About two years ago, Scott McNeil, then president of SuSE, had an idea. (Scott is now open source strategist for VA Linux.) He thought that IBM, Intel, and others should subsidize a laboratory where open source developers could test and optimize their work on high-end enterprise systems. Even Linux itself would benefit from such a lab, because the kernel developers would finally have the resources they needed to address scalability issues. Scott took his idea to Intel and others, but they were only marginally interested at the time. About a year later, Scott took Intel's temperature once again. This time, the chipmaking giant was warming up to the prospect, and indicated it had something in progress. Thus was born the Open Source Development Labs, or OSDL.
That much of the story I know to be true. If I had to guess what changed Intel's mind, I'd say that Intel recognized that Linux would be a formidable contender for the Internet server space, the market owned primarily by Sun. Somewhere along the line, Intel realized that if it could help make Linux more scalable, Intel could go up against Sun for the ISP space. So Intel began to see the value of sponsoring the open source laboratory conceived by McNeil. No doubt IBM, HP, and NEC also saw the potential to sell more hardware in Sun's space, which explains why they are eager partners.
So now these giants, along with companies like Caldera, Red Hat, Linuxcare, SuSE, TurboLinux, and VA Linux, are going to create a laboratory somewhere near Portland, Oregon, and stock it with support staff and various high-end systems. People can do open source development and testing on site, or they can log in remotely and do their work.
I love the idea of this lab. It solves one of the biggest problems I've had with the Linux Standard Base, other than the fact that LSB is moving at a pace that makes glaciation seem breathtakingly fast.
In order to explain, I need to bring Scott McNeil back into the picture. Scott organized a database special interest group as an adjunct to LSB in order to encourage LSB to address the issues that database vendors encounter when they port their wares to Linux. Scott got all the big names on board, such as Computer Associates, IBM, Informix, and Oracle.
The database representatives from these companies had some complaints about Linux, many of which have either already been addressed or will be addressed with the upcoming 2.4 kernel. But there remained a few outstanding issues. Unfortunately, when the database vendors mentioned those problems at a meeting with the LSB, it told the participants that neither LSB nor the kernel developers have the resources to address the problems. In short, the answer was, "If you want to see Linux change, then submit a patch to the kernel developers." Unfortunately, the database companies knew that the kernel developers may not have been motivated to approve such patches.
Personally, I think LSB should have jumped at the chance to address such issues. LSB may not have had the resources at that moment, but many companies were ready to throw people and money at the problems if need be, and LSB could easily have been the channel for those resources. By refusing the opportunity, LSB was inhibiting, rather than encouraging, the growth of Linux.
Fortunately for Linux, OSDL solves both the resource and motivation problems. Until now, companies would have to go to Linus and friends and say, "Please make Linux work better with 32 processors." Now they are saying, "Here's a machine with 32 processors. Have fun." Giving big machines to open source developers is like buying Toys R Us for elementary school kids. Trust me. There will be no lack of motivation to use those things.
LSB ought to partner with OSDL in some way to bring an element of standardization to the rapid advancement of Linux that should result from OSDL. And although I'm not sure he'd be interested, I'd suggest Scott McNeil as a likely candidate to lead such an effort. He has the ideas, the foresight, the connections, and the ability to get things done in a timely manner.
Regardless of how that turns out, the open source community owes a huge debt of gratitude to Scott McNeil, a largely unrecognized mover and shaker.
Readers sound off about Napster
When I published my opinion of Napster advocates a few weeks ago, I expected most readers to tear me a new orifice in response. To my surprise, the letters were overwhelmingly in agreement with my views, albeit with a few caveats here and there. I also learned from those letters that Eric Raymond, Dave Winer, and a few others had expressed similar views prior to my column. Bravo to those folks for respecting existing copyrights and recommending to others that they observe the spirit of those copyrights.
