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I was at Agenda 2000

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and one of the people who was
there, was Craig Mundie,

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who is some kind of high
mucky muck at Microsoft,

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I think vice-president of consumer
products or something like that,

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and I hadn't actually
met him.

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I bumped in to him in an elevator,
in an elevator

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and I looked at his badge and said,
oh, I see you work for Microsoft,

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and he looked back to me and said,
oh, yeah and what do you do?

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And I thought he seemed
just a sort of a tad dismissive,

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I mean, here's the archetypal,
you know, guy in a suit

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looking at
a scruffy hacker,

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and so I gave him the thousand
yard stare and said,

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I'm your
worst nightmare.

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For most its short,
but colorful history,

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the computer industry
has been dominated

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by the Windows
operating system,

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but that could
soon change,

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as Windows faces a strong
challenge from Linux.

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Silicon Valley has long
been the place

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to develop new
technology,

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start new companies and
get really rich.

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Now The Valley is the front
line in a revolution

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fighting for that most
politically incorrect of ideas.

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Individual freedom.

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Day and night,
a loose confederation of

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hackers and programmers
zaps bits pieces of

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computer code around the world
as it builds the tools

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to set computer users free

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using open information and
the free exchange of technology

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to achieve its goals.

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This revolution began
in the 1980's with

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the Free Software Movement
and GNU project,

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and now is most commonly
associated

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with Linux and
the Open Source Movement.

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We do have one sector that
is taking off today,

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it is the Linux-related sector,

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and I thought this might be
a good opportunity to say...

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What is Linux?

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And I'll answer this question
for you.

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Many of you probably
already know,

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but there are 12 million
users out there,

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a computer operating system
developed by hundreds of

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programmers collaborating
on the internet,

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a challenge to
Microsoft Windows NT,

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very popular for its speed

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and so this is
what the craze is about.

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To kind of explain what
Linux is you have to

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explain what
an operating system is,

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and the thing about operating
system is that you, I mean...

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you're never ever
supposed to see it

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because...

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nobody really uses
an operating system,

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people use programs
on their computer

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and the only mission
in life

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of an operating system is
to help those programs run,

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so an operating system never
does anything on its own,

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it's only waiting for
the programs to

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ask for certain
resources or,

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ask for a certain file
on the disk

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or ask for
the programs to

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connect them to
the outside world,

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and then the operating system
comes, steps in and then

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tries to make it easy for people
to write programs.

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Open source is a way for people
to collaborate

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on software without being encumbered by
all of the problems of intellectual property,

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having to negotiate contracts every
time you buy a piece of software,

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have a lot of
lawyers involved.

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In general, we just wanna
get the software to work

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and we want
to be able to have

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people contribute
fixes to that, etc...

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so we sort of
sacrifice some of

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the intellectual
property rights

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and just let the whole world
use the software.

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Before there could be Linux

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there was Richard Stallman
and the Free Software Movement.

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They think of Richard Stallman
as the...

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great philosopher,
right,

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and think of me
as the engineer.

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Richard Stallman is the founding father
of the Free Software Movement.

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Through his efforts to build
the GNU Operating System

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he created the legal, philosophical
and technological foundation

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for the Free Software Movement.

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Without these contributions,

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it's unlikely that Linux
and open source

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would have evolved in to their
current forms today.

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I joined the MIT
Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971,

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I joined a thriving
community of hackers,

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people who
loved programming,

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loved exploring what they
could do with computers,

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and they had developed a complete
operating system,

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entirely written there,

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and I became one
of the team, that

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continued to improve the operating
system, adding new capabilities.

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That was my job, and I loved it, we
all loved it. That's why we were doing it.

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And we called our system

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the Incompatible Time
Sharing System

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which is an example
of the

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playful spirit

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which defines a hacker.

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Hackers are people who enjoy
playful cleverness.

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Well, it first started
going wrong

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as the outside world started
pressuring us to have passwords.

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We didn't have any passwords
on our computer,

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and the reason was
that the hackers

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who'd originally
designed the system

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realized that passwords were a way
the administrators could control all the users,

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and they didn't want
to build tools

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you know, locks and keys for
the administrators to control them,

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so they just didn't do it,
they left that out,

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and we had the philosophy
that whoever sitting at the computer

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should be able to do
whatever he wants

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and somebody else who was there yesterday
shouldn't be controlling what you do today.

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When they put passwords onto one
of the machines at MIT

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I and bunch of other hackers
didn't like it,

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I decided to try
a subversive sort of hack.

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I figured out how to decode
the passwords,

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so by looking at the database
of encoded passwords

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I could figure out what each person
would actually type to login,

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and so I sent messages
to people, saying...

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Hello? I see that you've chosen
the password mumble,

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whatever it was,
how about if you do as I do,

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just type Enter for
your password,

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it's much shorter,
much easier to type.

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And of course
with this message I was

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implicitly telling them
the security was really just a joke.

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Anyway, but in addition
I was letting them in on this hack,

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and eventually, a fifth of all the
users on that computer joined me

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in using just Enter
as their passwords.

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Where did the ideas that lead to what
is now called Open Source world?

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How did that begin?
Who began that?

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It actually began with the start
of computers because at that time

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software was just passed
around between people

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and I think it was only like
in the lates 70's or early 80's

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that people started really
closing up their software,

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and saying, no, you can never
get a look at the source code,

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you can't change the software
even if it's necessary

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for you to fix it,
for your own application.

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And you can actually blame
some of that on Microsoft,

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they are one of the real pioneers
of the proprietary software model.

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In the mid 1970's,
a group of hackers

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and computer hobbyist in Silicon Valley
formed the Homebrew Computer Club.

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In the club January 31,
1976 newsletter,

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Bill Gates of the recently
formed Microsoft,

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wrote an open letter
to the community

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where he made a point by point argument for
the relatively new concept of proprietary software

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up to that point, the practice of computer users
had been to freely pass around software

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with not much thought given to
its ownership,

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known as An Open Letter to Hobbyists,
Bill Gates writes,

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to me the most critical thing
in the hobby market right now

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is the lack of good software courses,
books and software itself,

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without good software and an owner
who understands programming,

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a hobby computer
is wasted.

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Will quality software be written
for the hobby market?

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Gates goes on to write,
the feedback we have gotten from

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the hundreds of people who say they are
using BASIC has all been positive.

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Two surprising things
are apparent however.

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One, most of these users
never bought BASIC, and

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two, the amount of royalties we have
received from sales to hobbyists

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makes the time spent on of Altair BASIC
worth less than 2 dollars an hour.

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Why is this?

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As the majority of hobbyists
must be aware,

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most of you steal your software.

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Hardware must be paid for but
software is something to share.

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Who cares if the people who
worked on it get paid?

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Is this fair?

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One thing you don't do
by stealing software

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is get back at MITS for some
problem you may have had,

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MITS doesn't make money
selling software.

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One thing you do do is prevent
good software from being written.

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Who can afford to do
professional work for nothing?

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What hobbyist can put
3-man years into programming,

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finding all bugs, documenting his product
and distribute it for free?

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The fact is,

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no one besides us has invested
a lot of money in hobby software.

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What about the guys
who resell Altair BASIC?

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Aren't they making money
on hobby software?

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Yes, but those who have been
reported to us may lose in the end.

