Desktop Summit: Large companies and open source

As part of being the chief Linux and open source technologist at Intel, Dirk Hohndel flies all around the world to talk to conferences on various topics. This time around, he came to Berlin to talk to the Desktop Summit about the role of large companies in open source. Some recent events caused him to take a bit of a detour on the way to his topic, but, as it turned out, that detour fit in fairly well with the rest of his message.

By way of an introduction, Hohndel said he has been hacking since he was 11 years old, doing Linux for almost 20 years, and open source a bit longer than that—though it wasn't called open source back then. These days, he still writes code, though not as much as he might like, but he still considers himself a hacker.

The detour

Because he was coming to the summit, Hohndel said that he decided to install the latest versions of both GNOME and KDE. But then he made a mistake. He publicly complained (in this thread) about his experience with GNOME 3. He was, he said, trying to give some feedback, and the reaction was not quite what he expected.

But Hohndel is very happy about how far the free desktops have come. Both GNOME 3 and KDE 4 look "sleek and professional", he said. He is also glad to see that the free desktops have stopped following along with what Windows is doing, though that may have shifted to following Mac OS X a little too closely these days. The Mac interface is "awesome" as long as "you do exactly what Steve wants you to do", otherwise, it turns into: "you can't do that". He sees something of that attitude bleeding over into the Linux world, which is worrisome.

He noted that the most recent Mac OS X update changed the way scrolling worked, which made it very confusing and hard to work with for some people. But, he said, Apple also added an option to turn off the new scrolling behavior. That's what seems to be missing in the GNOME 3 situation. It is not helpful at all if the first reaction to a criticism is "you're an idiot", and that's some of what he's seeing. Radical change is difficult, he said, and he is very glad GNOME and KDE are taking it on, "but don't leave people stranded".

Large companies and open source

Shifting gears, Hohndel launched into his main topic and listed three "F"s that can be used to describe the relationship between large companies and open source—and "one is not the one you are thinking of". The three are funding, feedback, and freedom. Funding is more than just hiring developers to work on free software, he said, there is lots more that companies do. Sponsoring conferences (like the Desktop Summit), helping developers travel to various conferences, getting hardware into the hands of the right developers, and so on, are all things that companies do.

But, "don't just think of us as moneybags", he said. Companies have other uses as well and one of the biggest is in providing feedback. Companies spend huge amounts of time and money trying to figure out what their customers want. While open source developers mostly talk among themselves, companies are out talking to customers.

Unfortunately, the results of those customer talks are "conveyed in unbearable marketing-speak", he said, but there is value in it. Gaining that value requires listening carefully and filtering what you hear. Intel always has the Intel view, and other companies are the same, so one needs to take that into account. It is important to keep an open mind even when the feedback is critical of a particular feature or project.

One area where open source could do a much better job is in documenting the response to a bug report or feature request. It is often the case that reports and requests either get a "vicious response" or none at all. Two releases later, it might be fixed, or not, with very little indication of which is going to happen—or why. It would be much better for all concerned if requests that are rejected have a clear reason stated as to "why the request cannot or should not be implemented".

Freedom (or control)

The third element is freedom, which Hohndel said he really wanted to call "control", but that it didn't start with an F. Large companies have agendas and an ingrained need to control things. As long as open source developers understand a company's intentions, a good working relationship can come about. Companies "are not per se malicious, we just appear that way", he said. By definition, companies are "looking out for our interests first, yours second".

Big company managers "manage to numbers", Hohndel said, not freedom or the greater good and that affects their decision-making. Things can change quickly and three months down the road a particular project "may not be interesting anymore", and free software developers and projects need to recognize that. If the project is depending on a company to finish a particular library that is being used by the project, the developers should be prepared that the priorities or interest level of the company may change.

Most open source developers today are employed to do so, he said, like it or not—most of the developers themselves do like it. For the kernel, he cited statistics from LWN showing that 80% of kernel developers are paid to do that work. He couldn't find similar statistics for GNOME or KDE, but they are likely to be comparable.

"Companies are very important, but change the way things work with projects", he said. Most projects start small and are created by individuals for their peer group. That means that they are not designed for working with companies, particularly in the areas of licenses and governance. If the main developers are all suddenly snapped up by a particular company, it can change things. It is something that projects should consider because "freedom is often overlooked" when a project starts to look at working with companies.

In summary, Hohndel said, no big open source project is independent from large companies today because they have all been "engaged and infiltrated" by those companies and their employees. That means that projects need to understand how to work with companies to get the most out of them. Part of that understanding will come from listening. Companies can really help accelerate development on a project, which is one of the reasons it is worth figuring out how to make it work.

GNOME and KDE are "both beautiful looking desktops", he said, and "we are miles and miles ahead of where we were a few years ago". There is still some way to go before they are ready to go for everyone, but his hope is that the week-long summit will help solve some of those problems and get us that much closer.

[ I would like to thank KDE e.V. and the GNOME Foundation for assistance with travel funding to the Desktop Summit. ]