I have more to say next week about copyrights, open source, closed source, and related topics. But let me devote a little space this week to addressing those of you who strongly disagreed with me. You readers who disagreed seemed to do so almost in unison; that is, you pretty much used the same handful of arguments.
Many of you objected to my comparison between sharing music and sharing software, since the licenses are different. You have a valid point, but I was specifically addressing those folks who think it is morally acceptable to violate the copyright of music for the cause of freedom of information. My challenge was this: if you are willing to violate a copyright for the cause, show your dedication by violating a software license for the cause, too, in spite of the fact that you are far more likely to suffer consequences by sharing copies of Windows 2000 than you would for sharing copies of Herb Alpert's Greatest Hits.
Some of you defended Napster on the technicality that you are sharing the music in a form other than how it arrived on your CD. You got the music as a raw file, but you shared the music as an MP3 file. You reasoned that since an MP3 is of lesser quality than the original, that kind of sharing should be all right.
To those of you who really believe this justifies your action, I issue this challenge instead: Go out and purchase a shiny new hardcover novel, scan the book, run it through an OCR program to change the images into text, and then publish that book on the Internet in HTML. If you avoid correcting the mistakes made by the OCR software, I guarantee what you publish will be of lesser quality than the original. You should point that out when your case goes to trial.
Others said that publishing your CDs on Napster is fair use. Fair use does cover things like making a backup copy of your CD, or saving your CD music to MP3 format in order to make it more convenient to listen to your music on a computer or MP3 player. But it is not fair use to publish your CDs on a peer-to-peer network for anyone to download and play.
A few people noted that they are using Napster to download music they already own on vinyl but cannot play anymore. I don't know if that's legal or not, but if this is not covered by fair use it probably should be. It's a tricky issue, but I doubt if this is what the record companies are up in arms about, so I won't waste a lot of time on it.
(A few people said that sharing copies of their copyrighted music with others is fare use, in which case I agree. If they want to share their copyrighted music, they should pay the appropriate fare, which is the price of a CD for each person with whom they want to share.)
Others say Napster is protected by the US Home Recordings Act (HRA), which ensures a person's right to make a copy of recorded music. What the HRA does not address (since it was not possible at the time) is using that copy to republish the music via Napster for anyone to download. You can claim this as a loophole if you like, but I doubt if you're going to get away with it in court. It was clearly the intent of HRA to protect people who wanted to use something like a CD-R or cassette deck. It wasn't the intent of HRA to protect the use of something like Napster.
A few people wrote in to tell me that they are sharing music on Napster in order to stick it to the companies that make obscene profits on CDs. I encourage these individuals to write back to me with their names, addresses, and salaries, so that I can publish this information in a future column. Perhaps some of my other readers will resent how much they make, and can visit their homes to relieve them of a few of their possessions in order to stick it to them as well.
A few of you said that Napster is the future whether I like it or not. You must have misunderstood my intentions, because I'd like it very much if something like Napster became the future of music distribution. I've said before that recording companies are missing a big opportunity to do Napster right -- and make a lot of money in the process. Many of my readers said they'd be happy to pay a small fee to download exactly the songs they want rather than purchase full CDs just to get one good song. Something like Napster would make it possible to give the customer what he or she wants without burdening the customer with excess garbage. Whenever you can make your customers very happy, you can find a way to make money. But you don't have the right to violate the law just because record companies are too stupid to recognize a good thing when they see it.
Finally, someone half-jokingly raised the issue of civil disobedience. This is actually the one motivation that I would consider condoning. Personally, I think there are better ways to get the laws changed. But if you truly believe that the only way to change the way information is managed is to engage in civil disobedience, and Napster is that expression of civil disobedience, then I stand by your right to do what you believe.
But don't expect to escape the legal consequences of your actions. The consequences can be worth bearing if you're right. You may someday be regarded as a hero, if so. If you're wrong, however, and you end up paying huge fines or serving jail time because you wanted free stuff, then you will probably someday be rightly regarded as an idiot.