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They are the ones who give
hobbyists a bad name,

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and should be kicked out of any
club meeting they show up at.

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I would appreciate letters from
anyone who wants to pay up,

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or has a suggestion
or comment.

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Signed Bill Gates,
General partner, Micro-Soft.

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In the late 70's and early 1980's,
Richard Stallman was

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doing Artificial Intelligence
research and coding

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at the MIT
Artificial Intelligence Lab.

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Richard had a number
of negative experiences

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during that period
which soured him

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on the whole idea
of commercial software.

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Such as?

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Some company wanted to work on and
wanted to fix was locked up,

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and he couldn't get the company that
owned on the code to let him fix it

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even though it would have been
to their advantage to do so.

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And that put me into
a moral dilemma, you see?

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Because to get one of the modern computers
of the day, which was the early 80's,

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you would have to get a
proprietary operating system.

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The developers of those systems
didn't share with other people,

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instead they tried to
control the users,

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00:10:06,100 --> 00:10:07,900
dominate the users,
restrict them,

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say, if
to get the system,

200
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you have to sign a promise you
won't share with anybody else

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and to me that was essentially
a promise to be a bad person,

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to betray the rest
of the world,

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cut myself off from society
from a co-operating community.

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And I had already experienced what
happened when other people did that to us,

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when they refused
to share with us,

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because they had signed
these contracts,

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00:10:33,100 --> 00:10:34,900
and it hurt
the whole lab,

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it kept us from doing
useful things before,

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so I just wasn't going
to do that.

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I thought, this is wrong,
I am not going to live this way.

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And from experiences like this
he developed a profound hostility

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00:10:48,500 --> 00:10:51,100
to the idea of intellectual
property and software.

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00:10:51,200 --> 00:10:54,800
He eventually acted this out by
founding the Free Software Foundation.

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So, I looked for another alternative
and I realized...

215
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I was an operating system
developer.

216
00:11:01,100 --> 00:11:04,800
If I were to develop another
operating system,

217
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:08,600
and then as the author,
encourage everyone to share it,

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00:11:08,700 --> 00:11:12,400
say, everyone, you come and get it,
use this, form a new community,

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00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:17,700
not only could I gave myself a way
to keep using computers without

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00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:21,000
betraying other people, but
I'd give it to everybody else too.

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00:11:21,100 --> 00:11:24,000
Everybody would have a way
out of that moral dilemma

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00:11:25,500 --> 00:11:28,800
and so I realized this was
what I had to do with my life.

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I actually began the project
in January of 1984,

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00:11:33,300 --> 00:11:36,000
that's when I resigned
for my job at MIT

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00:11:36,100 --> 00:11:39,900
to start developing
the GNU operating system.

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00:11:40,900 --> 00:11:44,200
Now I should explain
the name GNU is a hack,

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because it's
a recursive acronym,

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it stands for
GNU's Not Unix.

229
00:11:50,700 --> 00:11:53,800
You see so the G in GNU
stands for GNU.

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00:11:53,800 --> 00:11:55,900
And what the name
means is

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00:11:55,900 --> 00:12:00,400
I was developing a system that was
like the Unix operating system,

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00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:02,800
but was not the Unix
operating system.

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00:12:02,800 --> 00:12:04,300
This was a
different system,

234
00:12:04,300 --> 00:12:06,700
we would have to write
it completely from scratch

235
00:12:06,700 --> 00:12:08,600
because Unix was
proprietary,

236
00:12:08,700 --> 00:12:10,500
we were forbidden
to share Unix,

237
00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:14,200
we couldn't use Unix,
it was useless for a community,

238
00:12:14,300 --> 00:12:17,800
so we had to write
a replacement for it.

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00:12:19,400 --> 00:12:20,600
Throughout the 1980s,

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00:12:20,700 --> 00:12:23,200
as Richard Stallman
was building the GNU project,

241
00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:26,800
computer scientists from
the University of California at Berkeley

242
00:12:26,900 --> 00:12:29,200
were developing their own
free operating system,

243
00:12:29,500 --> 00:12:32,000
known as Berkeley Unix,
or BSD.

244
00:12:32,100 --> 00:12:36,000
It was based upon the Unix kernel
which had been licensed from AT&T.

245
00:12:36,100 --> 00:12:40,800
However, due to legal problems with AT&T
and fragmentation of the source code,

246
00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:44,600
hackers and other non-institutional
users were slow to adopt it.

247
00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:48,800
Well, Unix consisted of a large
number of separate programs

248
00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:50,900
that communicated
with each other,

249
00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,900
so we just had to replace
these programs one by one,

250
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:57,700
so what I started doing was
writing a replacement for one program,

251
00:12:57,800 --> 00:12:59,600
and then another,
and then another,

252
00:12:59,700 --> 00:13:01,400
and then people started
joining me,

253
00:13:01,500 --> 00:13:05,100
because I published an announcement
inviting other people to join me

254
00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:06,800
to help write
these programs.

255
00:13:07,100 --> 00:13:14,500
And by around 1991, we had
replaced practically all of them.

256
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:16,300
What were some
of the programs that you...

257
00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:19,500
Well, we had to
have a complete system,

258
00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:23,200
you need to have a kernel,
which is the program that

259
00:13:23,300 --> 00:13:26,100
allocates resources
to all the other programs,

260
00:13:26,300 --> 00:13:29,600
you need a compiler,
which translates a program

261
00:13:29,700 --> 00:13:35,000
from readable source code that
programmers can understand into numbers,

262
00:13:35,100 --> 00:13:39,400
mysterious numbers that
the computer can actually run.

263
00:13:39,500 --> 00:13:42,000
You need other programs that go
with the compiler to help do this job,

264
00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:43,100
you need a debugger,

265
00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:44,800
you need a text editor,

266
00:13:44,900 --> 00:13:46,000
you need text formatters,

267
00:13:46,100 --> 00:13:47,900
you need mailers,

268
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:49,300
you need lots
and lots of things.

269
00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:53,000
There are hundreds of programs
in a Unix-like operating system.

270
00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:55,000
I saw Stallman's
announcement,

271
00:13:55,100 --> 00:13:58,400
actually I met him
in February of 1987.

272
00:13:58,500 --> 00:14:03,000
He came to give a five-day tutorial
on Emacs at our company

273
00:14:03,100 --> 00:14:05,700
and during the day
he would explain

274
00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:07,900
new ways to think
about Emacs

275
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:11,000
and ways to extend it, enhance it,
and to use the Emacs source code

276
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:12,900
for better or worse.

277
00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:16,200
But in the evening, he was
busily working on this compiler,

278
00:14:16,300 --> 00:14:18,600
and he had not yet
released it to the public,

279
00:14:18,700 --> 00:14:22,300
so he was being
a little bit careful about

280
00:14:22,400 --> 00:14:24,800
who got to see
the source code,

281
00:14:24,900 --> 00:14:28,300
but I was very eager, and when
he first announced it in June,

282
00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:30,000
I downloaded it
immediately,

283
00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:31,600
I played with it,

284
00:14:31,700 --> 00:14:33,900
I got some pointers
from him,

285
00:14:34,100 --> 00:14:35,700
and when I sent the source
code back to him,

286
00:14:35,800 --> 00:14:37,000
he was very,

287
00:14:37,100 --> 00:14:41,800
actually amazed that how quickly
I was able to ramp up on his technology.

