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This will help other people discover tech decipher.
Hi. Welcome to a p episode 55
of take this decipher.
In this episode, we will talk about open
versus
closed
and proprietary
what does it mean in technology
to be an open or closed
application? You have already about open source, I
guess,
and there is a saying in silicon valley.
If you are first,
you close it.
If you come late, you open it.
Basically, it means that you might have an
advantage being the first player in a field,
you might afford to be able to close
source your product, your software, your application.
If you're led to the game led to
the party
and it's difficult to fight the leading
player in the marketplace,
maybe an alternative strategy in order to gain
distribution
is to open source your product. There's been
many examples of this through converting history.
And today, we are going to talk more
about all of this. Good to see you
you know today.
Nice to see you as well. Shall we
start with history, the history of open source.
And
well, it apparently the first known system that
was supposedly open source or in public domain
was in the fifties, the da a 2
system in 19 53,
and basically, it was a compile.
So compile is what turns source code into
binary code that gets run by a machine.
It's what allows you to run apps
on, for example, your phone and things like
that to the compile. I know some of
you that are, like, I'm a computer engineer
and
is that a compile really or is it
interpreter. Let's forget that a second. Let's call
it the compile just to make life easier
for everyone involved. So that was the first
public domain open source thing that we know.
And then there isn't much. Fifties sixties seventies,
there isn't much. Obviously, there was the summer
of love at some point in late sixties,
and maybe through the seventies people started thinking
through
shouldn't we be doing things that are more
open, and 1 of such people was a
gentleman called
Richard
s who's still alive, so you shout out
to him. And he was part of this...
Let's call it hacker community from those days
and was doing some interesting things around it
and there was this belief that
source code shouldn't be closed that if you
were monetizing something
quite a lot and you're putting even
certain things in your code that if, for
example, you were using unlicensed
application, so unlicensed binary.
That you would run into trouble and have
other issues. And so he he manifested himself
against it and
came up with something that we're still
using till this day. The G u or
the new project and new Manifesto.
Now, new, this is the funny part.
Some of you will find it funny. Others
might not stands for news, not uni,
which is a recur K? So you have
to appreciate
if for a scientist and compute engineers coming
up with things like that. But it's new
is news, not Uni. Because at that time,
Uni was a proprietary or it'd been made
over time a proprietary platform by a couple
of big companies in the market.
And there was this view that they wanted
to in some ways get out of that
space. So so The new project was born
and we till this day have,
what we call new general public licenses, Gp.
Right? You probably have heard of about this.
Now it's in the nineties early nineties that
we have the biggest movement
I think in the history
of open source with a gentleman called Lin
To,
I probably butcher his name. Lin To.
Something like that, pushed
a version of a kernel that he had.
Actually, the first version he had was not
open to the public, but then he released
it to the public.
Under a new license, and that operating system
was called Linux.
And the rest is for of history. Linux
has led to many other things after that.
It's a wildly used operating system globally,
in particularly on the server side,
with many variations and we're off the races.
So that's the shortened version of how we
got here in some ways, and then there's
a lot of cool things that happen afterwards,
but that's, like, seminal moments are new and
Linux. That's the 2 things you need to
remember. Yeah. And if I may say, Linux
is ready the Kernel, and then you have
by extension Linux your operating system or actually
combining a kernel plus
many many tools from new or not new,
just To remind everyone the internet is running
on linux on Linux. And we'll talk later
about a lot of other open source software.
So it's not just Linux, but so many
components of the internet that are running on
open source software.
Also just to be clear the first definition
of open source was coming from from our
France Ag new, but ultimately there has been
competing
initiatives.
To
define or redefine?
What is open source?
1 organization in particular the open source initiative
os has tried to cod their own way
and probably in a different way, which is
considered open source or not. Have this official
definition published in 26 and they keep updating.
Time news, keep generating your new definitions and
create you or updating licenses.
So we have multiple
licenses,
possible when we talk about open source, which
can continue create some misunderstanding about what he's
exactly open source or not. Yeah. And we
we'll come back to the more, bad use
of open
later in this episode, where, obviously, there are
people that use open and it's not open
at all. Yes.
But these are 7 moments in real open
source. It created a movement to create a
way of doing things. It created a mindset
on how people can share each other's source
code.
And and at the very nature source starts
from there. It starts from the notion that
source code, not the binary, not what's created
by the compile that then is run as
an application, but the source code itself can
be shared for free.
And that's like, I mean, that's incredible. It's
like, the religion of the time was a
religion of we have all these big monolithic
the companies like Ibm,
Microsoft emerging, etcetera, etcetera.
It's someone that's saying, no. No. We don't
accept the closed ecosystem play.
We wanna have code that is shared globally.
And in some ways, that movement
is now probably the dominating moving in the
world in terms of source code sharing. Obviously,
as we know, there's a lot of people
profiting out of code today.
So there's ways of keeping your code intact
and keeping things in house.
But the open source movement has changed.
All things are done, and it is
quasi
religious movement. It's this notion of
you have... There's copyright. Right? I enforce my
copyright, the entitlement I have to this thing
that I developed and there's copy left, which
is a term that came from open source.
Which is you are obliged to share.
And there's certain licenses,
all the stuff that you developed around it.
And to your point, there are coexist pieces.
We'll come back to that later when we
talk about Android and Google and the Android
open source project versus Android itself.
What is closed, what is open
and how do some companies do well in
maintaining these 2 aspects
working really well? Like, the openness and the
close piece. I think Google does decent job
on Android, we'll argue later if that's the
case or not. And, yeah. It all started.
Similarly with this gentleman, Richard's Stall, and then
with decent with Lin just giving us linux
and everything changed.
Yeah. It's really amazing when you think about
what was happening at the time. I mean,
if you think about the nineties, it was
the rise of Microsoft from those to windows
and
Microsoft becoming at some 0.1 of them was
valued company and at the time certainly fighting
to nail against Open source was considered
by some corporations. When actually know it was
just a movement and a different approach to
business and willingness to develop things in a
different way. And a way that was more
open transparent
collaborative collaborative.
