英国卫报刊载——微软一众的抵抗不堪一击

[luojie-dune]

原文：
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... pen-source


Looking beyond the open source battle

Software pioneer Mitch Kapor thinks Microsoft's war against open source is over – and that it must be seen in its historical context

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* Bobbie Johnson
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o Bobbie Johnson
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009 14.00 BST
o Article history

Mitch Kapor

Mitch Kapor. Photograph: Kim Kulish/Corbis

For years, the battle between the open source movement and Microsoft bordered on religious warfare. The two sides fired increasingly aggressive shots at one another – from the software goliath's boss, Steve Ballmer, calling open source "a cancer", to the man behind Linux, Linus Torvalds, suggesting that he might "destroy Microsoft" without even trying.

It was a conflict that looked like it could continue for generations. But now, according to one leading voice, the arguments are settled – and the opposition posed by Bill Gates, Ballmer and their followers is untenable.

"If I look at it with some perspective, I think that they are fighting a rearguard action," says the investor, philanthropist and campaigner Mitch Kapor. "The battle is over."

He continues: "At the detailed level, there are a million issues to work out – but will open source kill software? Nobody's saying that."

That may come as news to some who have resisted the open source movement – as recently as last year, Gates claimed that the fundamentals of the open source philosophy meant that "nobody can ever improve the software" – but Kapor has more experience than most of those who have stepped into the fight.

Resistance is futile
Kapor made his name by co-founding the software company Lotus in the 1980s, which helped bring the IBM PC into businesses thanks to its 1-2-3 spreadsheet program. He then went on to help found the digital activist group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, before moving on to become chairman of the Mozilla Foundation when it was founded in 2003.

At the time, Kapor helped to convince AOL that it should jettison the Netscape browser it had bought and turn Mozilla into a separate non-profit operation. Indeed, he invested $300,000 of his own money in the push to create a viable, open alternative to Microsoft's massively dominant (and heavily criticised) Internet Explorer browser.

Since it launched in 2004, Firefox has chipped away at Internet Explorer's market share and established itself as the world's second most popular browser. But while attacks on open source still make Kapor's blood boil, he suggests that the bigger picture indicates that resistance is futile.

"What's remarkable is that nobody remarks on it, because a few years ago people were virtually pulling out their guns to shoot at each other – and now it's a settled matter, as I read it."

While Firefox is widely regarded as a huge success, Kapor warns that it is not actually the best example of the victory of open source. Instead, he suggests, the movement's main achievement actually lies out of sight – amid the systems that underpin the web itself.

"I tell people that the history of Mozilla and Firefox is so one of a kind that it should not be used – ever – as an example of what's possible," he says. "The accomplishment of open source is that it is the back end of the web, the invisible part, the part that you don't see as a user."

"All of the servers, pretty much, they run Linux as the operating system; they run Apache as the basic web server on top of which everything else is built. The main languages out of which web applications are built – whether it's Perl or Python or PHP or any of the other languages – those are all open source languages. So the infrastructure of the web is open source ... the web as we know it is completely dependent on open source."

The reliance goes both ways, he suggests, meaning that the web and the open source community are interdependent. While developers and dotcom companies have turned in large part towards open source technologies to build the future of communication, it is the web itself that has made such an approach possible.

The sort of large-scale, highly distributed teams that are the hallmark of such development – teams of coders spread out around disparate parts of the world – rely on websites to share code, discuss ideas and meet each other. What started as a marriage of convenience has now turned into a symbiotic relationship.

"Without the internet and the web, no open source – without open source, no internet or web," he says. "So they co-create each other."

The reasons for this shift from a fringe ideology that could spark warfare among programmers to an accepted, everyday part of hi-tech life are complex. But Kapor puts at least part of it down to an important evolution in the underlying philosophies that emerged, appropriately enough, with Mozilla back in 1998.

After Firefox's predecessor, Netscape Navigator, was crushed by Microsoft, its owners decided to release the source code, which became the Mozilla browser. Kapor gives credit to those who originated and then developed the concepts that led to such acts, including free software campaigner Richard Stallman and Torvalds.

