Information is Beautiful

The Mix of Open and Closed

This chart is from Mr. Eisenmann’s paper, where he is particular in what he considers “Open”:

A platform is “open” to the extent that: 1) no restrictions are placed on participation in its development, commercialization or use; or 2) any restrictions—for example, requirements to conform with technical standards or pay licensing fees—are reasonable and non-discriminatory, that is, they are applied uniformly to all potential platform participants.

I don’t think this definition of “open” holds up well under close examination. I don’t think any platform technically meets the first clause, and I think every platform could technically meet the second.

He does expand on this a bit in the text where he clarifies that the iPhone “is only open for some prospective demand-side users under onerous terms” – so the chart doesn’t capture such distinctions. 

(I contend applying such distinctions would lead to all boxes being “closed” for all non-Linux platforms and obscure the points the paper is trying to make.) 

Even given these caveats, I recommend reading the paper. The main value of the paper to me was seeing a more academic analysis of “open vs. closed”  that employed real-world examples.

Interoperability

Take for example, the analysis of interoperability:

As markets mature, the sponsors of rival platforms who previously have eschewed compatibility may find it attractive to make technical modifications that allow interoperability (Katz & Shapiro, 1985; Farrell & Saloner, 1992).

[...]

Interoperability is achieved through the use of converters, which are also known as adapters or gateways (David & Bunn, 1988).

After which, several properties of converters are listed:

• They are costly, and the cost is “typically borne by the weaker platform”
• They can be one or two way
• They can be developed unilaterally or bilaterally
• Cross-platform transactions might be of lesser quality (perhaps intentionally to “maintain differentiation”)

I would contend that I think all these properties can be  – and often are – intentionally skewed  in order to “maintain differentiation”.

Looking at Linux

The paper makes a very interesting point when talking about the open-ness of Linux:

For Linux and other platforms, openness at the sponsor level entails greater openness at the user level, as it implies not only nondiscrimination in platform access, but also in the process of defining platform standards.

Allow me to expand on this point:

• Open-ness at any “higher” level entails greater open-ness at any “lower” level, and
• Closed-ness at any “higher” level entails greater closed-ness at any “lower” level

The retention of acceptable accessibility is why more often than not, companies based on closed and proprietary practices are unable or unwilling to produce truly open products, protocols or platforms.

I’m not saying it is impossible, I’m just saying that if the core principle of a organization is that closed and proprietary is optimal, it will be difficult to permit open and free practices.

Conversely, if the core principle of an organization is that free and open is optimal, it will be difficult to permit closed and proprietary practices.

The Devil is in the Details Comments

One reason I tend to mention the comments when I talk about a blog posting is because I feel they reflect a larger and more popular interpretation and reaction to the point or position of the author.

The author has attempted to refine and strengthen his point, whereas comments contain a more immediate reaction springing from a current understanding of the problem domain.

For example, take a comment made on Mr. Dixons blog:

But the fact that we’re struggling with the definition of “open” here proves what a useless term it is. The fact that we’re using the term “open” to describe about four or five different points of friction in the process of getting a technology idea to market cripples our ability to move the discussion forward. We need terms that are more specific, and we should make a differentiation between 1) full-stack openness (where every bit used to create a solution is open-sourced from end to end), 2) the openness that is fostered by the presence of a platform, and 3) an open marketplace

I appreciate this comment’s point, but the problem is not so much with “open” being useless as it is the enthusisastic marketing misapplication of the term by companies desperate to appear “Open”, while only relaxing their closed and proprietary grip to the slightest degree possible to make the claim.

To a large degree, the fault lies with Open Source proponents, who – instead of calling out bogus claims – have encouraged them according to the thinking that “a little open is better than no open”. Of course, encouraged that their ludicrous claims to be open have been blessed, companies have more expanded the claim than expanded the open.

Discussions and Conclusion

Given our development processes we found the average productivity of a single Django developer to be equivalent to the output generated by two C# ASP.NET developers. Given equal-sized teams, Django allowed our developers to be twice as productive as our ASP.NET team.

I suspect these results may actually reflect a lower bound of the productivity differences. It should be noted that about half of the Team Python developers, while fluent in Python, had not used Django before. They quickly learned Django, but it is possible this fluency disparity may have caused an unintended bias in results handicapping overall Django velocity.

After the whole Apple 3.3.1 “Can’t develop with non-approved toolchains” debacle a lot of people set up a Google Docs spreadsheet to list the tons of amazing apps that would be impacted by this rule change.

There were calls for help all over twitter and the web in general. You’ll note that most of the calls are overly broad – for example, calling for an app to be listed even if it was not created with XCode, even though that is not a requirement of 3.3.1.

The Denominator

How many apps are there in the Apple app store? Wikipedia says 185,000+ this April. Let’s be conservative and roll that back to the last milestone (March’s numbers):

150,000

The Numerator

And, with all that solicitation and the not-strict guidelines, how many apps made it on the spreadsheet?

137

I’m sure they missed some, so let’s double treble quadruple quintuple add a zero and round up:

1500

The Percentage

Let’s see that’s uh … 1500/150,000. Math is hard.

1%

So under extremely generous estimates we can say 99% of the apps in the App Store will not be affected by the change.

