Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

I read this article a few weeks back when it was released, and while the blatantly ignored counterexamples were annoying, the real reason it bugged me was that he takes this stance of "OPEN SOURCE BORING! CLOSED SOURCE INNOVATIVE!" and then just blindly runs with it. The iPhone came out of a closed source environment not because open source concepts are incapable of producing something like it, but because open source projects rarely have the kind of funding required to develop something like that.

His argument that modern Linux is nothing but a polished antique is also annoying, because if you're allowed to reduce Linux to that, then you should be allowed to reduce any software like that. Word 2007 is just a highly polished version of EDIT.COM! Firefox is just a highly polished version of Mosaic! It's insane, and is proof that the article as a whole should probably just be ignored.

Your comments put me off reading it alltogether... :)

Firefox is no counterexample to his argument. It grew from Netscape, which was developed under his "encapsulated", closed-source model. Mozilla has made it better incrementally, in much the same way the GNU/Linux community has made their UNIX-clone better incrementally. He doesn't suggest that innovation doesn't happen in the open source world, but he does say that it hasn't produced any bold innovations such as the LISP machine. Browsers and UNIX-like systems don't reach that level, and I'm unaware of any FLOSS project that does.

Not that Apple's cellphone does, either. As I read it, his point there is that "encapsulated" models do work to produce good things, but he'd have a much stronger argument if he named some things from the past 20 years which have been really innovative.

It is obvious the author does not "get" open source. He claims that having hundreds of different Linux distros is bad. Obviously he can't understand that most Linux distros have specific meaning. For example, Ubuntu is "for the masses". Kubuntu is Ubuntu with KDE. Damn Small Linux is for slow/old computers. SELinux is for security aficionados. And so on.

FTA: "The open-source software community is simply too turbulent to focus its tests and maintain its criteria over an extended duration, and that is a prerequisite to evolving highly original things."

He obviously has never heard of Firefox. And other OSS projects like Blender and GIMP and OpenOffice.org? The article author's mindset is destructive "free is never good" which obviously is wrong. Thank you Jaron Lanier, now I have a headache because of your utter ignorance.

Of course, the iPhone argument holds no water since its foundations are open source too: BSD and KHTML.

Contrary to the other commentators here, I actually agree with Lanier to a degree.

I don't think he's saying that innovation doesn't exist in the open-source world, but rather that revolutionary innovation doesn't occur. I also think he's making more of a case for closed-source development as opposed to commercially funded development. These are important distinctions.

Though Firefox is the best browser out there and it has some revolutionary features, does it represent innovation on par with page-rank or Flash, or is it the evolutionary advance that was being demanded of the browser?

I admit, defining what a "revolution" is is not trivial, but compare the case of the page-rank algorithm or iPhone to the examples given in some of the comments here, i.e. Blender, GiMP, and OpenOffice.org. Each of these open-source projects is certainly a breakthrough for the open-source community, but can they be held to the same innovative standard of the closed-source process?

Looking at it another way, could the iPhone have come from the open-source community? If so, is the only blocker money?

I'm not 100% certain the answer to these questions is "yes".

If it is possible though it will be so because of the precedent and standard set by Mozilla. If nothing else, Mozilla is pioneering a new generation of open-source projects, one that have real organization and can compete with commercial ventures.

Despite Mozilla's example though, I think we have yet to see *real*, revolutionary innovation from an open-source organization.

By the way, I'm no open-source hater. I'm a staunch advocate amongst my peers and a very happy Ubuntu user. :) I believe open-source is capable of great things.

My point is, until we see the next great thing (not just the next great something-that-already-exists) come from the open-source community before it comes from the commercial enterprise community, I believe Lanier may have a point.

I read it in the magazine, and felt it was a good article, but it missed it's own target. He wasn't really arguing for closed source and against open source, what he was REALLY saying was that leadership is key. A small number of very driven leaders and developers tend to make more breakthroughs than large groups and design by committee. Individuals tends to be more creative than large groups. Firefox is a great example of this. Netscape was created by a few people. Communicator was design by committee. The suite carried on that legacy, but Fx was created by a small splinter group. OS8 and OS9 on Mac were limping monstrosities from the days when Apple was adrift. A strong leader came in (came back in this instance) and bam, Apple's making great strides again.