And
especially important, you could argue in the edge
of
deploying applications everywhere depending on these applications
stability over time. It is a significant
evolution of the history
of computers and programming.
In Microsoft, will keep popping up in this
episode. I mean, just to be very clear.
This is not their first rodeo. They've been
having these fights or anti antitrust cases,
etcetera.
And in some ways, a lot of the
reactions we saw even with Linux, Linux becoming
such an important operating system, certainly server side
globally.
Has to do with a fight to Microsoft.
Because, obviously, as you said Microsoft wind does
to windows, and then they were really
managing a closed ecosystem,
and there was this view like, an operating
system is critical, an operating system for those
who were listening to us or not.
Not computer scientist, or computer engineers is what
makes a specific device work.
An operating system for your computer for your
laptop let's say you're running Windows or Macos
os is what makes the device work. So
it's... Without it, there's nothing else. It's it's
the core. It's it's what makes it boot
up and It shows something in front of
you and all that stuff and then there's
things on top of it. As Beth talked
about it earlier even in the case of
Linux.
There's device drivers. There are things that make
other devices that connect to that device work.
Like, for example, if you have a a
keyboard or a mouse, etcetera. You need to
have device drivers that support certain type. Of
keyboards in certain types of mouse. And then
on top of that, you have user interface,
which in general, is extended by the operating
systems types it's part of the operating system
these days.
But you could argue it's sort of a
different logical piece of it. And then you
have all the apps, what you run on
it. Microsoft word, but Powerpoint,
your email client, all that our apps. They
run on top of the operating system. Right?
And so operating are critical. Because without operating
systems, the device is a piece of hardware,
nothing happens. There's nothing happening to it. Yes.
Totally,
I think systems are critical.
Maybe we can go a bit quickly about
what is Open source. What is the definition
of open source. If I take the aussie
Open source initiative
definition, open source needs to meet multiple criteria
in order to qualify as being open source.
1 is free distribution. You should not restrict
any party from selling or giving away the
software.
So it has to be a free
distribution, no royalty,
no fee.
Then the source code must be included and
you must
the distribution in source code as well as
in compiled form.
So that's another critical
part. You need to be able to inspect
that software as a developer, be able to
inspect it if you want.
So that it, it's clearly understandable, and you
can make sense of it and potentially
do something about it.
So the third condition is about derived works.
It must be authorized. So you must allow
modifications and derived works
you must allow them to be distributed about
similar terms. Fourth, it's about integrity
of the auto source,
So there are different ways. You cannot authorize
that, but basically,
t derive worked. Might need to carry a
different name or version numbers.
So there is still a support to make
sure that it's clear what is the initial
auto,
source code and what is not. So you
can modify it, but you cannot mis people
about
what is your original product or not.
No discrimination against persons,
or groups.
No
discrimination against fields of end endeavor.
You cannot restrict the program to be used
in a specific field or in a certain
way,
distribution of license,
so the the rights must apply, there should
not be a need for additional license.
So what you distribute as to be all
included.
And license might not force you to use
as program as part of an another product.
You might not restrict all the software,
aim must be technology
neutral. That's the definition. So if you want
to say and claim,
that your product is open source, it has
to follow
this criteria
laid out by the.
And typically, what people do is that they
will choose
a specific license that has already been
developed
to
basically, instead of to recreating your license, you
will pick an existing open source license
that has been fine tune to follow these
criteria.
Yes. So there you have it. If you
wanna do something open source, that's basically it.
We've talked about the terms of licensing already,
copyright first. Copy left. Right to open source
copy left. Right? It's so you have to
pass it on and it's free.
This gets a little bit muddy because we'll
discuss a few companies
later on where
you know, some elements
of
openness and then there's some elements of closeness.
I mean, we'll talk about Android and, obviously,
Google's
stake in that ecosystem on Android. We'll talk
about actual lives around openness. When things are
not open at all.
And maybe we'll start with 1 firm that
has gotten quite a lot of heat that
now seems to be changing their ways. We'll
see
but certainly, many years ago was getting a
lot of heat for for taking advantage of
open source but not giving back. Right? Which
was Amazon. And in particular Amazon Web services.
The reuse of a lot of code that
was
seen as open source code, sort of taking
it, playing with it, doing things to it,
fork it as we call it Fork is
creating an an alternative version to it that
goes into the future. Think of it as
if you watch Science fiction,
parallel universes in another universe, something else happens.
That's the fork. Right?
It's like a fork on road.
And
they got a lot of heat for it.
Certainly back in 2018
on the fact that they were
sur, but not contributing. Recently, it seems that
that attitude has change that they're now much
more
strongly contributing, but that led to a variety
of things from the market from commons clause
to the server side public license Sp from
Mongodb.
Which tried to address some of the concerns
and issues that were happening
with some of these big giants just reusing
a bunch of code that was out there
and then appropriate it as themselves with not
contributing back to those repo.
1 important piece to take into account is
we talk repo,
think of it as
containers things that have
a code in it.
That makes over time that code to be
compiled and then to be executed so to
run as binary rec code. To make something
then work.
And the importance of this is in all
these open source projects,
there are different roles in the open source
projects. So open source projects themselves have...
Their own governance. Right? There are people that
can commit to the open source project that
are people that can review stuff for the
open source project,
and there are people that the end can
approve changes
for new versions of the code. Right? So
even in these things, even though it's all
open, etcetera for some of these big repo
where there's a lot of code being maintained,
There's still governance. So it's not like there's
no governance. This is an article system and
people do whatever they want. There is still
a governance system. Yes.
The issue with Amazon is they were opening
all this code using it for themselves, which
is fine,
but they're not giving anything back in the
shape of
things that they might have evolved and improved
in the code that might have been valuable
for the open source repo that they were
taking source code from.
Yeah. I think also
in a way, and we'll talk more later
about business models, but it was in some
ways probably connected to Open source business models
when you
make open source software, some like the kernel.
Everyone around it is going to help contribute
to that channel because at some point, they
will have either a no direct benefit except
contributing fight or because the development is sponsored
partially by big corporations, went intend to reuse
9 external in some of their other products,
so they see a benefit to have contribute
to that
because it reduced dependence on third parties. So
you under up paving more control.
