For all sorts of reasons beyond the scope of this article, the open-source community has long been divided into several camps, which often seem to be defined by people’s feelings are about the Free Software Foundation and it’s leader Richard M. Stallman but are frequently in substantive disagreement about what it means for software to be open source software.

It’s an all too common situation to find companies publishing software under an OSI-approved open source license and then being attacked by open source developers and community leaders who make the claim that their software is not truly an open source project. The problem goes deeper than just technicalities, and touches on what it really means to be open, and the reason I’m writing this is to suggest that we be more intentional and discriminating about our terminology.

My proposal is simple: In addition to the current definition of “Open Source Software,” which is well established by both the FSF and the OSI, we should define “Community-Driven Software” which is software which goes beyond open source licensing requirements to have what some would call an “open source development model.”

The FSF and OSI each have web pages where they explain at great length what free software and open source software are. They both agree on what the FSF calls (in homage to President Roosevelt):

The Four Freedoms (of software):

1. The freedom to run the program for any purpose. This means the license can’t discriminate against certain uses, certain people or groups, or against use by people performing certain types of work.
2. The freedom to study how the software works, and change it to make it do what you wish. This means the source code must be available, and the user must be allowed to modify it.
3. The freedom to redistribute copies. This means that the software can’t have restrictions about giving copies away (modified or unmodified), and can’t charge royalties or license fees.
4. The freedom to distribute modified versions. Essentially, this is the freedom to fork the software.

Although their respective pages go on about these at great length, and discuss other terms and conditions, these four freedoms are the simplest definition of what open source software is.

Moving the Finish Line

As more and more corporations have begun to accept the concept of open source software licenses, the community of open source developers, hobbyist, and users have begun to expect more than simple open license terms, and (as I said before), have even begun to claim that an open source license is not enough for a program to be considered open source.

Essentially, there has been a growing group which is redefining open source software to mean software which is developed through a “community process” whereby anyone can potentially submit patches and bug fixes which can eventually be incorporated into the original project. Of course, neither the FSF, nor the OSI, (nor any software license I am aware of) has attempted to define free software or open source as meaning that anyone can contribute alterations to the original project but only that you have the right to fork and create a new project.

I believe that it’s important to the integrity of the open source “movement” and the acceptance by corporations of the concept of not just using open source software but actually creating it, that we not try to redefine “open source” to mean something that it has not meant historically. It’s critical that even as we are, in essence, moving the finish line … we not leave corporations feeling that we have changed the rules mid-game.

There is really no upside to disputes about whether or not a particular software program is “really” open source — these debates alienate developers who must sometimes work very hard to get their corporations to accede even to a limited source code release, and then find their efforts bashed by the very people they thought would be most pleased.

Community-Developed Software

I would like to suggest that we allow the definition of “open source” to be simple, and to mean what it has always meant (software which is provided under legal terms which ensure the four freedoms). But lets push individuals and corporations who release open source software to make sure that they also have a community-driven software development model.

What does that mean? Well, I don’t really want to set that standard in stone myself right now — it’s certainly still being debated by many people — but I want to put something out there as a starting point. Of course, we’re starting from the basis that the project is under an open source software license, but what else is required in addition for a project to be considered a community project? Do we need to know who all the developers with check-in rights are? Are projects in a “benevolent dictator” system with just one authorized check-in user automatically not community projects?

I think we can probably break it down to just two additional freedoms (if we’re willing to twist the concept a little bit). Obviously the four freedoms above are all implied … but additionally, a community project should give you:

1. Freedom from ignorance:
   • Users should be able to see what’s getting done on the project.
   • External developers should be able to see what still needs doing on the project.
2. Freedom to contribute:
   • Users should be able to submit bugs and feature requests
   • External developers should be able to submit patches (and see them applied).

Personally, I believe that seeing what’s getting done, and being able to submit patches requires that the development team to be developing on a publicly visible source repository (or at least performing regular pushes to one). If you’re only pushing source to a public repository when you do a release, then users can’t see if there’s any progress happening on the project at all, and even if you’re pushing source once a month or once a week, depending on the speed of development, external developers will be reluctant to submit patches for bugs or features which might already be implemented by someone else.

Additionally, I think seeing what needs doing, and being able to submit bugs and feature requests requires a public tracker that is, at least, connected to the actual tracker used by the development team. There shouldn’t be a censorship layer between developers and users when discussing bugs and feature requests, and the public bug and feature request tracker should be updated when a fix is accepted or a feature is implemented, so that external developers don’t waste time creating patches for issues that are already resolved.

