Corperations in Free Software (was: Re: [ox-en] Brave GNU World)
- From: Timm Murray <hardburn runbox.com>
- Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2001 13:48:49 -0600
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<snip>
I mean if even IBM is somehow "on our side"...
This seems like a good time to bring up something I've been thinking about
for a while. What kind of contributions can corperations bring to Free
Software?
Just using the example of IBM, let's go back several years, when they were
known as the "Holarith Tabulating Maching Company". Orginally, they sold
tabulating machines to the US government census department. Up until then,
the census was counted by hand. However, around the end of the 19th century,
the United States experianced a massive population explosion due to
immegration from Europe. The result was that they barely finished one census
before they had to start another (I'm purpasfully leaving out exact dates
because I can't remeber them off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to go
look them up :).
Then Herman Holarith (sp?) came along and built this tabulating machine for
the census people. The result was that the census was completed in record
time, despite there being more people to count. Holarith started the company
that would become IBM to build these machines.
However, not long after, someone else saw that there was $$$ to be made in
these tabulating machines, and the took Holarith's monopoly on the market.
So this post doesn't get longer then it already is (and because I don't
remember the details :), Holarith took back the monopoly and led the way into
vacume tube-based computers.
In fact, time and time again, we see IBM gain a monopoly position, get beaten
down by a competitor, then beat the competitor later on. Microsoft is just
the most recent case in a string of similar situations. Now that I think of
it, this sounds a lot like Plato's ideal government: A benevlant tyrant
tempered by the occational assassination (just replace "benevelant tyrant"
with "corperation").
Sudenly returning to the question that started this rant, what can
corperations do for Free Software?
One is it's repuation. IBM is a highly regarded company by many suits, and
has been that way for about 100 years. Another is experiance; IBM has one of
the best pure research departments in computer science and employs the best
minds to staff it. Many of these people are working on projects based on
Free Software right now (GNU/Linux wristwatch, anyone?) Lastly, if IBM has a
history of rising above it's competitors after being beaten down, and history
is determined to repeat itself, and IBM is "on the side of Free Software",
could that mean that Free Software will rise up with it?
The answer appears to be yes, but we must remember what IBM became after
rising back up: A monopoly. A benevalent tyrant is still a tyrant, and we
only need to read many of the old hacker writings dated from the 1950s and
'60s to see that IBM was no more a freind of Free Software back then than
Microsoft is today. Even today, IBM has been known to support things like
DRM in hard drives, something very detestable to Free Software advocates.
I think the lesson from this is that you should not be afraid to think badly
of a corperation if you see it doing something you don't like. To state the
bloddy obvious, corperations are going to follow the money. Right now, IBM
belives there is money to be made by being associated with Free Software.
However, they may turn that around at any moment, and we shouldn't be afraid
to be critical if and when they do. We do not owe IBM anything; they are "on
our side" because their is money to be made, not because of some idealogical
crusade (if they were on an idealogical crusade, they probably wouldn't turn
in the first place).
So if you see a company like IBM, or Red Hat, or Mandrake, or whomever else,
and they turn around, don't be afraid to smack them down.
- --
Timm Murray
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