Friday, August 7, 2009

A critique of an open-source software critique, or why OSS can be awesome

It's been years since I've written a critique that anyone but myself has had the (perhaps unfortunate) opportunity to read, but this particular entry - http://blog.bitquabit.com/2009/06/30/one-which-i-say-open-source-software-sucks - just begged me for it.

For full disclosure - my bias here about open-source software (OSS) should be noted. I run Ubuntu on my work computer with all sorts of OSS and freeware installed (OpenOffice, the GIMP, Inkscape, FF, NXServer+NXClient, etc.). I also posses a custom-built (by me) machine with Windows 2000 Pro, MS Office, Visual Studio, and Adobe Photoshop. I do work almost entirely from my Ubuntu machine, heavily use the wonderfully free Google Docs for interaction with clients, and have not run into any problems that have hindered my productivity. I daresay that my Windows 2000 Pro machine is also very stable, and I can be just as productive on it when I work from home.

So in short, I am totally thrilled with the state of OSS; some, probably a lot of it sucks, so I just don't use it. Same reason I never bought Neverwinter Nights 2.... But I have my biases, as does everyone, and now you know them!


OK - back to the article. I'll start with the positive - there are definitely one or two sound tidbits. I certainly agree that Apple makes a product that is becoming far more desirable than the Microsoft + Dell/HP/whoever model, so long as there's enough money in the bank to afford one.

Also, I do agree with the basic premise that commodities developed without any motivation for making it good, will - in most cases - suffer from being not-good.

However, overall, the article's argument is not sound - it is not the case that open-source software programmers suffer from an inherent lack of motivation, necessarily resulting in a sucky product. Less rooted in logical critique, I also found it annoying that before presenting the primary argument, the article defames open-source software with a smattering of ad hominem attacks (more on this later). I mean, great political technique but come on, it's not like we should all try to argue the same way Fox News reports.

SO ... on the surface, a lot of the points do pass validity checks:

a. Good software is "well thought-out, and easy-to-use, and easy-to-install, and highly efficient, and bug free."
b. Open source software is "painful to use" and "incontrovertibly, a total usability clusterfuck."
c. Therefore, open source software fails to be easy-to-use, so it is not good.

OK, so now we need to know why open source software fails to be usable. Gladly, there is some language to back this up.

a. Programmers, left to their own devices, are lazy, both in terms of creating efficient software efficiently, and not wanting to do extra work that does not make their software more efficient.
b. Programmers, primarily care about creating an "underlying, beautiful implementation," and on their own are unmotivated - as it follows from a. - to make intuitive, usable UIs.
c. Companies need to make usable, bug-free software so people will buy and use it, and so less money will need to be put into maintenance.
d. A company employs these lazy programmers and uses a salary (and probably pushy managers) as motivation to create usable, bug-free software.

e. (a. and b. restated more simply) Without motivation, the programmer will develop unusable software.
f. Since a programmer who makes open-source software lacks corporate-provided motivation, and since we've already established b., he will therefore create unusable software.
g. From f. we can conclude that Open-source software is developed without proper motivation and is consequently unusable. And the suck.

I just have to question the premises a., b. and consequently f. It's hard to argue over a. as aside from just disagreeing (which I do) and being a bit offended (I'm not that lazy), neither of us has statistical proof, so I'll just leave it be. There are possibly certain truths to b., but it might moreso be that a good amount of programmers are unable to create intuitive UIs because it's hard. I don't know for sure - an HCI person might have answers.

But I can certainly attack f. by proposing alternative motivations. There are certainly other reasons a programmer would be motivated to create a great, usable UI - hubris, for example? How many cocky programmers do you know? Or perhaps they simply want to take pride in their work, and expect a windfall from the product that is not immediately monetary in nature. Maybe they'll pull a Google, release massive amounts of open-source and freely available software, and slowly gain possession of the world's information and trust until they assimilate us all into Google-Borgs. Motivation enough for ya?

So I do agree in principle to e., that an unmotivated developer would be likely to cut corners, and the end product would suffer. But an unmotivated producer of any commodity will probably develop a pretty sucky product, and it is not the case that all open-source software suffers from an implicit lack of motivation. So throwing the baby out with the bathwater because it's not immediately monetizable is just short-sighted.


OK - now for some more fun, let's pick through all of the slander in the opening argument and try to find some meat:

a. The means of business entities with successful ends infers the "goodness" of the mean.
b. Open source software is not used by successful business entities - that "I can point to" - as a means to their end.
c. Therefore, open source software lacks "goodness".

Phew - who sees validity or non-questionable premises in that?

It does not follow that if a business is successful and uses product X, that a business that uses product Y will not be successful. If there was some data presented that showed the statistical significance of unsuccessful companies running on open-source software vs. successful companies running closed-source software, perhaps this would be acceptable. Instead, the validity of the argument simply runs out of steam after "I don't know of any successful companies that use open-source software."


OK so this wasn't a ridiculously rigorous academic analysis but I think I hit a few good points, and if I missed something by all means, critique me! And if you made it all the way down here, thanks for getting through it, and be sure to let me know what you think.

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There are lots of the points for Open source software and it is painful to use, beautiful implementation, and on their own is unmotivated website.

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