He started making an argument about open versus closed source, but when you read it about strong leadership versus weak, no, or committee leadership, it's a much more cogent article.

I read it in the magazine, and felt it was a good article, but it missed it's own target. He wasn't really arguing for closed source and against open source, what he was REALLY saying was that leadership is key. A small number of very driven leaders and developers tend to make more breakthroughs than large groups and design by committee. Individuals tends to be more creative than large groups. Firefox is a great example of this. Netscape was created by a few people. Communicator was design by committee. The suite carried on that legacy, but Fx was created by a small splinter group. OS8 and OS9 on Mac were limping monstrosities from the days when Apple was adrift. A strong leader came in (came back in this instance) and bam, Apple's making great strides again.

He started making an argument about open versus closed source, but when you read it about strong leadership versus weak, no, or committee leadership, it's a much more cogent article.

I read it in the magazine, and felt it was a good article, but it missed it's own target. He wasn't really arguing for closed source and against open source, what he was REALLY saying was that leadership is key. A small number of very driven leaders and developers tend to make more breakthroughs than large groups and design by committee. Individuals tends to be more creative than large groups. Firefox is a great example of this. Netscape was created by a few people. Communicator was design by committee. The suite carried on that legacy, but Fx was created by a small splinter group. OS8 and OS9 on Mac were limping monstrosities from the days when Apple was adrift. A strong leader came in (came back in this instance) and bam, Apple's making great strides again.

He started making an argument about open versus closed source, but when you read it about strong leadership versus weak, no, or committee leadership, it's a much more cogent article.

I read it in the magazine, and felt it was a good article, but it missed it's own target. He wasn't really arguing for closed source and against open source, what he was REALLY saying was that leadership is key. A small number of very driven leaders and developers tend to make more breakthroughs than large groups and design by committee. Individuals tends to be more creative than large groups. Firefox is a great example of this. Netscape was created by a few people. Communicator was design by committee. The suite carried on that legacy, but Fx was created by a small splinter group. OS8 and OS9 on Mac were limping monstrosities from the days when Apple was adrift. A strong leader came in (came back in this instance) and bam, Apple's making great strides again.

He started making an argument about open versus closed source, but when you read it about strong leadership versus weak, no, or committee leadership, it's a much more cogent article.

I read it in the magazine, and felt it was a good article, but it missed it's own target. He wasn't really arguing for closed source and against open source, what he was REALLY saying was that leadership is key. A small number of very driven leaders and developers tend to make more breakthroughs than large groups and design by committee. Individuals tends to be more creative than large groups. Firefox is a great example of this. Netscape was created by a few people. Communicator was design by committee. The suite carried on that legacy, but Fx was created by a small splinter group. OS8 and OS9 on Mac were limping monstrosities from the days when Apple was adrift. A strong leader came in (came back in this instance) and bam, Apple's making great strides again.

He started making an argument about open versus closed source, but when you read it about strong leadership versus weak, no, or committee leadership, it's a much more cogent article.

I was amused by the way Jaron Lanier presents himself alongside Richard Stallman.

"I’ll tell a story from my early twenties. Visualize, if you will, the most transcendentally messy, hirsute, and otherwise eccentric pair of young nerds on the planet. One was me; the other was Richard Stallman. Richard was distraught to the point of tears."

How silly. He wants to associate his name with Stallman's even while he tries to under-cut the agenda of free software and defend the status quo of arbitrarily imposed restrictions on users.

Here's another thing that shows Jaron Lanier misses the point:

"Why are so many of the more sophisticated examples of code in the online world—like the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines or like Adobe’s Flash—the results of proprietary development?"

What's so great about Google's dominance and privatized ranking algorithms? I tend to resent so much power accumulated in the hands of one private entity.

Also, I won't buy an iPhone until I can run a nice distro of GNU / Linux on it.

Jaron Lanier misses the point. He may be an innovator, but he's not the most socially inspired in his vision.