288
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:46,800
Whenever we worked on something
at Stanford or in the university,

289
00:14:46,900 --> 00:14:48,700
we would get,
mostly at the time,

290
00:14:48,800 --> 00:14:52,700
we were working off machines from
Digital Equipment or Sun, mostly Sun.

291
00:14:52,900 --> 00:14:54,400
Whenever we would get
a Sun machine,

292
00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:59,000
the first thing we would do is
we would spend literally days

293
00:14:59,100 --> 00:15:03,100
downloading GNU free software
from the internet,

294
00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:05,600
building it and installing it
on that Sun machine.

295
00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:09,300
The crucial thing about GNU is
that it's free software,

296
00:15:09,700 --> 00:15:13,200
and free software refers not
to price, but to freedom,

297
00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:15,700
so think of free speech,
not free beer.

298
00:15:16,700 --> 00:15:19,000
The freedoms that
I am talking about

299
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:22,000
are the freedoms to make
changes if you want to,

300
00:15:22,100 --> 00:15:24,800
or hire somebody else
to make changes for you

301
00:15:24,900 --> 00:15:27,000
if you're using a software
for your business,

302
00:15:27,100 --> 00:15:30,800
to redistribute copies,
to share with other people,

303
00:15:30,900 --> 00:15:34,000
and to make improvements
and publish them

304
00:15:34,100 --> 00:15:37,000
so that other people can
get the benefit of them too.

305
00:15:37,100 --> 00:15:40,900
And those are the freedoms that distinguish
free software from non-free software,

306
00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:45,000
these are the freedoms that
enable people to form a community.

307
00:15:45,100 --> 00:15:46,600
If you don't have
all these freedoms,

308
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:49,400
you're being divided and
dominated by somebody.

309
00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:53,500
My first experience
contributing to free software

310
00:15:53,500 --> 00:15:57,500
came in late 1989,
early 1990.

311
00:15:57,700 --> 00:16:00,700
I was working as a graduate student
at Stanford University

312
00:16:00,900 --> 00:16:03,100
on Computer Aided Design tools.

313
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:05,300
One of the pieces
I needed was a tool

314
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:07,000
called a parser
generator.

315
00:16:07,300 --> 00:16:09,300
Well, the Free Software
Foundation

316
00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:12,800
under Richard Stallman
created a great tool called bison.

317
00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:16,900
I needed a tool that worked with C++.
Bison worked with C.

318
00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:20,600
I modified bison to create
something called bison++

319
00:16:20,700 --> 00:16:23,200
and it's a tremendous
feeling of empowerment

320
00:16:23,300 --> 00:16:26,400
be able to take a piece
of software that was available

321
00:16:26,500 --> 00:16:31,000
and create what you needed in a very
short piece of time by modifying it,

322
00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:33,600
I put it back
on the internet

323
00:16:33,700 --> 00:16:35,400
and I was amazed
at the number of people

324
00:16:35,500 --> 00:16:37,400
that picked it up
and started using it.

325
00:16:37,500 --> 00:16:41,500
In fact, I remember
going to job interviews,

326
00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:44,600
I, at various times, considered
just going out getting a job,

327
00:16:44,800 --> 00:16:46,600
and I'd gone
to a job interview,

328
00:16:46,700 --> 00:16:48,100
and I was talking
to one of the people,

329
00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:51,000
and I started asking them
about what tools they used,

330
00:16:51,100 --> 00:16:53,500
and they said,
gee, we used bison++

331
00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:55,900
and I said,
oh, I am the author of bison++.

332
00:16:56,100 --> 00:17:00,600
Free software generally
does have a copyright,

333
00:17:00,700 --> 00:17:03,300
it does have an owner

334
00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:04,500
and it has a license.

335
00:17:04,600 --> 00:17:06,400
It is not public domain.

336
00:17:06,500 --> 00:17:09,100
If we put the software
in the public domain,

337
00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:12,400
somebody else would be able to make
a little bit of changes

338
00:17:12,500 --> 00:17:15,400
and turn that into
a proprietary software package,

339
00:17:15,500 --> 00:17:18,300
which means that the users
would be running our software,

340
00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:21,300
but they wouldn't have
freedom to cooperate and share.

341
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,700
To prevent that, we use
a technique called copyleft.

342
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:29,200
The idea of copyleft is that
it's copyright flipped over,

343
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:31,700
and what we do is,
we say,

344
00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:33,700
this software is
copyrighted

345
00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:38,100
and we, the authors give you
permission to redistribute copies,

346
00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:39,700
we give you permission
to change,

347
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:41,400
we give you permission
to add to it,

348
00:17:41,500 --> 00:17:43,200
but when you redistribute it,

349
00:17:43,300 --> 00:17:47,000
it has to be under these terms,
no more and no less,

350
00:17:47,100 --> 00:17:49,300
so that whoever gets it
from you

351
00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:54,700
also gets the freedom to cooperate
with other people, if he wants to,

352
00:17:54,800 --> 00:17:58,300
and then, in this way
everywhere the software goes,

353
00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:00,000
the freedom goes too

354
00:18:00,100 --> 00:18:02,400
and it becomes
an inalienable right

355
00:18:03,500 --> 00:18:06,100
to cooperate with other people
and form a community.

356
00:18:06,300 --> 00:18:09,600
And so, what is that? The license?
What was that...?

357
00:18:09,700 --> 00:18:11,700
Well, copyleft
being a general idea,

358
00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:14,800
in order to use it, you have
to have specific example.

359
00:18:14,900 --> 00:18:18,600
The specific example we use for
most GNU software packages

360
00:18:18,700 --> 00:18:21,600
is the GNU
General Public License,

361
00:18:21,700 --> 00:18:25,700
a particular document in legalese
which accomplishes this job.

362
00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:28,700
A lot of other people use
that same license, for example,

363
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:32,200
Linus Torvalds uses
that license for Linux as well.

364
00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:36,700
Well, the license I use is the
GNU General Public License,

365
00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:38,700
that's the one
Richard Stallman wrote,

366
00:18:38,800 --> 00:18:42,700
and I think it is really
astounding contribution,

367
00:18:42,800 --> 00:18:46,800
it's one of the few software
licenses that was written

368
00:18:47,100 --> 00:18:50,500
from the standpoint
of the community rather than

369
00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:54,400
from the standpoint
of protecting a company

370
00:18:54,500 --> 00:19:00,000
or as is the case
with MIT and BSD license

371
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:03,900
performing the goals of
a government grant program,

372
00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:07,000
and the GPL
is really unique in that.

373
00:19:07,100 --> 00:19:10,500
It's not just a license,
it's a whole philosophy that,

374
00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:13,600
I think, motivated
the open source definition.

375
00:19:13,700 --> 00:19:18,000
I don't hide that a lot of what
I do came from Stallman.

376
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:26,400
A crucial step in the growth of
GNU/Linux and the Free Software movement

377
00:19:26,500 --> 00:19:30,100
was the creation of businesses
based upon the software and philosophy.

378
00:19:30,300 --> 00:19:32,800
Grown zero for the beginning
of the business phase

379
00:19:32,900 --> 00:19:36,000
was the Electronics Research Lab
at Stanford University,

380
00:19:36,300 --> 00:19:39,600
known as ERL, the lab was
the place for the first GNU

381
00:19:39,700 --> 00:19:42,000
and Linux business
founder inspiration.