But for some of the open source projects,
it's a database for instance, and we can
take the example of Mongodb Db.
Part of the business model of that company
might be you know what? We're going to
provide the software for free Mongodb,
But at some point, if users want us
to host the database in the cloud that
sort of stuff, we are going to simplify
and streamline.
And host it for them and manage it
for them, it would be easier for them,
and that's how we are going to make
money. So their way to... On 1 side,
they build a software
for free available for free, but in exchange,
if you have some specific queues,
it was expected that you might use them
for that specific host use case.
But when Amazon comes, take over the source
code and host it. It becomes very difficult
competition. As a result, your business model is
not working anymore.
So that's what many open source companies were
facing basically, it's the end of their Open
source project.
Because if they have no more money, to
deliver on it. And Amazon is not contributing.
The the project is going to die. So
the felt they had to make a decision.
The decision led to new license us or
new clothes added 2 existing license.
Now to deploy bit the Amazon news of
just hosting the Open source software and making
money out of it and the sometime destroying
the business model that I've evolved
from the open source community.
Yeah. I know. I I just to maybe
finalize this discussion on this. The is when
then lawyers get involved. Heather Meek is probably
well known very... She's based in the bay
I think still. And that's where lawyers got
involved because at some point there it has
to be a legal framework around all of
these things. Can't just operate outside some line.
There needs to be a line on the
sand that can be enforce where people can
take each other to court, and we had
huge fights in the past. Right? Oracle fight
would Google because of the Java situation after
the Sun
acquisition. I mean, these things matter. Right? Who
owns something.
Obviously matters when it comes to code as
much as it does to anything else Right?
Like a house. So
so so that's why these new rules that
were put in play these new types of
agreements
were there to try and frame
a different perspective on how things were evolving.
Things we're getting extremely complex there was a
need to clarify things and and make them
more explicit.
And at the same, not everything is... All
good and well under there's the open source
sky and environment,
there might be some issues. And typically the
1,
of people know in the tech industry
is a risk of using some copy left
licensed software.
So for instance, if we take a new
software,
many are using the new general
public license,
Gp p license
for short,
And this 1 can be pretty dangerous because
it's a copy left license.
But the problem is a copy license
is that
You are forced to share everything you built
with this software,
with everybody else.
So if you are a closed source business,
create new software that is leveraging Gp,
software,
you might be in trouble and might end
up being forced to open source your product
and provided it for free. Typically is that
something you want to be very aware. The
Gp is not the only license that Micro
str,
but it's certainly is most common on 1.
And when you are developing a software is
there is typically what do developers if they
are working for a cross source company
is making sure that they absolutely never used
any Dp licensed software in the process, unfortunately.
Given the restrictions. And, I mean, as you
said, there has been fights in the past,
there has been some pretty famous fights of
companies who
try to basically leverage new license software,
Gp software, and that didn't end up well
for them.
And they are to either settle, like Vmware
or some others like Verizon at to open
source their product.
So as a company, what we do typically
would be to scan. Your source scan for
different type of license
in order to understand what license is being
used because sometimes you... You don't know when
your developers have introduce some software, libraries,
copy paste, even some stuff.
And this stuff could be ready than draws.
It's a big question you have when you
do point instance financing of the business
when you exit the business,
You need to make sure you understand your
risk profile and potentially an alternative to some
software before you can go to the next
stage. This is a big deal because as
its human nature.
Developers can be brilliant, but at the same
time they can be lazy.
And so they just copy paste something. They're
like, I don't... I have no clue where
this is coming from, and they just use
it.
That piece of code might have come to
be honest from something that is license that
is not beneficial to the company that they're
developing it for. And so,
again, it's a little bit like
think of it. People I hope but that's
silly. It's it's not so silly. I mean,
think of it if I'm developing something.
I it's like writing a book. Right? It's
happens to be a book that manifests itself
in many weird ways.
If I'm reusing
lines from another book,
I need to know what I using it
from. Right? And understand. What's the right quotation?
What's the right source? What's the right license?
This is the
analogy for this. I know it's a little
bit more complex than that, but it's the
analogy for this. If you using in borrowing
code from somewhere else, you need to really
make sure that you understand where that code
is coming from. Did you not infringing on
anyone's licenses or not, you know, embedding your
own code with stuff that can come back
to haunt you us as Bert was mentioning?
And I think you know, the book reference
have lost its president on and some copyright
issues. It was not copyright, but it was
quotations
quotations at we... I don't I don't wanna
do I get into a fight with Billy
Ackerman
because I think... No. No. No. It was
this was afterwards. Right? So this was the
post
It started with quotations on his wife, and
then it extended to Harvard and, you know,
obviously, they they kicked out. I think it
started with Salvador. No. No. It's it started
with Sa. I think it was the other
way around. You then got... They then they
you went after no. Anyway, we we don't
wanna go into political
quotation
cheers and have bill tweet on us. It's...
We're okay. We're good. Bill, We love you.
So I think it's proving the importance of
basically copying someone's work. It can be a
book. It can be an article. It can
be a reference.
It can be soft code.
So code, there is... I mean, written return
work.
So you want to be careful before doing
that. If does the right license, it's okay.
If it does not the right license, then
it's not... Okay.
The open source projects, and as you mentioned,
mindset and movement. This is a movement, Right?
Open source movement. Has given us a lot
more things than just code.
Giving us a lot more things and just
software.
Given us, for example, very deep organizational
shifts. We now talk about remote teams as
if it's Oh my God. We discovered remote
teams. The first guy is at scale to
have remote teams
were
companies
or organizations or projects that were open source.
Right? Yes. Because of the nature of it.
Right? Because there were thousands of contributors from
around the world, they were not c located.
In many cases, they were doing this part
time. They were doing development part time linux
is a great example of that. And so
these teams were what in the open source
world have come to be known as fully
liquid teams. Right? So everyone's around the world,
there's no real hubs
it's a fully distributed team,
and those
projects,
those companies that were focused on open source
projects
were the real pioneers
on fully distributed. And that shifted in many
ways, for example, I know how engineering is
done today. Because if you think about it,
it's not just the organization different than everyone's
working from around the world that's... How do
you coordinate people on code. How do you
bring code pieces together into something
that works.