If only I could get 1¢ for every time I’ve heard 1% thrown around in an argument against Linux.

Postumscriptum

The numbers are even less impressive if you wished to focus on a single toolchain of interest, like say – oh I don’t know – MonoTouch, which can boast almost a whole dozen entries on the spreadsheet.

Furthermore, the announcement asserts that Mozilla Firefox will support VP8 for HTML5 video (along with Google Chrome, naturally).

I mentioned in passing before the FSF request to Google to take this action, and if this news turns out to be true I think it will be a very positive development indeed.

There are patent concerns, but Google has a very good record on patents, so I am optimistic there.

Apple?

A big question is will Apple support VP8? They seem to have a lot invested in H.264, and a fierce independent streak these days, so I’m not sure if they would come on board. Sure would be nice, although I suspect they may simply not see an immediate benefit (having the proper licensing already in place for H.264) and defer.

Microsoft?

Seriously, who cares? Whatever Microsoft does will be 5 years too late anyway after trying (and failing) to introduce their own in-house similar (but incompatible) “standard”.

Although it may disappoint Miguel de Icaza,  Microsoft no longer calling the shots on the web is one of the best things that could happen to humanity outside of actual cold fusion on the desktop. And I ain’t talking about another crappy Adobe product.

So I was quite happy to receive an email that contained the following:

[W]hen I read your new note, it almost seemed like you were “celebrating” what happened. Having many people’s passionate work invalidated due to some silly rule is sad – regardless of who it affects – at least for me.

I’m only concerned that you might start writing your work in the “Us vs them” format which is available aplenty elsewhere. All that said, this entire incident reinforces whatever I’ve read about Free Software and hopefully might convince other developers to jump in as well.

This is valid criticism. I take pains to avoid simplistic “us vs. them” ranting, and I could have came off as “celebrating” Apple’s decision because I was being a bit tounge-in-cheek there.

Let me expand my thoughts just a bit and see if I can’t un-tarnish my otherwise sterling track record!

Tough Love

There are two lessons of value that I see in Apple’s move (and the response to it):

1. It exemplifies the faults of a proprietary ecosystem, which us “freetard zealots” continuously point out.
2. It illustrates an amazing amount of hypocrisy in ”Open Source pragmatists”.

The first is so obvious (and acknowledged in the writer’s commentary), that I see no need to belabor the point here.

The second is more of interest  (as I do so love calling out hypocrisy in others, having none in myself), so let’s dive in!

Illustrating Hypocrisy

Restricting Freedom

Why is it acceptable for Apple to strictly limit user freedom and not developer freedom? One needs a very finely honed argument indeed to split that hair!

If you accept that Apple is perfectly within their rights to restrict users – indeed, that it may make good business sense for them to do so – then you must accept that also applies to restricting developers.

Playing the Minority Card

I consistently hear arguments about how “only a tiny minority” of users care about things like Free Software. As if that excuses the obligation to do the right thing.

Now though,the Minority Card is in a different hand. Only a tiny minority of iPhone developers use a non-Apple toolchain. By the same logic, Apple should not have to concern themselves with supporting this small and noisy minority.

Pragmatism over Idealism

Unless you are prepared to make the argument that Apple is intentionally trying to hurt itself, then you must acknowledge Apple thinks it has very good business reasons to restrict “metaplatforms”. Apple is just being pragmatic.

That’s the problem with “being pragmatic” – your “pragmatism” and someone else’s “pragmatism” might not line-up.

Writing code to someone else’s standards

This is the one that is most interesting to me; it is perhaps a bit more subtle than the other points. Consider this often quoted bit from former Microsoft Evangelist James Plamondon:

Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat. Total victory, for DRG, is the universal adoption of our standards by developers, as this is an important step towards total victory for Microsoft itself: “A computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software.”

Team Apologista might not understand this, but Apple does.

If Flash/.NET/Whatever dominates Apple development, then Apple is no longer in charge of their own platform. Adobe is. Or Microsoft. Or Whoever.

Who do you pull for?

It’s a bit like being asked who one is pulling for when two teams you despise are playing. The answer: injuries.

I don’t care that developers for a restricted platform are themselves in turn restricted - seems like sauce for the gander to me – but I do appreciate the inconsistencies the situation brings up, especially among that segment that likes to pay lip service to Open Source.

I see the entire situation as “How dare you do to us developers what we are together doing to the users!” Hey, Mr. Developer, you want Freedom? How about developing for a platform that offers Freedom?

Much government work is done by civil servants emailing Word documents back and forth. Yet Berners-Lee refuses, on principle, to use Word, which is a proprietary rather than an open source format. On one occasion, one official recalled, Berners-Lee received an urgent document in Word from one of the most senior civil servants and refused to look at it until a junior official had rushed to translate it into an acceptable format.

Golly-wolly these zealots sure do make me mad.

Why couldn’t Sir Tim just be pragmatic and use the perfectly functional Microsoft Closed and Proprietary offering?

Stop wasting time trying to change things! If it’s “good enough” for most people, then that means it’s good enough!

(Via @timjph by way of Opendotdotdot)

This is ultimately another “let’s point out a software problem that applies to both Open and Closed Source and pretend like it only applies to Open Source” bit of misdirection.

I guess Citrix doesn’t know that All Source is “Open Source” to Someone.