382
00:19:42,100 --> 00:19:44,100
So right here
was where ERL was.

383
00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:47,700
That would have been the entrance
over there next to the...

384
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:50,100
electrical engineering
McCullough building.

385
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:54,000
As you walk in, you come in,
you walk down the hallway, down here.

386
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,100
My office would have
been about here,

387
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:01,500
and then right across the hall, from
that was Michael Tiemann's office.

388
00:20:02,100 --> 00:20:06,200
Michael Tiemann took and started
a company, Cygnus Software,

389
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:11,100
where the idea was to sell consulting
and services around the GNU Free Software

390
00:20:11,100 --> 00:20:13,500
and, well, Michael's done
very well with Cygnus.

391
00:20:13,500 --> 00:20:17,500
Well, I spend a lot of
time working out...

392
00:20:17,500 --> 00:20:19,500
how we were going
to make money

393
00:20:19,500 --> 00:20:21,500
and in the original
GNU manifesto,

394
00:20:21,500 --> 00:20:24,500
which is the last chapter
of the GNU Emacs manual,

395
00:20:24,500 --> 00:20:26,500
Stallman proposed
a number of different

396
00:20:26,500 --> 00:20:28,300
possible ways to make
money.

397
00:20:28,300 --> 00:20:30,300
From the beginning of the
Free Software movement

398
00:20:30,300 --> 00:20:31,500
I had the idea
that there's

399
00:20:31,500 --> 00:20:33,500
room in it for
business to be done.

400
00:20:33,500 --> 00:20:36,200
One of the advantages of
Free Software is that, there's

401
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:39,500
a free market for any kind
of service or support.

402
00:20:39,500 --> 00:20:41,500
So if you are using software
in your business,

403
00:20:41,500 --> 00:20:43,500
and you want good support,

404
00:20:43,500 --> 00:20:46,500
you have a choice
of people to go to for it,

405
00:20:46,500 --> 00:20:48,500
you have a choice
of businesses that

406
00:20:48,500 --> 00:20:51,500
are in the business of
providing you with support.

407
00:20:51,500 --> 00:20:53,500
So they are going to have to
in general give you

408
00:20:53,500 --> 00:20:56,500
good support or you go
to somebody else.

409
00:20:56,500 --> 00:20:58,500
With proprietary software,

410
00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:01,500
support is a monopoly,
there is one company,

411
00:21:01,500 --> 00:21:04,100
typically, that has
the source code

412
00:21:04,100 --> 00:21:06,000
and only they can give
you support

413
00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:09,800
so typically, you are at
the mercy of a monopoly.

414
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:12,100
That's the case,
for example with Microsoft,

415
00:21:12,100 --> 00:21:15,200
so no wonder
the support is so bad.

416
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:17,000
The benefits
of Free Software were

417
00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:19,700
tremendous but the cost
of supporting it internally,

418
00:21:20,300 --> 00:21:22,300
and made managers very
very nervous and

419
00:21:22,300 --> 00:21:26,000
so the fundamental idea I had
was if we can build a model

420
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:30,000
that could deliver two
to four times the support

421
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:33,500
and hand holding capability

422
00:21:33,500 --> 00:21:35,600
that an internal engineer
could provide

423
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:38,600
and we could do it
at 1/2 to 1/4 of the cost

424
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:40,800
that would meet the test
of whether or not

425
00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:42,400
people would actually buy.

426
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:44,900
And by about the Fall
of that year, we had

427
00:21:44,900 --> 00:21:46,800
all the things
worked out about who

428
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:48,400
needed on the technical
team, what

429
00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:50,300
the terms the sale
would be, what

430
00:21:50,300 --> 00:21:52,100
the key price point
were, and we

431
00:21:52,100 --> 00:21:56,100
actually received our
incorporation in November of 1989.

432
00:21:56,700 --> 00:21:59,300
One of the most difficult things
in starting our company

433
00:21:59,300 --> 00:22:00,900
was actually finding
a name for it.

434
00:22:00,900 --> 00:22:03,500
I explained this to
one of my friends

435
00:22:03,500 --> 00:22:04,900
we're having difficulty

436
00:22:04,900 --> 00:22:07,400
and he returned an
e-mail message

437
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:11,300
that basically just had a bunch
of words with the name GNU in it.

438
00:22:11,300 --> 00:22:16,100
And Cygnus was the one that looked
least obnoxious and least obscene.

439
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,100
I can say very clearly
that Cygnus

440
00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:23,100
was the first business
that specialized in Free Software.

441
00:22:23,300 --> 00:22:26,600
Cygnus supported Free Software,

442
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:30,600
filled a very essential niche because
we had this great software,

443
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:34,600
you could get it for nothing but you
couldn't get support, they made their money

444
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:36,700
by charging for support.

445
00:22:36,700 --> 00:22:40,400
The GNU project started
by building a toolkit,

446
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:45,300
basic development tools such as
a C compiler, a debugger, a text-editor,

447
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:49,000
and other necessary
apparatus.

448
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:53,500
And their intention was eventually to
develop a kernel to sit underneath those

449
00:22:53,700 --> 00:22:56,100
and be the center
of the operating system.

450
00:22:56,100 --> 00:22:59,900
By about 1990 they had successfully
developed that toolkit,

451
00:22:59,900 --> 00:23:03,900
and it was in wide use
on great many variants of Unix,

452
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,600
but there was still
no free kernel.

453
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,600
The kernel happened to be one
of the last things we started to do

454
00:23:10,900 --> 00:23:12,900
and we had started it
not long before

455
00:23:13,900 --> 00:23:16,900
and that's when Linus
Torvalds came along.

456
00:23:16,900 --> 00:23:20,200
Lin-us or Line-us? What's the exact,
do you prefer the pronunciation?

457
00:23:20,500 --> 00:23:23,100
When I speak Swedish
it's Lee-nus,

458
00:23:23,100 --> 00:23:25,500
when I speak Finnish
it's Leen-ous,

459
00:23:25,500 --> 00:23:27,300
when I speak English
it's Line-us.

460
00:23:27,300 --> 00:23:30,100
And I really don't care how
people pronounce my name

461
00:23:30,100 --> 00:23:32,900
but Linux is always Linux.

462
00:23:32,900 --> 00:23:37,300
He developed a kernel, and got it working
faster than we got ours working,

463
00:23:37,900 --> 00:23:40,400
and got it to work
very nicely and solidly.

464
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:42,300
His kernel
is called Linux.

465
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:46,000
The initial goal was
my very personal goal

466
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:49,600
to be able to run a similar
environment on my computer

467
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,800
that I had grown used to
at the university computers

468
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:59,800
and I could not find anything
that suited me for that.

469
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,900
So having been doing computers
for all my life basically,

470
00:24:03,900 --> 00:24:07,000
at that point I decided
that I'll do my own.

471
00:24:07,500 --> 00:24:11,500
Most of the inspiration
early on came from SunOS

472
00:24:12,100 --> 00:24:16,400
which was what I was using
at the university at the time.

473
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:17,500
Which University?

474
00:24:17,500 --> 00:24:19,200
University of Helsinki
in Finland.