Their influence and ideas helped build and then reshape the idea of free and open software development, taking it from its doctrinaire beginnings through to something that was more palatable for commercial companies.

"If the rules of the game that were established by Stallman about free software – which were commercially unfriendly – had not evolved, we wouldn't have Firefox and we wouldn't have the web," Kapor says. "But the culture evolved to be less restrictive and more permissive – the idea of open source licences that permit but don't require new contributions, additions to be made available to everybody."

Declining empires
So if the battle is yesterday's news, then what next? Today, the world's most influential technology company, Google, engages with the open source community and has taken an open approach with both its Android mobile phone software and its forthcoming Linux-based operating system, Chrome. Another rising power, Facebook, meanwhile, is beginning to unwrap its platforms with one eye towards the open source community.

While there is no guarantee that they will stick to those ideals in the long term, Kapor is now optimistic that the movement will have more staying power than whichever company happens to be the flavour of the month.

"I've been around long enough to know that empires come and empires go, and I can't tell how long the Google empire is going to last – but I'm pretty convinced that the answer is less than forever.

"Microsoft still has a big empire, but when Steve Ballmer thinks a new thought, the world doesn't tremble the way it used to when Bill Gates had a new thought," he says. "That day is over, and it will be over for Google. Facebook may be the next, or Twitter or somebody you haven't heard of, but empires come and empires go."


Bobbie Johnson
guardian.co.uk 2009年10月21日

译文：
http://guardian.yeeyan.com/guardian/64696

ayths613 @ yeeyan 翻译 ————此译文有歧义

“开源”之战的意义何在

开源先驱米切尔·卡普尔（Mitch Kapor）认为，微软同开源软件的战争已经结束了，因为微软及其追随者的抵抗不堪一击。

多年来，开源运动和微软之间的斗争几乎成了一场宗教战争。双方的火力越来越猛－－从微软的老板史蒂夫·鲍尔默（Steve Ballmer）称开源运动是“一种癌症”，到Linux创始人李纳斯·托沃兹（Linus Torvalds）暗示，他可以不费吹灰之力地“摧毁微软”。

这场冲突看起来象是要延续几代。但是现在，根据一位领袖人物的说法，争论已经平息——而且比尔盖茨、鲍尔默和他们的追随者们的抵抗不堪一击。

“从某方面来看，我认为他们是在做徒劳无益的抵抗，”投资者兼慈善家和活动家米奇·卡普尔（Mitch Kapor）说，“战斗已经结束。”

他继续说道：“当然在细节上还有很多很多问题需要解决——但开源运动会毁掉软件吗？没有人会这样认为。”

对曾抵制开源运动的人来说这可能是新闻——最近的就在去年，盖茨声称开源的哲学基础意味着“没有人可以完善软件” ——但卡普尔比参与这场战争的大多数人更有资历。

抵抗是徒劳的

在上世纪八十年代，卡普尔与人合作成立软件公司莲花（Lotus）公司，并因此而出名。由于该公司开发的1-2-3电子表格程序，IBM的个人电脑得以进入商业领域。他接着帮助成立数字（技术）激进组织——电子前线基金会（the Electronic Frontier Foundation），然后当Mozilla基金会于2003年成立时，他成为了这个基金会的主席。

当时，卡普尔帮助说服美国在线抛弃它已购买的Netscape浏览器，并将Mozilla基金会转变为独立的非盈利机构。事实上，他自掏腰包投入30万美元推进建立一个可行的、开放的并可替代微软那严重垄断（也受到严厉批评）的浏览器。

自从2004年推出后，Firefox浏览器已经分享了IE浏览器一定的市场份额，并成为了世界第二大流行浏览器。但是，尽管对开源运动的攻击仍然使卡普尔热血沸腾，但他认为整体来说这种抵抗是徒劳的。

“异乎寻常的是，没有人对此有所评论，因为几年前的人们实际上已拔枪相见——在我看来，现在已经尘埃落定。”

虽然Firefox浏览器被认为取得了巨大的成功，卡普尔警告说，实际上它不是证明开放源运动获胜的最好例子。相反，他认为，该运动的主要成就实际上在于人们看不到的地方——在那些支撑起网络本身的系统中。

