On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> Just came back from a meeting with Gadi Gilon. For those who don't
> remeber, he is the CIO of "Kupat Cholim Klalit". He stumbled upon the
> last time his name was mentioned on this list (thread starting at
> http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Linux/maillists/03/09/msg00296.html),
> and wanted to talk.
>
> I'm BCCing him on this email, so he can choose to participate actively
> in this discussion (or just correct me).
>
> The discussion stayed, almost exclusively, on the theoretical,
> ideological, front. If I understood correctly, his main point is this:
> "I can see ideological/social reasons for writing/using free software,
> and I see financial ones. If I try to adopt the ideological reasons
> within my organization, it will never work. I cannot let every user of a
> machine in every hospital change their own software. I cannot expect to
> have the social contract's benifits when aquiring the software, yet not
> pass the same benifits onwards. I must therefor reject the social
> reasons for adoping free software".
>
That's entirely not true. An organization can rule that every user in the
organization must use a version of the software that is kept unmodified in
some respects. That's not against the open-source ideology.
Besides, what's the worst thing that can happen if people modify their
software? That new bugs appear? If they jeopordize the security of the
entire system, then it's a bug in the system, not in themselves.
In most cases in which I used an open source software as an end user, I
rarely had to hack on it myself to fix bugs, much less to add new
features. People who are members of a large organization, would think
twice before trying to do so, because all the organization works in a
particular way.
> Please don't start flame wars saying "but there are also financial
> reasons for adopting open source". He is not rejecting this possibility.
> It has not come up due to lack of time.
>
> Now, I tried to point the practical reasons behind the social contract,
> and his response rather suprised me. Basically, he has contracts with
> all of his software vendors that gives him full access to the source
> code in case the company goes under. His basic premesis was "I can get
> competition over support in proprietary software too - Clalit did it in
> the past already".
>
Great, but where is the source code now? In open source software, the
source code is available at present for anyone to hack on, modify,
inspect, add new features to, comment, etc. And this means the entire body
of open source users and/or developers. That's much better than being at
the mercy of the one company who developed the source code. (and even if
it goes under, the source code may still be restricted).
Had he used open source software, he could have modified the source code
himself or hire someone to modify it for him. He would not need such
contracts.
> I tried to point out that this is actually means that he has forced the
> vendors to turn their model, when dealing with him, into a free software
> one. He acknoledged the possible truthfulness of this statement. I read
> that as "the free software model is so much suprior, that I am actually
> forcing closed source companies to adhere to it". I guess you may read
> that to mean that the free software advantages arenot as important to
> him, representing a huge organization, as it is to SMBs. I guess had the
> quotes in the paper said "I don't see the advantages of free software to
> organizations of my caliber", things would have been understood
> differently by us too.
>
I'm not sure this model is the same as the free software one. For
instance, he cannot distribute the software (much less its source code)
further and gain more users and eyes that will comment, inspect and
correct it. The Bazaar model cannot work in such conditions, either.
> Like I said before - the financial aspects of free software were not
> raised at all.
>
> One last point - he said he is willing to talk to us further. If he
> doesn't wish to join this discussion (and even if he does), I was
> thinking of dedicating a Telux meeting to that end. What do you think?
>
I'm fine with it. Albeit, it could turn into a one against many flame-war.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
> Shachar
>
> --
> Shachar Shemesh
> Open Source integration consultant
> Home page & resume - http://www.shemesh.biz/
>
>
>
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Writing a BitKeeper replacement is probably easier at this point than getting
its license changed.
Matt Mackall on OFTC.net #offtopic.
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