475
00:24:20,100 --> 00:24:24,600
From 1991 to about 1993
was really

476
00:24:24,900 --> 00:24:27,200
I guess the infancy period
of Linux.

477
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,900
That was when it was still
only alpha or beta quality,

478
00:24:30,900 --> 00:24:33,300
it was relatively unstable,

479
00:24:33,300 --> 00:24:36,100
although, even then
it was a good deal more stable

480
00:24:36,100 --> 00:24:40,100
than a lot of what are now called
production operating systems.

481
00:24:40,100 --> 00:24:44,100
Linus used the traditional tried-and-true
method of writing one program

482
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,000
that does the job,

483
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:49,300
and he got it to work

484
00:24:49,300 --> 00:24:53,000
quickly in fact faster than
I would have thought was possible.

485
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,000
The term for it
is monolithic,

486
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:03,900
which means that basically the OS
itself is one entity, indivisible,

487
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:07,900
while in the microkernel,

488
00:25:07,900 --> 00:25:10,400
the operating system
kernel is actually

489
00:25:12,100 --> 00:25:15,200
just a collection
of servers that

490
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:18,000
do different things and then
they have a common protocol

491
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,200
for doing communication
between themselves.

492
00:25:20,700 --> 00:25:26,300
So why is that the GNU project that's had
so much lead-time, that's been doing this...

493
00:25:26,300 --> 00:25:29,600
Why is it that he was able to kinda
come in at the tail end so to speak?

494
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:35,300
Well we actually started the GNU Hurd
not long before he started Linux

495
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:40,200
and it happened though we chose a design
that's a very advanced design

496
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,800
in terms of the power
gives you

497
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,400
but also turns out to be
very hard to debug.

498
00:25:46,100 --> 00:25:51,800
We decided to divide up the kernel
which traditionally had been one program,

499
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:54,100
to divide it up into
a lot of smaller programs

500
00:25:54,100 --> 00:25:58,100
that would send messages to each
other asynchronously to communicate.

501
00:26:00,100 --> 00:26:04,000
The problem is that,
that style of programming

502
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,300
has a great deal
of potential for bugs,

503
00:26:06,300 --> 00:26:09,200
which are often very hard to
figure out because they depend on...

504
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:16,600
does this program send this message
before or after this one sends that message...

505
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:21,800
and the result was, it took us
years to get the thing to work.

506
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:26,200
What is Linux's relationship
to the GNU project?

507
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:33,600
Well there's relationships to GNU
on kind of multiple levels.

508
00:26:34,100 --> 00:26:38,100
One is just the philosophical
level of thinking that

509
00:26:38,700 --> 00:26:41,200
making your source open
is a good idea.

510
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,800
When Linus developed the kernel
he wasn't doing it for the GNU project.

511
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:47,300
He did it independently

512
00:26:47,300 --> 00:26:50,700
and he released it independently
and we didn't know about it.

513
00:26:50,700 --> 00:26:53,000
But some of the people
who did know about it

514
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,500
decided to look for
what else they could find

515
00:26:55,500 --> 00:26:58,400
to put together with that kernel
to make a whole system.

516
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:04,000
They looked around, and lo and behold
everything they needed was already available.

517
00:27:04,300 --> 00:27:06,100
What good fortune,
they thought,

518
00:27:06,100 --> 00:27:08,400
but actually there was
no chance about it

519
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:12,400
they had found all the pieces of the GNU
system which was missing just the kernel,

520
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,100
so when they put all
that together

521
00:27:15,100 --> 00:27:19,100
really they were fitting Linux
into the gap in the GNU system,

522
00:27:19,700 --> 00:27:20,900
but they didn't
know that.

523
00:27:21,300 --> 00:27:25,300
There's a lot of
these programs

524
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,100
done by the Free
Software Foundation,

525
00:27:29,100 --> 00:27:31,300
and done by other
people like Linux.

526
00:27:31,300 --> 00:27:35,300
And there's a symbiosis between
Linux and the programs

527
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,200
that the programs run on Linux
and at the same time

528
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:41,600
and they take the advantage
of Linux as a platform,

529
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:45,200
while Linux takes
the advantage of the programs

530
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:47,200
by just being able
to use them.

531
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:48,800
What programs?

532
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,600
The main one is
actually the GNU C Compiler

533
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,800
which, without a C compiler
it would not have been possible

534
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:04,000
to make Linux or most of
the open progress available.

535
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,200
Linux uses the GPL,

536
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,900
and I agree with a kind
of philosophy behind the GPL.

537
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:17,700
That said the GPL itself
is not a very pretty document

538
00:28:17,700 --> 00:28:22,300
which is probably just because
no lawyerese can ever be very pretty.

539
00:28:28,300 --> 00:28:32,300
I'd been playing around
with Linux for actually,

540
00:28:32,500 --> 00:28:35,800
late '92 or early '93,
for about a year,

541
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:40,400
before I decided that it was to the point
where actually had everything that I needed

542
00:28:40,700 --> 00:28:42,800
to really replace
a Sun Workstation.

543
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,800
And I was looking for a way to
have a Unix workstation at home

544
00:28:46,900 --> 00:28:50,900
at the time we used Sun Sparc Stations
in the office at Stanford.

545
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:54,900
Those machines cost us
about 7,000 dollars.

546
00:28:54,900 --> 00:28:57,400
Now I desperately
wanted a Unix machine at home.

547
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:00,100
There's always a this thought
you get as a graduate student,

548
00:29:00,100 --> 00:29:01,400
gee, if I could work at home,

549
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:03,300
then I would be
so much more productive,

550
00:29:03,300 --> 00:29:06,400
I would graduate sooner because
I would finish my thesis sooner.

551
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:10,500
Well, well, is it true?
Well, you can judge.

552
00:29:10,500 --> 00:29:14,300
You know, most people end up
spending a lot of their time

553
00:29:14,300 --> 00:29:15,800
becoming more productive
so that

554
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:19,000
they ever actually worked on their
thesis they'd finish it in a day.

555
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:20,700
It takes a while sometimes

556
00:29:20,700 --> 00:29:23,000
so I decided that I wanted
a Unix machine at home

557
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:27,000
and I went out there I was able to
use Linux together with the PC

558
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:31,000
for about 2,000 dollars
I put together a system

559
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,900
that was one and a half
to two times faster

560
00:29:33,900 --> 00:29:36,600
than that 7,000 dollars
Sun Sparc Station.

561
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:38,300
It was absolutely amazing.

562
00:29:38,300 --> 00:29:41,300
I had one and a half
to two times the speed,

563
00:29:41,300 --> 00:29:44,000
at a third to fourth
the price.

564
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:45,300
Light bulbs went off.

565
00:29:45,300 --> 00:29:47,500
I knew there was
an opportunity here.

566
00:29:47,500 --> 00:29:51,500
This was the chance to really do
something better than what Sun has done

567
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,200
around open source
and Linux.

568
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,800
I called it Linux
originally as working name

569
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,300
and that was just
because Linus

570
00:30:01,300 --> 00:30:02,500
and the X has to be
there.

571
00:30:02,500 --> 00:30:04,600
It's Unix.
It's like a law.

572
00:30:05,900 --> 00:30:08,500
And what happened was
that...