When do you compile? When do you launch
into production? Right? Who's doing the testing before
all of this happening? And how are they
doing the testing? So it changed everything
around software engineering and software development? And I
guess no surprise that Git was created by
uni
to help him better manage the development of
the canal.
So ga is a way to basically
synchronize and
and branch so code. So we need that
first
because of that unique aspect of very remote
distributor teams
as that is inherent to
many open source project
by it was open source created the need
and ultimately fund solutions to solve this needs.
So
development,
globally,
at any anytime zone anytime,
definitely an innovation. From open source san just
an innovation itself, but they build the tools
to get the job done and the processes
to get the job done.
And get if it's familiar to you guys
because you've heard about a company called Github
that was a massive acquisition. And a few
other companies,
is a source code management tool. Right? So
it's a way to basically
verify which control version are you guys on
in the repository. So we're not
putting pieces of code in the wrong version
effectively. So think of it as many of
you might not be developers, but if I've
had this. You're working on 1 document, which
version of the document are you working on?
Yes. It's the same problem. Right? So you
wanna make sure that you're working on the
same version.
And it's properly maintained and sustained.
And if now, we talk about open source
as innovated in business model because again, as
we discussed,
at some point, except some rare exception,
there is a need for some sort of
business model. It should develop the kernel,
You might not do it directly for revenues,
but indirectly, you will sponsor
developers, pay them, or they employed by your
company,
They're are working on the linux kernel because
your company benefit from the linux kernel because
maybe it's building hardware
that needs an operating system. You don't want
to pay fees to Microsoft. And at the
same time you want this linux kernel to
leverage on your hardware. So so you need
to have
people who developed for the kernel.
So that's 1 type of very direct business
for them, but are other types. We talk
briefly about companies like Mongodb That basically does
a business model of hosting.
So, basically, we probably use a source card,
but if you want to have a simplified
hosting solution for it. We are here and
we are going to give you a subscription.
Another typical business model has been 1 support,
Of course, and red hat probably a lot
in there in terms of subscription model.
For what was at the source and open
upon source product, but it typically became a
red distribution. And as they made you paid
the subscription, mostly,
because they will provide you a high level
of service
and more advanced enterprise class type of version
of the products.
That were initially open source.
Open source is supposedly free, but there are
hidden costs. Right? So if you have a
release of
something in open source. The early releases of
Linux were appalling very difficult to maintain. Right?
Or, how do you run for example,
a Ui framework?
Ui framework is, like, you can see windows
in front of you instead of just text
on Linux initially was extremely difficult. Right? So
you'd have to compile it. You'd have to
attach things.
Etcetera, you need to decide which Ui framework
you're using,
and then players like Red Hat with their
distribution simplify that greatly. And created value for
end users
by making these things
automated, more simplified for a regular user to
be able to use at length and therefore,
charged for it as Bet Saying for the
support of the ecosystem and support of their
releases, etcetera. And in some cases, the other
piece enterprise great. Right? You might have something
that's open sourced and it's been compiled and
it works, but it's like, does it have
the right level of optimal security for you.
Yes. And that obviously generates some options for
players to then make money
on top of some of these stacks as
they move along. But by and enlarge as
as Bert said,
People make money out of support or services,
support services, companies like docker, for example, Initially
made a lot of money out of services.
They make money out of other variations of
the software,
as it scales and companies come into that
ecosystem to create sort of bundled versions of
it that are more closed in nature, but
there's ways to make money.
But the ultimate effect is this is
for all mankind. And the reason why it
matters that there is open source software
is think about it. Right? If it's free
at the point of consumption, it allows people
that have less resources companies that have less
resources countries that have less resources,
to be able to use software that is
high quality graded software.
And it allows for people to keep innovating
on software
without necessarily always having the objective of making
money out of it. Right? It's because people
wanna
want contribute back in some ways, the hacker
culture when I was in college, people
had this strong objection to hackers, and we
always used to distinguish between hackers and crackers.
Right? And cracker came from the
from the turn used for Tele systems. Right?
I you tap into Tele systems and get
free calls.
But crackers were the bad guys. Hackers were
not. Hackers
And today we use the White hat, Black
hat term. Right? White hat hackers are the
ones that Identifies shoes and raised them and
maybe get bounties out of it and and
do the proper thing and the black hat
ones are the ones that that make the
news by
taking over services, etcetera?
Yes. And totally, and going back to the
business model then 1 that I found interesting
was used by data breaks where, for instance,
you get the slow version of the software.
Model for free. But if you want the
fast version of the software that has been
optimized for much higher speed, and maybe 10x
x improvement.
Then you have to pay for the data
version. So it's compatible. Api is the same
everything. But the engine itself is much faster,
but you only get the fast engine if
you if you pay your fees. So I
think that was another interesting
innovation. And to go back to your point
about for my mankind,
That's typically also 1 reason why you will
pick open source as a as a strategy
because as a distribution, open source can be
very strong.
Because people get excited because it's free, people
get excited. They want to contribute,
and you don't see enough to potentially pay
the developers.
So it it can be a very writers
model if it finds its its market.
And a very strong alternative to other business
approach.
So open source can truly be not just
a development approach but really a go to
market.
Approach and it's considered 1 of the very
effective
powder led growth, a strategy, open source.
Indeed, moving to open source for the wind.
So the big
achievements of open source.
Already talked about 1, so that's pretty obvious.
So let's get the numbers in. On Linux.
Linux is 1 in servers. I mean, around
97 percent of the
Certainly in web servers, 97 percent of the
top million web servers in into world run
Linux, 97 percent of the top million.
Top 90 percent of the cloud runs on
Linux.
That's what I call a knockout win by
Prince source There's variations on the linux that
are deployed here. There might be some distributions,
but we'll take it as an open source
win. I mean, you use your open source.
And what's amazing? We we talk about git
that is also open source and
could because they part of the internet infrastructure,
or, at least the coding for... The world
coding infrastructure.