Obviously the point here is that users and external developers need to feel like they’re able to interact with the development team, and external developers should be able to submit patches which can be applied to the project. The idea is that end users and external developers shouldn’t have to go through a PR person or even a single public facing contact, and if I know how to fix a bug, or how to implement a features, I shouldn’t have to fork the project to get my fix applied.

None of that is meant to imply that every submitted feature request or patch will be applied — the development team always has the right to take their software in the direction they think it should go (even if users think they’re wrong). People who completely disagree with the direction a project is taking are still free to fork the project and go a different way.

What do you think?

The frustrating thing is that he’s upset at my post, and yet he lambastes me without even having the decency to mention me by name (or even by nickname ) . Although Don says in his blog that I didn’t make “much in the way of actionable, constructive comments” he actually fixed several of my largest concerns, and in his post he specifically addresses most of my remaining issues: specifically detailing the level of relationship between the common members of the community and its paying members, and adding a statement about the 501.3c incorporation. They’ve also fixed my biggest problems with the script repository, (although, the search is still broken — it turns out that it does work, if you click the “Go” button instead of hitting enter). There is a privacy statement at the top of their sign up page now, which I may have simply not noticed missed when I signed up — I’m used to seeing a link for the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, rather than having a simple statement on the page. I commend Don for keeping that simple.

The clarification of ownership and the privacy statements are vital, ‘cause now I can encourage you to sign up. Actually, signing up is basically a prerequisite for getting anything out of the community, since unlike on this blog where there is an open comment form that anyone can fill out, the contents of which are emailed directly to me (yes, Don, I got your note this morning, thanks) — it really is impossible to provide any sort of feedback on the PowerShell Community site without first signing up. As a personal side note, considering I had already signed up on the community site (despite the lack of a privacy policy), and that he posted a comment on my blog, I’m rather surprised Don said I was so hard to get in touch with. :’(

Now, all of that said, I will repeat three of the things that I said before, which are still true.

I expect this to succeed

In fact, go, sign up now! ShellTools have jumped on board 100% since I last posted, actually shuttering many of their forums in such a way that half my Google searches last night returned hits on pages that no longer exist on PowerShellLive.com (kind of frustrating, by the way). Karl’s started a blog there (no content yet) and is moving everything he can to the new community.

It is a commercial junta

For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, the word junta comes from a Spanish word meaning ‘council’ and it’s use in English refers to governing councils which rule after taking power by force. Don said this:

The community is not a “commercial junta.” The members of the business league do not control community content, only broad direction through an advisory board.

I never said they would control content. In fact, it’s quite clear that those of us being asked to “help” (translation: give them our scripts and answer questions on the forums to build traffic for their website) are the ones expected to provide all of the content, in the form of blogs, taking the time to add links on the community site to any content outside the community, and writing scripts. Nevermind the fact that we were already providing this content on our blogs and various forums already … please come join the central one. We weren’t asked should be in charge. The “business league” sprang upon the scene without so much as a “do you think it’s a good idea” to the community at large (the only people clued in were the MVPs and financial sponsors which were felt to be crucial to it’s success) ... I think it’s quite fair to call it what it is. You tell me: am I wrong? (Oh, in case I’m not being clear, tell me means fill out the comment form at the bottom of this page).

To be clear (especially for those of you who aren’t familiar with Latin American politics and the implication of the word), a Junta isn’t necessarily a greedy dictatorship that interferes with personal liberties — usually you have a Junta as a transitional government with the idea that you will eventually have elections and democratic rule. Sadly, it doesn’t always work out that way — sometimes a Junta gives way to a military dictatorship instead … which eventually leads to another coup d‘état and another temporary military junta … who said politics are dull?

They launched it too early, and with too little content

Personally, I’ve been sort-of waiting for the site to mature before diving in. That’s the answer to the question Don asked: Will you help… or just sit back? When it comes to participatory websites, I prefer to wait until they have some of these glitches worked out and at least have the various sections working before I jump in. I think PowerShell Community (the website, and the amorphous collection of users and developers) could have benefited a lot from a short invitation-only stealth period during which they could have build up some content (scripts, links, imported blog posts … etc) and a structure with “civilian” moderators for the forums, etc. as well as ironed out some of the bugs. It seems to me that they sprang the site out barely formed in order to forestall any other efforts to create a central PowerShell site.