“我告诉人们Mozilla和Firefox的历史是这样的，它永远不应该作为一个‘可能的’例子，”他说，“开源码的成就在于它是网络后端，是无形部分，作为用户你看不到的部分。”

“很大一部分的服务器以Linux作为操作系统；它们运行Apache作为网络的基本服务器，在其上人们可以自由配置。构建这些网络应用程序的语言——无论是Perl语言、Python语言、PHP语言，还是其他语言——都是开源语言。因此，网络的基础是开源的···我们所知道的网络是完全依赖于开源的。”

这种依赖是双向的，他认为，这意味着网络和开源社区是相互依存的。虽然很大一部分开发人员和网络公司在转向开源技术以建立未来的通信，但是正是网络本身使这各途径成为可能。

那种大规模的、高度分散的团队是这一发展的标志——编码员队伍分布在世界各地——他们利用网站分享代码，讨论构思和相互接触。从开始的一种利害关系已发展成现在的一种共生的关系。

“如果没有互联网和网络，就没有开源运动——没有开源运动，就没有互联网或网络，”他说，“因此，他们共同创造了对方。”

从一个引发程序员间争论的边缘理念转变到一个被普遍接受、高科技生活中不可或缺一部分，当中的原因很复杂。不过，卡普尔认为至少部分原因归于在1998年与 Mozilla 浏览器同时出现的一种基础性哲学思想的演变。

在Firefox浏览器的前身Netscape Navigator被微软击跨后，他的所有者决定公开其源代码，从而发展成为Mozilla浏览器。卡普尔认为这归功于那些人，他们创立并发展了“开源概念”，从而引发了开源运动。这些人包括自由软件运动者理查·斯托曼（Richard Stallman）和托沃滋（Torvalds）。

他们的影响力和想法帮助创立并重塑了自由和开放的软件开发理念，使它摆脱开始的教条主义束缚，变得更容易被商业性公司接受。

“斯托曼建立的自由软件的游戏规则对商业不太友好——如果没有发展，我们不会有Firefox浏览器，我们不会有网络。”卡普尔说，“但是这种文化变得更少限制、更宽容——开源软件许可的理念意味允许但并不要求做出新的贡献，也不要求人人都可以得到新成分。”

[hcym]

卫报

和宋祖德一类的，纽时的推荐一下还差不多

[istartagain]

我们中国,特殊

[陽光院景仁]

我们中国,特殊

最後也只能舉白旗，不過會多撐兩天～

[陽光院景仁]

Internet的根本就是開源，沒有開源就沒有Internet，這是問題的關鍵。

[nuanhuai]

我们中国,特殊

最後也只能舉白旗，不過會多撐兩天～

[xusite]

现在大互联网越来越不开发了。这是事实，开源也还有很长的路要走哦！

[kakashan]

最近的招聘都很有意思，笔试时考的很多题目都跟Linux有关，要会很多命令，比如中科蓝鲸。

[450235156]

还有很长的一段路要走！

[xjpvictor]

微软都是纸老虎。。

[bjnews]

在Firefox浏览器的前身Netscape Navigator被微软击跨后，他的所有者决定公开其源代码，从而发展成为Mozilla浏览器。卡普尔认为这归功于那些人，他们创立并发展了“开源概念”，从而引发了开源运动。这些人包括自由软件运动者理查·斯托曼（Richard Stallman）和托沃滋（Torvalds）。

看来要归功于MS，如果不是被击跨，他们会公开源码吗？

[fftt007]

Microsoft这个玩意呢，不是说说就能倒的，卫报那是站着说话不腰疼。。。

Lin还有漫长的路要走,与其扯淡，不如埋下头来，一步一个脚印，走上去，超过去，干死丫的去

[Capt.]

有竞争 才有进化 虽然领跑的不一定总第一个冲过终点 但为提高整体成绩作出了很大的贡献

[mymathersname]

呵呵，看完后第一感觉是这场战争不要结束，没有竞争哪里来的进步？！其实微软的意义就在于不断激励开源事业向着更好更快地地方发展，从而真正让用户接受……

[luojie-dune]

怎么没个人看懂呢。。。这里说的不是微软的削弱，而是微软提倡的理念的落败。。。