Off the Beat: Bruce Byfield's Blog

To my surprise, I have been involved with free and open source software (FOSS) for the better part of twelve years. For ten years of that time, I have made my living from FOSS, either as an employee or as a free-lance writer. But sometimes, I have to admit, I get tired of waiting for FOSS to fulfill its potential. While it has come a long way, FOSS still isn't as universal as I thought it would be by now. Sometimes, I think the movement -- and I -- have lost sight of the goal among the day to day necessities.

I remember the first time I became convinced that FOSS could become the norm. It was when I first saw GNU Parted. I had been a user of PartitionMagic from its earliest days as an OS/2 application and been impressed that what was then an innovative tool had originated completely outside the Windows ecosphere. If FOSS could duplicate that effort in the form of GNU Parted, even without a graphical interface, then it seemed to me that there were no limits to what FOSS could accomplish. Once people saw what was available as free software, why would anyone ever buy its proprietary counterpart ever again?

You don't have to tell me that I was naive. I over-estimated the influence of logic on people's decision-making, and under-estimated the power of habit, ignorance, marketing, and FUD. In mitigation, I can only plead that FOSS was just making itself known at the time, and in the excitement anything seemed possible. At the time, Linus Torvalds could joke that the goal was world domination, and, while everyone in FOSS laughed, the joke seemed well within the realm of possibility.

Trapped in the same place

Since then, FOSS has firmly established itself as a dominant part of the IT scene, so much so that the fact that a company is using GNU/Linux has long ago ceased to rate as news the way it once did. The desktop has improved out of all recognition, not just in the dominant GNOME and KDE projects, but in Xfce, LXDE and all of the other alternatives. From these perspectives, I should be dancing in the streets, not despairing over my keyboard.

So what am I down about? Mainly the fact that, too often, FOSS seems to be faltering when it is nearer the goal of completely free computing than ever before.

For one thing, I see a movement that continues to deal with many of the same problems as as years ago: essentially meaningless divisions like KDE vs. GNOME or unnecessarily divisive ones like free software vs. open source. Other divisions, similar in nature, seem to be springing up, too, such as LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice.org. I see a community where women see the need for anti-harassment policies at conferences, and where many see the need for a community code of conduct like OpenRespect -- and where many more denounce the idea with ad hominem attacks on such efforts. Too often, it seems, community members reserve their most vicious attacks for those who should be their allies.

In something of the same way, on the computer, FOSS is still dealing with some fundamental problems that were around when I first came on stage -- things like free video drivers and a free Flash alternative. Other problems, like proprietary firmware blobs in the kernel are newer, but somehow the community seems unwilling to support those who are trying to do something about them. In the last couple of years, it has sometimes seemed as though the majority of FOSS supporters have decided that close enough is good enough, and view those who insist that the final steps need to be taken as punctilious killjoys.

Then, just to top off everything, we still haven't learned to publicize properly. FOSS now boasts some of the most innovative software available in the shape of applications like KDE or Amarok, and countless workhorse applications like Scribus and The GIMP, yet outsiders' image of FOSS is still of operating systems run from a DOS-like command line.

In short, why can't we get along? Why can't we finish the job? Why are we keep such advantages to ourselves? Why do we act so often against our own best interests? Why are we acting so stupidly when we know we're acting stupidly?

Making a gesture

My answer to all these questions is the same: I don't know. But I also don't want to settle for simply expressing my frustration.

Since I'm not about to walk away from everything that occupied so much of my working life, it's time for an affirmation.

As soon as I post this blog entry, I'm going to log on to PayPal and make a small donation to the Free Software Foundation. The Foundation can sometimes be too inflexible, and it often starts far more than it can properly continue, but it's still the closest thing the community has to an organization that has stayed focused on its basic goal. For that reason, I think I'm overdue to show support -- even though I'm a Canadian, and won't be able to write off a donation to a non-profit that's registered only in the United States.

You may not share my views about the Free Software Foundation. But, as you start to prepare for the year-end celebrations, why not find a hundred dollars or Euros or whatever to contribute to the FOSS project or organization of your choice? There's hardly one that couldn't use the money, and if enough people do so, then maybe the movement can realize its basic goals at last and we can start to think about what should come next.

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