573
00:30:08,500 --> 00:30:12,300
I initially thought that
I can't call it Linux publicly,

574
00:30:12,300 --> 00:30:14,600
because it is just
too egotistical.

575
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:16,900
And that was before
I had a big ego, right.

576
00:30:16,900 --> 00:30:21,200
They thought they were taking a whole bunch
of components putting them around Linux

577
00:30:21,900 --> 00:30:24,900
so they ended up calling the whole
thing a Linux System

578
00:30:25,500 --> 00:30:27,600
and somehow that term
caught on.

579
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:29,100
And the result is

580
00:30:29,100 --> 00:30:33,100
there are now ten million
people using

581
00:30:33,100 --> 00:30:34,600
this variant
of the GNU system...

582
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:36,900
the GNU/Linux operating
system

583
00:30:37,300 --> 00:30:39,000
and most of them
don't know it.

584
00:30:39,300 --> 00:30:43,300
Some people advocate it
be described as GNU/Linux.

585
00:30:43,700 --> 00:30:46,800
I mean what's your thought on that?
I would say, justify or...

586
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:52,100
Well, I think it's justified but it is justified
if you actually make GNU distribution of Linux.

587
00:30:52,500 --> 00:30:59,600
The same way that I think that Red Hat Linux
is fine or SUSE Linux, or Debian Linux

588
00:31:00,500 --> 00:31:03,500
because if you actually make your
own distribution of Linux

589
00:31:03,500 --> 00:31:05,300
you get to name the thing.

590
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:09,400
But calling Linux in general GNU Linux,
I think, is just ridiculous.

591
00:31:11,300 --> 00:31:13,100
I got involved in Fall '93

592
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:19,600
because I was sent a copy of the first
CD-ROM commercial Linux distribution,

593
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:23,000
which was called Yggdrasi
produced by Adam Richter.

594
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,100
And I got a copy because...

595
00:31:25,100 --> 00:31:29,000
I had been myself writing Free Software
for a long time since the early 80's.

596
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,600
I was actually one of the
early GNU contributors myself.

597
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,300
And I was absolutely astonished,

598
00:31:34,300 --> 00:31:35,800
I was completely astonished,

599
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:39,800
because I've been a software engineer
for nearly 15 years at that point

600
00:31:40,500 --> 00:31:42,700
and according to all the rules
I knew...

601
00:31:42,700 --> 00:31:46,400
about controlling complexity,
keeping a project group small,

602
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,200
having closely managed objectives,

603
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,500
Linux should have been a disaster,
and it wasn't.

604
00:31:51,500 --> 00:31:53,600
Instead, it was
something wonderful,

605
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,900
and I was determined to figure out
how they were getting away with that.

606
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,400
In order for Linux to grow beyond
the world of the computer programmer

607
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:06,400
it needed a use, an application
that made it a must-have technology.

608
00:32:07,100 --> 00:32:08,400
That threshold was crossed

609
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:12,200
with the development of a program
that made complex websites possible.

610
00:32:12,700 --> 00:32:15,100
That program is
the Apache web server.

611
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:19,100
The killer app of Linux was
undoubtedly the Apache web server.

612
00:32:19,700 --> 00:32:21,600
If you look at
the history of Linux,

613
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:26,100
the adoption curve of Linux and
the adoption curve of the internet

614
00:32:26,100 --> 00:32:27,600
exactly track each other.

615
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:32,600
1993, which was when the Apache
web server project really got started,

616
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:36,200
was also the beginnings
of the popular ISP explosion

617
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:40,000
when the internet first became
a mass market commodity

618
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,400
and the idea of web-based
electronic commerce

619
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:44,800
and mass communication
became real.

620
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,600
I think it was one of the first
applications that caused people to go,

621
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,500
well, if I install Linux,

622
00:32:50,500 --> 00:32:53,500
I get some tangible benefit
from doing so, right.

623
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,300
I mean, clearly there were a lot
of interesting applications on Linux

624
00:32:57,300 --> 00:32:59,200
at the time, this being maybe
two or three years ago,

625
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:01,100
when the root thing
really started to take off

626
00:33:01,100 --> 00:33:03,800
but there wasn't
a driving, you know,

627
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:05,100
you could almost say
business case

628
00:33:05,100 --> 00:33:08,000
for someone to use
Linux versus using NT

629
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,300
until, I think, Apache and a lot
of the things that plugged into Apache

630
00:33:11,300 --> 00:33:12,800
enhanced Apache.

631
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:15,800
I mean, when you want to go out
and build a server farm,

632
00:33:16,300 --> 00:33:18,700
it was much more cost effective,
cost effective...

633
00:33:18,700 --> 00:33:23,600
real dollar returns to build it on Linux and
Apache than was to build it on IIS and NT,

634
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:26,000
even if it meant that you have to
spend a little bit of money

635
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:27,600
to train your staff to learn
how to use that or

636
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:29,300
to find people
who were knowledgeable.

637
00:33:29,300 --> 00:33:30,400
But the good news was that

638
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,100
that knowledge
wasn't very expensive

639
00:33:32,100 --> 00:33:33,800
because there were all
those college students out there

640
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:37,200
who'd been using Linux for a long time
and were very familiar with it.

641
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:40,400
If you look at the trend
curves in web servers,

642
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:44,100
Apache has steadily been gaining
a market share ever since

643
00:33:44,100 --> 00:33:46,600
it's up to something
like 66% now.

644
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,800
It's steadily clobbered all
of the closed source competition

645
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:54,200
and that's because it's more reliable,
it's more flexible, it's more extensible.

646
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,500
It does what webmasters
actually need

647
00:33:57,700 --> 00:34:00,500
and the combination of
Apache and Linux

648
00:34:00,500 --> 00:34:02,800
found its way into a great
many commercial shops.

649
00:34:03,700 --> 00:34:08,300
Essentially, Apache became the application
that motivated internet service providers

650
00:34:08,300 --> 00:34:12,300
and e-commerce companies to choose
Linux over Microsoft's Windows.

651
00:34:13,500 --> 00:34:16,600
It would probably run best
on Linux and on FreeBSD

652
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:20,200
and the reason is the communities
around those operating systems

653
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:24,600
are also the communities that
contribute the most back to Apache, right.

654
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:28,600
And there were also the operating systems
that internet service providers

655
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:30,400
started using very heavily
as well

656
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,900
and internet service providers
really liked Apache

657
00:34:33,900 --> 00:34:35,300
because it allowed them to do

658
00:34:35,300 --> 00:34:38,600
a lot of different things that some
of the commercial web servers didn't

659
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:42,600
such as the ability to host more than
one web site on a single box, which clearly

660
00:34:42,700 --> 00:34:45,300
if you are an ISP and
you would have 40,000 users

661
00:34:45,300 --> 00:34:46,500
and they all want their web site,

662
00:34:46,500 --> 00:34:48,100
is gonna be pretty important
to you.

663
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:51,700
One of the key factors
in the growth of Linux was

664
00:34:51,700 --> 00:34:54,500
the creation of companies that
specialized in the distribution

665
00:34:54,500 --> 00:34:56,600
and support of the
operating system itself.

666
00:34:56,800 --> 00:35:00,200
Among these companies,
Red Hat Software is the best known.

667
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,600
Red Hat started as a product
of Marc Ewing

668
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:05,200
while he was working at IBM.

