Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 22:43:46 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: jkh@zippy.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, brett@lariat.org, dwilde1@thuntek.net, wes@softweyr.com, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: O'Reilly article: Whence the Source: Untangling the Open Source/Free Software Debate Message-ID: <199903122243.PAA07170@usr08.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <24351.921273950@zippy.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Mar 12, 99 01:25:50 pm
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> > Jordan, FreeBSD needs Brett, and as many people like Brett as possible.
>
> As Brett and I have already discussed in person, there seems to be
> room to draw very different conclusions from Guy's book than the one
> you guys are drawing.
>
> Where Mr. Kawasaki is referring to being "fanatical", I don't think
> he's talking about Rottweiler fanaticism where any exposed flesh gets
> a pair of fangs sunk into it, I think he's talking about hyping the
> product in a highly enthusiastic way.
I fully agree with this statement. The problem I see here is the
interpretation being assigned to over-zealous evangelism by the
people who aren't the evangelists.
What you seem to be saying when you frame Brett as a fanatic, and my
interpretation of Kawasaki's words as fitting into that same frame,
is that we're talking about "attacking the competition".
Unfortunately, my copy of "How To Drive Your Competition Crazy" is
at home, or I could quote you chapter and verse about the error of
fighting.
As it is, if you understand anything about Aikido, a martial art in
which the point is to stay in place and cause your opponent to move
through your position rather than successfully attacking you, then
you understand Kawasaki's opinion (and my opinion, since I've bought
into his opinion).
When you frame the issue adversarially, you create your adversary.
> This is further born out by the kinds of press events I remember him
> being involved with back in the 80's. He didn't have people marching
> up and down in front of Microsoft going "Windows sucks! Bill is the
> anti-christ! Eat the rich! Long live Fidel Castro!" - that might
> have attracted a lot of press, but I don't think it was as effective
> as the people he had marching up and down extolling the VIRTUES of the
> Macintosh platform and how much easier it was to use. That's the
> point here - we're not Howard Stern and we're not going to make our
> mark by attack-advertising or telling people they're misguided, wrong
> and stupid for using the GPL.
Brett is adversarial to GPL supporters, yes. But he is not adversarial
about the use of Linux or Microsoft products, at least from the writing
I have seen.
Brett's opinions on the GPL should really be irrelevent to you, as a
FreeBSD advocate, no matter how he voices them. If it really bothers
you, then treat it as if Brett has Tourette's syndrome when it comes
to matters GPL. The important point (to you) is (or should be) his
utility as a FreeBSD evangelist, not his (in)effectiveness as a GPL
detractor.
> I guess I have to repeat this like a broken record since people just
> don't get it, it seems, but you win converts by explaining why you
> chose the BSD license and BSD technology, not by calling the other
> side a bunch of morons for making the choices they did. Perhaps Brett
> has never actually used the world "moron" in his various diatribes,
> but judging by the "audience reaction" that's certainly what people
> read between the lines and why I choose to take a much different
> tack. It's not anywhere near as easy to shoot down someone's arguments
> or dismiss him as a crank if he's just telling you what's good about
> his product vs what's bad about yours.
By "vs", I assume you mean "instead of". I agree. Ignoring the
competition is the best method of disenabling, rather than
disenfranchising, their customers.
The problem Brett is dealing with when he points out the consequential
weaknesses of the GPL is that the GPL has a lot of uneducated zealots
that you have to deal with.
My personal deflection is to point them to a better GPL than the GPL,
the Cygnus eCOS license (BTW, the Ricoh Open Source license is a
near verbatim copy of that license). I also point them to a document
that paints Stallman in a very bad light: the GNU manifesto. If God
can do no wrong, then you have to kill your son when God tells you
to do so as an act of faith -- take the bitter with the sweet. But
if it's too bitter, your gag reflex triggers (didn't that Theodore
Kazinsky guy have a manifesto, too?).
If you make it about "us vs. you" instead of "you vs. them-not-us",
then yes, it's going to backfire into you drawing lines that put
people who are interested in what you have to sell on the other
side of the line with people who are selling something similar
that isn't yours.
Unfortunately, most of the GPL advocacy that shows up on the -chat
and -advocacy lists are the GPL equivalent of "The Citizens For True
Freedom", who know GPL slander when they see it, and immediately turn
it adversarial. The subscribe to these groups for precisely this
occasion to sieze upon.
The problem is that anything said against the GPL is taken as an
"our license is better" argument, even if that's not the context in
which the issue was raised. This is intentional social engineering
by RMS, and in fact has been as ingrained into the GPL fanatics as
a kata ingrains defenses or counter attacks into follow-throughs of
reflex actions. Mention the GPL, and it's "Shields up, Mr. Sulu!"
for most of that crowd.
If Brett has a folley in this regard, it's buying into the diversion
of the radical Stallmanites into the "You are saying yours is better!"
by saying "Well, it is!", instead of "You've misunderstood me.".
The best marketing is the internalized hidden assumption. "President
Clinton meets with space aliens!"; the knee-jerk reaction? Deny the
meeting, not the existance of space aliens.
John Dyson is moving into the area of good non-GPL advocacy; I wish
he'd pull the rug out from under them while pointing at the flying
saucers a little more often, though.
Telling Brett "No, you're wrong" without telling him *how*, is just
as bad as Brett telling a GPL advocate "No, you're wrong" without
telling them *how*, or social engineering the barriers to rational
discussion away ("Sulu! What about those shields!?!".
In any case, I believe that FreeBSD needs over-zealous people promoting
it, and the more the better.
FreeBSD needs someone insane enough to start a project to get the
FreeBSD API ported to Linux and Solaris and UnixWare and Windows,
to take that, and leverage the fact to get companies to commit to
the single ABI (maybe even change the FreeBSD ABI to match one of
the commercial UNIX implementations, instead); and that's just one
example where only a fanatic will do.
It is not enough for FreeBSD to be an also-ran, and anyone who is
willing to fanatically carry that banner is a soldier in your army.
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
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