With that as background, I will add that the attitude of entitlement doesn’t help. There seems to be some expectation that since Microsoft and it’s other commercial partners have declared this to be the community site, not only will other sites shut down and join the community for the greater good (farewell PowerShellLive, so long Scripting Answers) but apparently we the users ought to be contributing as well, and ought not to put our opinions on our blogs without first submitting it to their forums. All I’m saying is: eventually this expectation of participation may be realistic, but you’re not there yet.

My point is: just because you pay a prominent MVP to run the site, and convince all of your partners to join a business league doesn’t automatically mean the site deserves effort from the rest of the community — particularly when it’s easier to continue doing what we have been doing. Honestly, I figure that posting my opinions on my blog is at least as helpful as posting in the community forums, since my review post will actually boost their PageRank™ My original post was a gut reaction on the first day the place opened, and honestly, I thought that they’d appreciate the link, even with negative feedback. I guess I was wrong.

More ideas

I’ve posted a comment on Don’s blog, but it’s the last time I’ll do that until they remove the captcha that asks me to prove I’m human every time I post a comment — even though I’m also required to log in as a member of the community first. That’s just adding annoyance on top of roadblocks, and makes me assume they don’t really want to get feedback on their blogs anyway.

Now that the script vault on the community site is improved, I’ll probably be submitting some of my scripts on their site too, just to help people out — although I take a bit of a dim view of the fact that scripts I post there have to wait for a moderator before they show up. So many roadblocks …

I’m unlikely to submit links to their links section just because quite honestly, I’m lazy, and I feel that putting links in my delicious and diigo sites (not to mention Furl, Blinklist, Simpy, etc) or linking them from my blog is more than enough effort to help people find things (after all, how many people browse community link lists instead of using Google when they’re really looking for something). I would be willing (if asked) to help develop a tool to automatically include links from delicious (which has a ton of links, but isn’t moderated) or from the Diigo PowerShell group which I already moderate (and would be more than willing to let Don or others also moderate) ... That seems like the best way to manage link collections to me — since Diigo has tools for moderation and for link submission that are built into the browser as extensions.

There’s no community quite as easy to build as a commercial junta, I guess. Several major commercial players are on board — even the upstart ShellTools has lent their logo in support. One must assume this will succeed to some degree … especially since Microsoft has been MVP-deputizing all the big PowerShell bloggers who’s support will determine whether this will remain an empty site where these commercial backers can get some extra advertising, or will actually become a true “community” site with active involvement from people without financial incentives .

On the down side, PowerGadgets (among others?) is conspicuously missing, and it remains to be seen if these guys can all play nice with each other. They are, after all, competing in a couple of PowerShell-enhancement spaces, and I haven’t yet seen any sign that any of them are going to shut down their (Microsoft | ShellTools | Sapien) PowerShell forums and route traffic to the “community” site. I also can’t find an RSS feed except on the individual blogs (and so far, only Marco Shaw seems likely to actually blog there).

One last thing, which I was at first not going to say, but after surfing the “blog” section and forums and finding them decorated the same way, I can’t hold back: That is quite honestly the ugliest web site I’ve seen in a while. It’s roughly the color of the swirling brown stuff in the bottom of the toilet after you throw up, and there’s more bits of scrolling, pulsing, and throbbing flash and javascript than I’ve ever seen outside of MySpace.

Update

It turns out that Sapien (Don Jones’ company) is, in fact, going to close their PowerShell Forum and move their PowerShell-related blogging to throw their whole weight behind this new site. So that means all three of the Bloggers listed on PowerShellCommunity.org will be actually blogging there. Nevermind that this makes it look, for now, even more like a Sapien spin piece than an community-driven site, it’s certainly a guarantee of some success, since one presumes that some of the traffic on the sapien forum will actually move to the new location, and all of these guys have been fairly consistent bloggers.

Update

Well, just for the record … I’ve been flipping around on the “community” site and I have a few more gripes. There is a script repository, but it’s not searchable, it’s practically empty, has no download links, and displays scripts double-spaced and without highlighting. Plus, posting scripts requires registration — on a site which as yet has no privacy policy and appears to be partially owned by Microsoft (there was a rumor about a 501c non-profit, but there’s no trace of that on the site, even on the “About us” page which merely says it’s run by Don Jones —an MVP, author, speaker, blogger and corporate ).

Just for kicks, compare their scripts page to the PowerShell Central Scripts site (note that I help out with PowerShell Central, and it’s independently run by Brandon Shell (another MVP) and also has no privacy policy, but then, it doesn’t require you to sign up). Oh, and for now you can access the scripts interface directly … but don’t tell Brandon I told you about it

Feedback Works

They’ve fixed a lot of these problems …