suggested at the beginning of this post, I believe there are times when melodramatic explanations, over-simplifications, and even exaggerations are a useful tool. Maybe I'll post more on that later.
reactions, thoughts, comments, etc.
Sometimes, when I read Mozilla employee's private blogs ranting about Microsoft / ... (as recently with that study Microsoft published) I feel that that employees is probably right, but the certainty with which he / she tries to force to believe that makes ulterior motives (though I don't know which) likely, too (and that, in turn, makes them a little untrustworthy). 'Please don't use harsh words like "lie" that often,' I sometimes think.
I know, these blogs are private, but in a way they speak for Mozilla. That is, because there seems no central point to gather information about:mozilla (pun intended). Even basic information about new releases used to be spread across three feeds: Mozilla Press Releases, Mozilla Dev News and Mozillazine, hopefully the new newsletter does away with this.
Posted by: Aaron Strontsman | December 6, 2007 8:01 AM
I disagree on the idea that FUD can sometimes be reasonable. Fear does not cause positive reaction. Uncertainty clouds the mind and makes it difficult to find the right action. Doubt, well, doubt can be healthy, but it is better to provide facts than doubt. Rather than perpetuating FUD about STD, it's better to allay unreasonable fears, clear out uncertainly with fact, and eliminate doubt wherever possible.
FUD is nothing more than another negative tactic by those who genuinely have soemthing to fear from those they spread FUD again. Commercial software entities use FUD against OSS because they can't leverage traditional market forces such as price wars, or monopolistic tactics to drive the competitor to bankruptcy.
Posted by: Grey Hodge | December 6, 2007 1:17 PM
Hi Asa, I know that little white lies can seem enticing, but they have a lock-in and escalation path all their own. None of us are perfect little critters, so please be careful when considering the dark side.
(btw, is there an easy way to disable CMD-Q for Quit in Firefox? I tried Google, but got too many extraneous hits. Thanks in advance if so!)
Posted by: John Dowdell | December 6, 2007 1:59 PM
So on this sort of theory we should expect the only FUD in political campaigns to come from the politicians themselves. However, simple observation reveals this is totally false. Many a classic instance of FUD is initiated by a columnist who doesn't (and may even be legally barred) from secretely prowowing with the canidate's organization and has no financial incentive to support his guy or even a disinventive (it's often easier to complain about whose in power than defend your guys). The average man on the street hardly has clean hands. The negative rummors you hear from extreme liberal nuts and reactionary republican crazies that try to slime the other guy often are things even the professional partisans in the media won't republish.
Groups like the ACLU, NRA, NOW and so forth aren't much different than the mozilla foundation in terms of openness, requiringing support from the people yet they surely spread FUD. Just like FUD in software, politicians (e.g. Hillary) during primaries often try and use their political credibility to suggest they will deliver the better product in the future and it's too risky to switch now. Wanting to help their canidate win people will naturally follow (or even produce) these tactics themselves.
In short I would argue that open source movement makes the potential for FUD worse not better. People will spread FUD because they are paid to do so or because they are fanatic believers. Open source (partially because people get attached to projects they contribute towards) software, like religion or politics, creates true believers who are particularly dangerous because they believe in the FUD they spread.
I believe strongly in open source (code sharing it is fundamentally more economically efficent) and even believe that the incentives of open source development avoid many of the pitfulls of closed source development (not fixing annoying bugs that don't cost revenue) it is just as inclined to use FUD. I mean hell there are linux fans out there right now spreading FUD about OpenSolaris. The FUD from the GNOME fans about Qt licensing was an infamous example of open source FUD.
Posted by: TruePath | December 7, 2007 2:51 AM
So on this sort of theory we should expect the only FUD in political campaigns to come from the politicians themselves. However, simple observation reveals this is totally false. Many a classic instance of FUD is initiated by a columnist who doesn't (and may even be legally barred) from secretely prowowing with the canidate's organization and has no financial incentive to support his guy or even a disinventive (it's often easier to complain about whose in power than defend your guys). The average man on the street hardly has clean hands. The negative rummors you hear from extreme liberal nuts and reactionary republican crazies that try to slime the other guy often are things even the professional partisans in the media won't republish.
Groups like the ACLU, NRA, NOW and so forth aren't much different than the mozilla foundation in terms of openness, requiringing support from the people yet they surely spread FUD. Just like FUD in software, politicians (e.g. Hillary) during primaries often try and use their political credibility to suggest they will deliver the better product in the future and it's too risky to switch now. Wanting to help their canidate win people will naturally follow (or even produce) these tactics themselves.
In short I would argue that open source movement makes the potential for FUD worse not better. People will spread FUD because they are paid to do so or because they are fanatic believers. Open source (partially because people get attached to projects they contribute towards) software, like religion or politics, creates true believers who are particularly dangerous because they believe in the FUD they spread.
I believe strongly in open source (code sharing it is fundamentally more economically efficent) and even believe that the incentives of open source development avoid many of the pitfulls of closed source development (not fixing annoying bugs that don't cost revenue) it is just as inclined to use FUD. I mean hell there are linux fans out there right now spreading FUD about OpenSolaris. The FUD from the GNOME fans about Qt licensing was an infamous example of open source FUD.
Posted by: TruePath | December 7, 2007 2:52 AM
Sorry, Vienna stalled on the page and it accidently got posted twice. Please delete this comment and one of the duplicate posts above.
Posted by: TruePath | December 7, 2007 2:54 AM