[Cialug] Excerpt from Andy Hertzfeld transcript

[Bryan Baker]

Here's a section that I think is pretty well on-point to what SFD is 
about:

Bob: What is it that attracts you to Open Source software?

Andy: The chance for a healthy software industry. As should be apparent 
to everyone, sometime in the '90s the software industry kind of ran 
aground due to its structural problems. The Microsoft monopoly was 
choking off innovation. Essentially Microsoft, who owned the underlying 
platform, was at odds with both their users and developers. They didn't 
want innovation, they wanted to maintain the status quo. It's like 
playing a football game when one of the combatants owns the football 
field and the football and the helmets. I was really aware of the 
problem but I didn't know of any solution. It's good for the users and 
developers to have a common system software base. Its bad though if it 
has proprietary control.
So when the Mozilla announcement happened and I read Eric Raymond's The 
Cathedral and the Bazaar I had an epiphany, which obviously is a 
received epiphany, not an original idea. But I realized that if the 
common system software base could be owned by he community of users and 
developers under a free software license, you could have a healthy 
software industry where innovation can flourish. Once I got that, I 
though it was incredibly important to help make that happen. I think 
the historical forces are going to make it happen. It's just a question 
of how long it will take. And I thought I could make a contribution 
toward making it happen sooner rather than later. Completely 
independent of anything I do I think it is progressing and eventually 
we'll get there. Free software has been incredibly good for the 
industry and will continue to be.

Bob: Some people wonder where's the business model in free software?

Andy: Well there are lots of different potential business models, but 
software is becoming a service. Software will go stale after awhile. 
What Eazel was going to do was to create a system management service. 
Eazel was dedicated toward making computers easier to use, free 
software in particular. GUI-type usability is one type of usability, 
but system management s really one of the places where the systems let 
everyone else down.
You, as a computer expert, probably have to support a dozen other 
people in your life when there system collapses on them as it will 
every year or so if you are a computer user. So how can we fix that? 
Well the network can fix it, right? The expertise can be out there in 
the network. And people would be willing to pay, I believe, some modest 
rate, say, $5 per month, $10 per month to get access to a stream of 
updates and expertise. And I don't mean a person talking, but automated 
expertise. That's one potential business model, a kind of system 
management service. Perhaps it is even sold to you along with your ISP.
But there are other business models. I think O'Reilly, the publisher of 
my book, has a tremendous free software business model that they've 
been very successful with, which is publish books about it. Not many 
companies can do that, but there are traditional kinds of consultants. 
IBM, one of the largest and, as was growing up, one of the most 
avaricious companies is now firmly on the side of free software. They 
see it as being very advantageous for their consulting business, which 
gets them the lion's share of their revenue these days.

Bob: And helps them sell hardware that the free software runs on.

Andy: You bet. It's good for the customers. So I think we lived in 
feudal times when I was growing up, where the platform owner was the 
overlord and the users and developers were the serfs. But I think we 
are going to transition to a time of equality and a level playing field 
through the free software. I'm not saying every piece of software 
should be free, but the infrastructure-level pieces. The more people 
depend on it, the more reason there is for it to be free. Also the more 
it becomes a commodity for long-established technical standards.
If you look at the basis for the Microsoft monopoly, its really old 
stuff that hasn't changed for a really long time, so that shouldn't be 
a place to get great commercial leverage.

Bob: And yet, it is and continues to be.

Andy: Yeah, yeah, although the world's moving away from it. You can 
definitely see the cracks in the dam.

Bob: Where are the cracks? Point to a crack. I agree with you, but I am 
trying to illustrate it.

Andy: I would say low-cost PC's are an obvious example now. Moore's Law 
has taken us to the point where the hardware cost on a new PC could be 
under $100. A PC could easily be sold for $200, so a $50 Windows 
license just doesn't play anymore. As hardware costs go down their 
model just doesn't work anymore. In the Third World, especially, you'll 
be seeing that. It just doesn't make sense if there is a free 
alternative.
You are also seeing it in the new range of devices. The network has now 
enabled lots of computing to move off the desktop into potentially 
thousands of different form factors like the Tivo, for example. You are 
not going to build your TiVO on top of Windows.

--
Bryan Baker
Technology Advocate
Iowa Legal Aid
Suite 230
1111 9th Street
Des Moines, Ia 50314-2527

(515) 243-2151 (x1635)

http://www.iowalegalaid.org
bbaker at iowalaw.org