669
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:07,200
He wanted a little
better Linux distribution.

670
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:08,600
He started playing around,

671
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:12,600
found out he spent more time
maintaining his Linux distribution

672
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,800
than he did working
on his new project.

673
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,500
So he sort of started
the distribution himself.

674
00:35:19,500 --> 00:35:21,100
He met up with Bob Young,

675
00:35:21,100 --> 00:35:24,000
who at the time was running
company called ACC Bookstore

676
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,400
which was a mail-order
PC Unix catalog.

677
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:29,300
And Bob kind of knew
he wanted something,

678
00:35:29,300 --> 00:35:31,400
you know, more
his own to market,

679
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:33,800
rather than reselling
other people's products,

680
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,900
and he was fairly good
at marketing, and...

681
00:35:36,900 --> 00:35:38,300
Mark knew he needed
some marketing help

682
00:35:38,300 --> 00:35:41,300
because he was very good at the technical
parts, so they kinda got together.

683
00:35:41,300 --> 00:35:45,600
I started working with Red Hat in May of 1995,
basically right out of NC State,

684
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:50,600
along with Eric Troan who, me and him
combined make up employees #4 and #5.

685
00:35:51,500 --> 00:35:55,500
We actually reported to work in an
apartment that Mark Ewing used to live in.

686
00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:00,700
We took it over as kind of the
development part of Red Hat software

687
00:36:00,700 --> 00:36:04,600
and stayed that way till
about November of 1995 when...

688
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,400
a toilet we had in the apartment
kind of exploded,

689
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:08,800
flooded our downstairs neighbor

690
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,900
and she got little upset and...

691
00:36:11,900 --> 00:36:14,100
the apartment folks found out
we were running a business there

692
00:36:14,100 --> 00:36:16,200
instead of actually living
there the same time.

693
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:17,600
So they decided to throw us out.

694
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:19,800
So at that point,
we had about a week to go find

695
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,100
our first office,
which we did

696
00:36:22,100 --> 00:36:24,100
and get ourselves moved
in a hurry.

697
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:39,600
We started going in again '95 or so
to the venture capital firms,

698
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,500
asking, saying, there's
something happening here.

699
00:36:42,500 --> 00:36:44,600
There's a great business
opportunity,

700
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:48,600
to build the next Sun
for open source.

701
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:52,000
Well, the venture capitalists
looked at this and said,

702
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,500
gee, you are selling systems,

703
00:36:54,500 --> 00:36:56,600
the software is free,
this is kind of scary.

704
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,100
We're not sure that we want
to put money in and...

705
00:36:59,100 --> 00:37:02,500
by the way, we funded
other systems companies

706
00:37:02,500 --> 00:37:05,400
and it hasn't really panned out,
we are scared.

707
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,700
I came to the US
about 3 years ago,

708
00:37:10,700 --> 00:37:13,000
and the reason really was
that I'd been spending

709
00:37:14,300 --> 00:37:17,300
like 6 or 7 years
at Helsinki University,

710
00:37:17,300 --> 00:37:21,600
and decided it was time to see the real
world and not just university life.

711
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:26,600
Especially this area had a lot of the
most interesting work being done.

712
00:37:28,100 --> 00:37:29,900
So I just decided that...

713
00:37:29,900 --> 00:37:33,900
let's try to move half way
across the world,

714
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:35,600
and give this a try,

715
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,600
and it's turned out
pretty well.

716
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,500
You see this as temporary
or long term?

717
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,600
Well, we saw it
as temporary at first.

718
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:47,600
And I think it's certainly looking
like it's turning into long term.

719
00:37:47,900 --> 00:37:51,400
Our youngest daughter is both
US and Finnish citizen,

720
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:52,900
because she was born here

721
00:37:53,500 --> 00:37:57,500
and the older one is speaking
both Swedish and English, so...

722
00:38:21,700 --> 00:38:25,700
The next major event was one
that I had a direct hand in.

723
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,600
I wrote a paper, called
The Cathedral and The Bazaar,

724
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:32,300
which was my observations,
my anthropological analysis

725
00:38:32,300 --> 00:38:34,600
of what it was that made
the open source world work.

726
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:39,900
We didn't call it that then. We were still
using the term Free Software primarily.

727
00:38:39,900 --> 00:38:42,600
So it was my observation of what
made the Free Software world work

728
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:46,900
and why we were able to produce
extremely high quality software

729
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:51,400
in spite of constantly violating all of
the standard rules of software engineering.

730
00:38:52,300 --> 00:38:55,000
In that paper, I was
setting up a contrast

731
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,200
between two different
styles of development,

732
00:38:57,200 --> 00:38:58,900
two opposed styles
of development.

733
00:38:58,900 --> 00:39:04,500
One, which is the conventional
closed development style,

734
00:39:04,500 --> 00:39:07,000
which I called
the Cathedral style.

735
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,300
In that one, you have tight
specification of objectives,

736
00:39:10,300 --> 00:39:15,600
small project groups which are run in
a fairly hierarchical authoritarian manner,

737
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:19,300
and you have
long release intervals.

738
00:39:20,100 --> 00:39:23,000
On the other hand, what I identified
is happening in the Linux world

739
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:28,600
was a much more peer to peer
decentralized, market or bazaar-like style,

740
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:30,600
which has a very
short release intervals

741
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:35,600
and constant solicitation of feedback from people
who are formally outside of the project.

742
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:39,600
A very intense
peer review process.

743
00:39:39,900 --> 00:39:42,600
And the startling thing was
that the more I looked at this,

744
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:46,600
the more it seemed that trading away
all the supposed advantages

745
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:49,500
of conventional closed
development,

746
00:39:49,500 --> 00:39:53,500
for that one single advantage
of massive independent peer review

747
00:39:53,500 --> 00:39:57,500
actually seemed to win, actually
seemed to get you good results.

748
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:02,900
The reason Netscape
is important is

749
00:40:02,900 --> 00:40:07,800
that they were the first large company
to participate in open source.

750
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:09,600
We had Cygnus providing support,

751
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,200
but we didn't really have
much business.

752
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:16,000
And Netscape went open source essentially
as a way to fight Microsoft,

753
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,800
which was giving away
Internet Explorer,

754
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:23,800
but not letting anyone else have the source
code, not letting companies collaborate.

755
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:26,500
Working as part of the sales force,
I got a bit of,

756
00:40:26,500 --> 00:40:28,900
I got a good idea of why people
bought our software

757
00:40:28,900 --> 00:40:32,900
and what it took to make our software successful
in the marketplace against competitive products.

758
00:40:34,300 --> 00:40:35,600
However, the problem was,

759
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:39,200
we were seeing, as that,
as time went on,

760
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:42,600
our software was...

761
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:46,400
being competed against by other people's
software, particularly Microsoft's,

762
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:50,200
and as time went on, the price
of our software had to drop

763
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:52,300
because other people were giving
their software away

764
00:40:52,300 --> 00:40:55,300
at no charge or at little charge.