But let's talk about some other tools that
you might have earned, that open source,
Python, 1 of the most famous must use
development language. Is open source,
the apache
Http server, which is another part of the
internet infrastructure,
Ng x, the
acceleration caching engine,
is also source.
We have not dot js, which is an
also development language.
In term of database, we have Mongodb,
We talked about, but there is also post.
My sequel has open source version.
And going back to coding our environment, we
have electron
that is open source. React as a front
end development
language is open source. And if we go
to Ai,
It's actually amazing to see how much is
open source. I mean, Python is a part
of most ai project, of course, but Pie,
San,
Ke,
all of this is open source. Anyway, Ai
was such a race
that in order to participate. You better have
to move very fast. Convince users to use
your product and what better ways than to
open source it. Obviously, it's not the case
of K language. So that 1 is actually
not open source and has been developed over
a very long time by Nvidia, and is
still a key competitive advantage for for Nvidia.
And on the consumer side, things that you
use on a daily basis that open sourced.
Firefox if you use it as a browser,
actually, they it came from the Nets cape
opening of the world when the huge fights
with Internet explorer happened and they decide to
open it up. Chromium also came out of
that. Right? Which is Google Chrome uses it.
But Chromium is the open source piece of
it. A signal on the messaging side, bring
the fight back to whatsapp and the the
big Facebook, which is funny because obviously, it
was
largely funded by Brian Act.
Yes. Yeah after you made all that money
with whatsapp app,
yeah
funny how these things happen like Elon musk
with open And stuff, but anyway, we'll get
back to that later. Open office obviously was
a potential alternative in a fight. Being brought
to Microsoft office, Know, maybe less
successful on that side of the fence, But
you have... I'm sure
most of you today would have something open
source that you're using on a regular basis.
So again, even on the consumer side, it's
well noted. It's not just a B2b
kind of tools or platforms
discussion, it's more broadly
than that. We talked about data of closed
source companies that is actually built on top
of an open source product that the initially
built called Ap apache Spark,
Docker was also part open sourced.
Docker scaled on Open source. Right? I mean,
it's like, it was a company that have
was having tremendous difficulties. They scaled.
On open source and then obviously, they created
a business model around it to make money
themselves, but they scaled on Open source. I
mean, it's incredible.
And then we have some interesting stories. If
we take Ai and we'll go deeper in
in other situation, but 1 pretty
model, mist,
pretty new company actually, but already famous in
term of models
shared in an open source way under the
Apache 2 license.
3, open source models,
7B8X7BAT,
are 20 to b.
That are usable and customizable visible for a
lot of use cases.
And again, we see open source goes, of
course, with a business model,
If you want to use the optimized the
commercial models,
then you have to pay and the commercial
business models them are not open source, and
you you will buy them because they are
more efficient higher performance.
They have track capabilities, easily available hosted. So
we can see that even with new L,
Ai is trying to find its way. Open
source is trying to find its new definition
in a way, we say Ion algorithms.
So exciting times, obviously, open sources 1 in
many
dimensions, and I think the world is better
off because of it and companies have been
built on top of this notion of there's
an open source component in
ecosystem
building piece around it, but then there's pieces
that are maybe less well framed. Maybe as
the last example,
Android. I mean, now Android just to be
clear,
as a trademark owned by Google.
So if you put Android in your device,
Google saying this is Google approved. Okay? Now
Android as a project behind it, which is
the Android open source project, a os s
p.
Where you can pick up the kernel. Right?
So what makes it run effectively and a
variety of other pieces around it
and fork it as we discussed before, create
a new version of it and go your
own separate. There's a couple of players who
have done that. More recently, you know, Huawei
is at to go full fork because of
the issues we know happened in the Us
where Google was not allowed to give them
a license.
And so part of Android is is open
source clearly.
At its very core. And there are pieces
of it, even some device drivers, etcetera, they're
open source as. So there is an ecosystem
around it. There are device manufacturers that, you
know, make a living around sort of
variations, very strong variations on that on that
project on the Ao p. Now there are
pieces of Andrew android that are absolutely
closed.
And the way I think Google did it
is... To be honest for me it's clean,
I think some people will probably disagree,
but it's clean. In Google when they launched
Android, they
launched, I think it was the open and
set line. So O wei. Right? Around Android
to really make sure that it was gonna
be an open source. Yes. Sorry yeah. For
operating system etcetera, etcetera. But then obviously, Google's
Google. So there's pieces of
that you guys were that are using Android
today when your mobile devices are running which
are not open. Right? Obviously, some of the
apps clearly are not open, like the snapshots
of the world etcetera. But even 1 level
below the Google Mobile services and the Google
play services piece. So the Google play services
piece is what Google play implemented on the
ability to develop the your own apps on
top of that framework
is on Guy Google just shockingly enough.
And Google Mobile services, which includes core services
that you guys all probably use as well,
like Google Play itself, the App store,
Google Chrome, etcetera is owned by Google as
well. And so for you to run Gm,
this is the issue that App Huawei
you know, Google has to have a licensing
agreement with you. Right? And that's what allows
you to then say I'm running Android. Because
as I said before, Android is a trademark
owned by Google.
So it's open on certain sense. You all.
It's closed on others, but, in know, it's
running the world now. So it's doing what
Linux did on the server side.
It's doing the same in mobile devices. Right?
Obviously, the world is mostly running on Android
today or a variation of it of the
a os p.
Yes. And we saw going into 2 complex
stuff if you build for instance a handset
on the base of thunder,
So first, we just said that some services,
Google services might not be available if you
don't comply with some Google request.
But also some Google Apps might not be
available.
You might not be able to have a
Youtube, Gmail and other stuff.
So that could be huge trouble. So so
in a way, even if the operating system
is itself is free and unavailable and the
cola,
if you want to be successful in the
marketplace
with device using android,
you better follow the different guidelines that Google
is giving you
in order to have their apps in start
to have Google Play and even to have
some apps compatible because if you you don't
have this Google Mobile services,
that might be really big trouble for the
success of your device. And and I was
on the other end of a couple of
very significant negotiations with Google back in the
day.
