The road to World Domination

Those of us who wish to promote the free software cause can't rest yet, however. Free software still has a great many hurdles to overcome, including:

• Security. The free software community likes to claim greater security, and this claim may even be true. The security of free software is not yet good enough, however. Recent bugs in packages like Apache, Squid, and OpenSSH have put large numbers of systems at risk; they are the stuff that large-scale destructive worms are made of. There are still too many silly mistakes turning up in free software; we need to do better.

• Interoperability. The free office suites currently available are more than good enough for most users at this point. At least, until those users need to exchange documents with people using proprietary packages. Until this problem is solved, people will stay with proprietary systems. Linux systems also need to do better at running software written for other operating systems. Progress is being made, but we are not yet there.

• Proprietary software support. It will be a long time before free packages rival the variety of proprietary software out there. Where are the free business plan writers, training systems, contact managers, math tutors, foreign language instructors, genealogy assistants, home designers, tax preparers, high-end games, etc.? Until we have filled in those gaps, we should be friendlier to software vendors who make Linux systems more attractive to more people. That means standards compliance, stable interfaces, and an end to outright hostility toward software vendors. As long as those vendors comply with the licenses of the free software they are using, they are only helping the Linux cause by porting their products.

• Business models. Some companies seem to be doing OK, if not great, as free software businesses. Consider Red Hat, Zope Corp., Sleepycat, Collabnet, IBM, etc. Many others are hurting, or have gone out of business. Free software needs successful businesses to keep up its current rate of growth, and it would be better if we didn't end up with just a small number of huge companies employing most free software hackers. There is still work to be done on the business side of free software.

• Legal issues. Intellectual property law, including repressive copyright terms, "anti-circumvention" provisions, software patents, and more, threatens to hamper (or ban outright) Linux in many parts of the world. Somehow we have got to get a handle on our legislative systems and not allow free software to be pushed aside by laws favoring a small number of large corporations. This battle will not be easy; the opposing interests are powerful and this is not an issue that is interesting or understandable to most people. We must fight it anyway, though, or much of the rest of our work may turn out to be in vain.

There is, in other words, a lot of work to do still. Free software has always been surprising in what it has been able to accomplish, though. The free software community has a great chance of being able to handle these challenges as well.

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