Early days and how it... And it's been
always a little bit tricky.
So it's not totally clean, but I would
still say
for the most, it's an interesting ecosystem. That
has worked relatively well for all involved,
Even when Google now is competing right, Through
several acquisitions like the Hcc smartphone team and
that sort of...
We wanted it, but we don't really want
it. Motorola
acquisition.
Where got a bunch of bat.
And so I think they've done a pretty
good job, but maybe switching to
to lies.
Lies when open is not open, but it's
more of a moat or a bridge fore
clothes as I call it. Yes. I mean,
not wanting to point fingers
too hard. I mean, business Microsoft.
Yeah. So on this 1, if you're old
enough to remember the the old
Microsoft approach,
embrace, extend, ex,
to open source and open standards.
That was in the late nineties early in
2 thousands, At least it was alleged that
Microsoft had this behavior.
And if we on acronyms acrylics that there
were many name is connected to Microsoft, like
food, fear uncertainty and adapt,
presenting Vapor power way in order to block
your competitors.
So at the time that there was a
lot of approaches of Microsoft that were were
not so great business oriented, but definitely not
very friendly
So at at the end of the day,
yes.
Microsoft has been accused in the past by
a lot of open source promoter companies.
To have a very negative approach to open
Source. I think it does change. I don't
think the new Microsoft is representative of the
old
I mean a great example you talk about
Github github was acquired by Microsoft a years
ago. In a way to was a litmus
test for for the Open source community because
so many new open source projects were hosted
on Github.
And I will say it flourished, and
Microsoft norway way has proven that it's
Very supportive of Open source project.
Microsoft visual studio cut for instance, ease an
open source project under a second development world
by storm,
I'm seeing impressed how so many developers are
using it, even people who
might not have said good things about Microsoft
years ago. So it has been a revolution.
The old Microsoft 20 years ago was not
a friend of Open source. But now it's...
At least it's not an enemy me. Just
to explain to our listeners, the embrace extend
and ex Right? It was based on a
memo written internally at Microsoft, which shed embrace
extend and and innovate. This secret came as
a as an adaptation for the trial. Yes.
And
embraces basically, you go into a technology stack,
open source
You embrace that you're part of the community.
You do commits. You involve your engineers, you
do stuff back etcetera. The extent is then
you pick up from there, And you start
extending functionality, creating your own functionality, the fork
piece I was mentioning earlier,
Creating your own functionality, added features, etcetera.
That go well beyond the core capabilities of
the initial repo code basis that you were
using.
And then the extra goes without saying what
it is. Right? Once you have the extra
features you're like, I close this and now
you have to pay.
So and so
I would ledge Maybe have a slight
agreement with them it's nuance agreement with Ver.
I think they've changed their ways. They're maybe
slow pacing us as well. Right? On Github,
think what they're doing with Open Ai right
now is magically
looking a lot like appropriation of
something that initially was an open
Not an open source project, but an an
an open project for the benefit of humanity.
Obviously, there's the case in court that Elon
has taken him to court.
Because he obviously funded them originally and he
was like this is not what... I funded
you guys for. Now they're acquiring a lot
of stuff around the stack, right? Inflection, etcetera.
So. I don't know if they're slow pacing
us or not, I'll give
Satya a walk on that and
suspension of disbelief, but I don't know. It's
always the same name that we talk about
from the late 80 Well, even before. Right?
So eighties, late seventies, eighties, nineties,
Na. It's... Microsoft keeps coming back. So I'm
not sure if it's in the ethos of
the company
or not.
And if I remember, actually, long, long time
ago, maybe was it in the eighties, but
Bill gates was famous to write a letter,
explaining how bad was open source.
That was d a long time ago. So,
yeah, It's a long debate. The browser Wars.
There been so many of these things that
have happened. Right? I mean, it's incredible. It's
as long as a fight with between Apple
and Microsoft I guess, the fight between Microsoft
and Open source.
I think there has been significant improvements, but
it's not as if Microsoft is fully embracing.
Open sources are built on open source.
As sat being
like Aws. You are talking about open
We said on Musk. I mean, definitely, it's
a weird are named for a company that
is anything but top. That's not open.
For I don't know. Your chips in the
package, like, you know, healthy good food. No.
It's not healthy how good to eat cheap
ordering drink coke, but them they call himself
open an ai.
I don't care except that it feels very
much like marketing that is... I mean, basically
lie, and obviously the first and the most
important shoulders of open and the 1 who
help attract some of the best talent to
open, disagree as well with saw and phil
he has been chi. So Elon Musk final
lawsuit suit recently in March against open.
And actually he
even said that if you guys rename the
company closed their eyes, and I I will
stop buying the side.
This call closed there. So we can see
the power of a name. He can have
in the public's mind. And just to be
clear, opening out to my knowledge was not
of a an open source project. Right? It
was a non profit. It still is It's
a non profit. It was a non nonprofit.
It's always been a profit. It still is.
It just happens that now the non profit
has a a for profit below it.
Yes. That was created afterwards. As I said,
I've been involved in something like this in
the past It's not as shocking as it
may seem? It sometimes happens, but it was
never open source. Right? So it's open in
the sense It was a profit for the
benefit of mankind kind of thing. And when
you accept donation in that context, I can
imagine how it might be to see suddenly.
Everyone trying to make huge money out of
it. Actually, sam Admin is not you're making
any money, but given is not a shoulder,
but I understand that he has a way
to leverage his open ai position to build
other stuff brown and then indirectly benefit.
What's surprising is that? Yeah. A lot of
general public even developers houses us might think
that is something open. But as far as
I know there is not much if anything
open. There has been some tools that Have
been open source, I believe by Open ai.
But ultimately, the core of the the company
is not open.
So another company, and this time, I would
say that they are much, much closer to
being open
and being closed this matter
with Lam sri, Lam 2. They have released
the weights. So not the source, but the
weights
of the red lamps. So basically, anyone can
run it. They have put a few restrictions
that limits you if you have hundreds of
millions of users
There are some other specific conditions.
So ultimately,
there are some constraints. So it cannot meet
any
definition of open source,
but I will argue that it can certainly
claim some level of openness that is very
valuable.
Especially in the interface of for Ban
and also close source initiatives.
Yeah. I was just at a session with
Christmas Scene right who obviously
is still credits with having invented the Hashtag.
And it's like, yeah.
When Meta talks about this, but then there's
a limit on how many users you have,
is it really open?
And then
the stuff that doing around mixed reality and
augmented reality now. I'm not sure I fully
trust that this is an open
sourced and endeavor.
I mean, it is for scalability purposes.
I don't know if it's an embrace extend
an ex playbook play, but it feels of
it like that. Feels of it like, let's
sort of run
the open source gamut in the playbook and
then see where we had.
In worst case if it fails miserably it
fails miserably if it works well, then
I can't
possibly think that they won't take over the
ecosystem.
It's tough to say me. I'm just judging
based on the license of the current product.
App apparently are remorse that the they 1
shares the weights of the new version with
huge number of parameters.
So Lam 3 might be the last version
or maybe will have different branch
version I don't know sami here more them
based on what he is for sure. There
is no source code. So
again, it's not open source, but there is
open weight. And it's huge because it means
that in a lot of use cases, 99.9
percent of use cases, you you can use
that and pay no license for its I
would take it as a huge win, and
it's definitely challenging
the the open area of the world and
others because I mean, when you see the
investment from meta to build release to build
these models. I mean, we're talking about hundreds
of millions,
and probably sooner in.
So it's not a small gift. It cost
real money, so I cannot
complain if meta as a business strategy with
that. And as we have seen, most open
source companies have to have a business strategy
to keep it sustainable.
For the user piece, the mix ready approach,
meta Horizon
and Horizon store.
Here, I'm less clear about what's you.
So this 1 is certainly stretching it. As
there might be some openness in the sense
that now you can access the store more
easily as a developer,
You are not relegated gated to a lab
section of The app store for the quest.
Headset,
and they are going to license. Their operating
system to other manufacturers. So so in the
sense of windows is
So so this 1, you can love as
much as you want about the openness, I
guess. To be clear I'm not judging every
company has to have a business strategy.
What you can, however, as a have an
opinion like I have I believe is
what what's the marketing you use to call
it open
when it's fully closed in every way,
but you are open to having third party
licensing your product.
That's a bit much on the openness. But
I guess you know what, consumers, developers companies
just have to love things through the marketing.
But again, I will take what is really
open and be happy about it. I think
that on the mix reality side, it's a
good strategy be frank. For Facebook to license
their product,
to be even better if they don't push
it too much on the marketing side. Yeah.
They keeps talking about it like it's open
as well, and it's not. Right? I mean,
it's not that definition of open.
And and it's true already with Lam. Right?
I mean, Llama 2 etcetera. I mean,
their special licenses there's limits on what you
can do
ton of limits. So it's like,
not tons limits. It not too much. I
mean, come on, P, it's used for training
other language models.
Requires a special license for deployment in App
service with more than 7000000 daily users, basically
means the big competitors. Right? It means Google
cannot use it, but if you're not Google,
you can. And then they can change the
license tomorrow, it's not 700000000. It's it's a
hundred.
No. No. No No. Yes they cannot change
the license. I mean Lam 2 as is
for future versions of Lam, they can. Sure.
But that's the Yeah. Prerogative. But but that's
also because it's not open source. If it
has open source,
it would be your to... But that's why
I'm saying they're calling all of these efforts
open, that's. They're not open. They're basically saying
we're investing a bunch of money into these
things.
And we're making this super usable by you
guys for free.
It's like Facebook is open, Right? Facebook is
free to consumers. So they're gonna make money
somewhere else. That's the Facebook playbook.
Free at the point of consumption. But that's
fair. I think that the definition of most
open source businesses
today They have to find a business for
that. But this is not even open source
Belt. There's an open source here. Where's the
open source of this? For me to have
an That I'm free to run in 99.99
percent of the use cases as long as
I'm not Google. I mean, it's kind of
magic to be frank. It's a huge
competition. That's why we have probably
some competition like mist trial is going even
more open source. I'm all fired personally.
Again, if you're a developer if you're a
company, what are your choices? To pay open
an to spend a billion to build your
financial model,
I mean, you don't have a lot of
option, and this is super high quality. This
is not trash what they're are giving. I
don't see how this doesn't become an embrace
extend distinguish play.
Potentially, I cannot judge and I can imagine
that they have a strategy will becomes that.
I don't know from it stuff to
judge before.
Something bad happen. Right now, I'm just
know what? Let's use it. And if you
change,
let's not use it.
Of course, let's consider alternatives. You might say,
no. I'm going to miss joel because I
believe in the strategy, I believe in the
approach.
And I believe in years to come they
will keep doing that way, but it's a
much smaller startups, so it's also tough if
you know where it's going.
There's obviously the angle on geopolitical geopolitics you
mentioned, you know, some of the tweets from
Vin Ko re recently
on Ai staying closed source
because of China, etcetera.
This obviously, a famous investor, an extremely successful
investor,
Personally I feel is too much is on
investment. He has big investment in
And congrats san, and by the way I
have nothing against open air per s in
the product,
but is part of that regulatory push to
forbid
open source Ai, which for me is insane.
It's like, what? I mean
how we serious, the world is built on
linux.
Do you know the world is built on
android? I mean, open source is part of
our life?
To suddenly says that you have to close
the eye for for what reason sorry, can
you we repeat again because you you fears
the rise of Ci robots or something. I'm
pretty angry. I mean, it's 1 thing to
say, you know, you orbit forbid some exports
and you do some exports control and some
that's 1 thing. But to say no guys.
Because it's a, you cannot make it open
anymore. It's pretty for acceptable and to seem
with so much vested interest
to lobby for this,
It just doesn't she right to me.
I agree with a
with their overall view. Right? That obviously calling
it with pi interests at the table, etcetera.
When there's other
things you can do. Right? Export controls it.
I think that's true.
I would also say that's the advantage of
close. Right? The advantage of close is it's
it's closed.
Nobody knows what is underneath it. Right? Reverse
engineering, It's extremely difficult,
etcetera. So,
I mean, is there geopolitical fight right now
with China clearly. I mean, we've talked about
it in previous episodes. Does that mean that
there are areas
of
development in the Us and other parts of
the world also in Europe,
that need to be
more cautious in how
these instances are manifested to the rest of
the world, probably yes.
Is it a matter of clothes versus open?
In some cases, it might be actually? Obviously,
it's a little bit peri?
I feel it's a little bit like, a
bit of a spin on the situation
in terms of comm and communication, but honestly,
some of it might be warranted. I think
at some point people do need have that's
in notion and
take to to du account. You're right to
have your opinion personally I'm totally against it.
I think it makes no sense. Or we
accept what is next is it going to
make sure that Linux is becoming close source
and for forbidden done to to export anywhere
and. I mean, it's too late. No. But
because that cat is out of the bag.
The Ai cat is not out of the
bag yet. Right?
I think that's the difference.
Ai is similar.
I mean, Chinese Scientists are doing great work
on Ai. I mean, if you look at
labs,
across the Us. I mean, Ai labs. I
mean, how many from Chinese decent. I mean,
it's not fair for me at this stage.
To try to close it to block some
business model.
And more important, this is based on total
bush bullshit assumption I mean, this is based
on Ai it's going to take over the
world. Ai is student.
Ai can be used by others. I mean,
Others are going to invent and to invest,
and I don't see why for building open
source is going to help. What it's going
to help.
Is going to ent some corporate interest. That's
what we know for sure is going to
happen. And I don't see that as good
anyway. So while the world goes around, Belt.
That's how the world goes around. No. No.
No. No. The world add.
It is as it's gone around for the
last many decades.
No. That's not true. As the internet is
running online, not on Microsoft Windows. With initiative
like this. Will have run on Microsoft Windows
and it's running on Cisco routers and stuff
like that of people that have made a
ton of money out of it. You know
the alternatives. In term of foot around Francisco,
it's a shadow of what it used to
be here. Yeah. Well, the Chinese also came
that market that's a different discussion. So I
feel it's warranted. In and it's a decision
of the company and but the shareholders and
moves in there. Right? Now, I'm not here
to a pine where open Ai,
raised money under the wrong
construct. It is the construct of the shareholders.
And and it is the the finishing of
the shareholders.
And they're subject to regulations in the specific
markers that they operate in, and they can
get slapped, right, if they break those regulations,
but it is. And you know, the case
of open ai I think the the situation
is
is I don't know. I don't know what
was agreed and what is written down in
terms of agreements between,
Elon and Sam and all these guys initially?
What was the agreement they had? And is
this a illegally binding agreement or not? Right?
It's as simple as that. I mean, are
they now changing tech?
On Ola point Ai, the discussion is, can
they now be fully closed or not? Or
it... They were never really open Right? It
was more of a profit or a for
profit.
No. That was not my point. That was
not my point. My point was about regulating
and for forbid open source Ai.
So if you are talking about open air
ai different story, I have no problems to
do what they want. But if they are
pushing regulation to limit competition, that's a different
story. But but Beth, I agree with you.
Regulation that that makes it impossible for someone
to have open source ai in the Us,
I think is silly. Now for many companies
to close
their stacks.
It is what it is. Right?
So I think we are not. I don't
know what happened, you know. But me, I
have only been talking about open source Ai
being forbidden and by regulation and regulatory capture
that the only thing I talk about. Should
not be Open air as a company as
long as they don't cheat the shoulder they
do what they want, and the flow regression.
But for me, what is critical is to
let Ai develop itself as it wants in
a way so that we don't
add some level of
introduction by regulations. And I'm very worried to
be clear. It's not just that. It's also
regulations that are coming to Ai,
if you think about what happened recently in
California, Are proposing some new regulations, dan scary
about blocking innovation in Ai, so I think
we have to be very worried and careful
and I our eyes open that a lot
of regulatory
capture is being prepared by some and we
have to... To push back I believe. We
I agree on that. Right?
But the option for, you know, specific companies
and ecosystems to just say this is closed
now. I think it is what it is.
Companies. I I have no problem, so
Sure what said agreement.
There there was gonna be a point in
time where I feel we're gonna have a
discussion on more
complex industrial policy. Right? Whether it is right
for a country to national a technology, for
example.
And say this tech is now owned by
the country, or this tech is now
forbidden
to be taken by anyone else outside of
the. For example, we could have an argument
also around imports and export laws, Is there
a mandate that I could take on that?
And what I'm hearing from you is you're
okay with that? That within certain boundaries they
can do that?
Yes. But but again, it depends on what.
I understand that there are some products you
can, but to say I'm going to... To
4 open source and 4 forbid company to
have an open source approach is very shocking
after that.
Export investigation. We say you know what? This
price open source but I'm trying to forbid
some countries to access it.
Okay. Sure. But again, the the most
successful open upon source project is not American
and it's called Linux, and so so what
do you do about that? So let's let's
I'll solve the problem. So let's charge 1
dollar.
Open source.
Okay.
I'm sure there are lawyers working on a
solution already. If in case this ever happens,
which I think will not, but, yeah. Yeah.
I I just think it's important to not
read
retroactively change law, not retroactively
change some business approach. But I understand some
level of regulation and to consider that you
regulate some news of some
technologies, but I think you have to find
it. To do it in a way that's
reasonable and achievable, and I think that's happening
in some other sectors of the Ai industry
not not a softer side. And at that
time I'm fine. And on this file agreement,
maybe we conclude today's episode, episode 55,
what is open versus not open in tech.
We went through history lane on open source
software? We defined it. We talked about some
of the core innovations that happened in the
space
that will well beyond just software development.
Organizational business model wise.
We talked about lies when open is not
open, but it may be a mode or
bridge fore closed.
I think a little bit more optimistic on
belt side, maybe a little bit less.
On my side in some areas,
and then we got to some of the
of Ai and what's happening right now where
we ended up on this violent agreement.
Thank you, Bet. Thank you, Nino.
You can check the latest on our website
the s show dot com.
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B Schmidt and at En pedro.
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