765
00:40:55,300 --> 00:40:57,500
Now the real problem was
that they feared

766
00:40:57,500 --> 00:41:01,000
Microsoft would achieve a monopoly
lock on the browser market

767
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:04,800
and they would then use
that monopoly lock to

768
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:06,400
pervert actually,

769
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:10,400
the HTTP and HTML standards
that the web depends on

770
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:14,400
and once they had turned those
standards in to lock in devices,

771
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:18,400
they could then use that control to drive
Netscape out of the server market,

772
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,100
which was where it was making
its real money.

773
00:41:21,100 --> 00:41:24,000
My concern was that
as time went on,

774
00:41:25,500 --> 00:41:27,800
Netscape's business would be
threatened,

775
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,600
by the fact that we didn't have enough people
to do what we needed to do as a company

776
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:35,500
in order to keep our software
viable in the marketplace.

777
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:39,800
The Netscape release
happened in early 1998

778
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:43,800
and I was told later,
I had no idea at the time,

779
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:47,100
that it came about
as a direct result of

780
00:41:47,100 --> 00:41:49,900
the right people having read
The Cathedral and The Bazaar.

781
00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:54,100
The Cathedral and The Bazaar,
the paper by Eric Raymond,

782
00:41:54,100 --> 00:41:59,700
was a significant influence on
Netscape's decision to release source code.

783
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:02,600
It came as a complete shock to me.

784
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:04,800
I wasn't really ready for the thought

785
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,000
that I was changing the world
even by accident.

786
00:42:07,700 --> 00:42:11,700
However he was not by any means
the only influence on that decision

787
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,200
and not necessarily the most
important one,

788
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:15,900
when all is said and done.

789
00:42:15,900 --> 00:42:18,100
As I said, Netscape,

790
00:42:18,100 --> 00:42:22,100
Netscape had already been talking about
releasing source code for quite some time before

791
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:24,700
anyone ever heard of Eric's paper.

792
00:42:25,100 --> 00:42:27,100
Linux Congress in early 1997,

793
00:42:27,100 --> 00:42:30,100
which was the first place
that I gave that paper.

794
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:34,400
And one of the people who heard it was
Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly and Associates.

795
00:42:34,900 --> 00:42:37,800
And he thought it was
pretty intriguing

796
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,800
and he asked me to give it at
his first PERL conference, which was...

797
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:44,400
later that year, in Fall of 97.

798
00:42:45,100 --> 00:42:47,000
And apparently what happened,
I was told later,

799
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:49,500
although I had no idea that
this was happening at the time,

800
00:42:49,900 --> 00:42:56,000
is that some people from Netscape actually
heard the paper at the PERL conference

801
00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:00,000
and took those ideas back to Netscape
and they kind of lit a fire there.

802
00:43:00,100 --> 00:43:04,100
The role of my paper was essentially
to make the internal case at Netscape...

803
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:08,200
to make the business case for why
Netscape should release its source code.

804
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:12,000
The paper was called
Netscape Source Code as Netscape Product.

805
00:43:12,700 --> 00:43:16,700
A strange title, essentially what
the title meant was that,

806
00:43:17,300 --> 00:43:18,500
in my opinion we needed to

807
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:22,400
think of source code not just as something
that was used in creating our products,

808
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:24,600
but as something that was a product
in its own right.

809
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,700
Something that customers might use,
other people might use.

810
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:31,000
I then looked at what the business
models might be

811
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:33,900
if we released source code
for our products.

812
00:43:33,900 --> 00:43:35,600
How would we license them?

813
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:39,600
How do we sell products
in this environment?

814
00:43:40,900 --> 00:43:44,100
Then I looked at the competition,
particularly Microsoft.

815
00:43:44,100 --> 00:43:46,700
What would they be likely to do
if we released source code?

816
00:43:46,700 --> 00:43:49,300
Was there some way they could
use our source code against us?

817
00:43:49,300 --> 00:43:53,300
I used Eric's paper as an example of
how distributed development could work,

818
00:43:54,100 --> 00:43:57,900
how a company could develop software
not just using their own people,

819
00:43:57,900 --> 00:44:00,700
but also working with people
on the internet.

820
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:05,400
And that's why I included a reference
to Eric's paper in my paper.

821
00:44:05,700 --> 00:44:07,200
Once my paper was circulated,

822
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:09,600
the people who read my paper
would naturally enough

823
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,600
find a reference to Eric's paper
and read that as well.

824
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,200
And who was involved in making
that happen at Netscape?

825
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:19,600
Primarily the person who made the
actual decision was Jim Barksdale.

826
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,500
And this turned out to be
important later,

827
00:44:22,500 --> 00:44:25,300
that our big win, the big score

828
00:44:25,300 --> 00:44:28,900
that gave us mainstream visibility
and credibility with investors

829
00:44:28,900 --> 00:44:32,900
came not because of bottom up evangelism
from a bunch of engineers,

830
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:36,100
but because one strategist
at the top

831
00:44:36,100 --> 00:44:38,400
saw the potential power
of this method and

832
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,300
then essentially imposed that vision
on everyone underneath him.

833
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:45,600
When I completed the paper,
I first gave a copy to Mark Andreessen,

834
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,600
who was co-founder of Netscape and
was at the time one of,

835
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:51,400
on the senior management
team at Netscape.

836
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,400
Mark then gave a copy of the paper to several
other people within Netscape management,

837
00:44:55,500 --> 00:44:57,600
including Jim Barksdale.

838
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:00,700
I'm not sure exactly when Jim and
the other senior managers

839
00:45:00,700 --> 00:45:02,800
made the actual decision.

840
00:45:03,500 --> 00:45:05,800
I believe it was
in early January sometime.

841
00:45:05,900 --> 00:45:10,400
Netscape actually announced that it was
gonna release the source code on January 22nd,

842
00:45:10,900 --> 00:45:14,400
the same time it was going to give
Communicator away for free.

843
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,500
When Netscape decided to release
the source code,

844
00:45:17,500 --> 00:45:19,900
people sort of got a wake up
notice and said

845
00:45:19,900 --> 00:45:23,400
hey, maybe there is something to
this idea of releasing source code

846
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,900
and doing development with people
outside your company.

847
00:45:27,900 --> 00:45:32,700
So Netscape's decision brought a lot of
public attention to the idea of Free Software,

848
00:45:32,700 --> 00:45:35,000
what became known as Open Source,

849
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,500
and brought a lot of attention to
the Linux operating system,

850
00:45:37,500 --> 00:45:41,500
which was one of the most prominent examples
of open source software at that time.

851
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:50,300
This is our first office,
Mountain View, California.

852
00:45:50,300 --> 00:45:52,700
We moved here in early 1995.

853
00:45:52,700 --> 00:45:54,600
This is 4,000 square feet.

854
00:45:54,600 --> 00:46:01,200
It was an incredible leap of faith for us to
move out and take the company to our own office.

855
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:04,200
Now what's really important
about this place

856
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,800
is that this is the office where
the term Open Source was invented.

857
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:12,500
If you walk in to an executive's office
and say Free Software...

858
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:16,600
OK, if you're lucky, the response
you'll get is something like,

859
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:23,100
Free Software must be
cheap, shoddy, worthless.

860
00:46:23,100 --> 00:46:27,100
And if you're not lucky,
it has associations with...

861
00:46:28,500 --> 00:46:32,500
with the Free Software Foundation's
wholesale attack on intellectual property rights,

862
00:46:32,900 --> 00:46:35,500
which regardless of what
you think about the ethics of that,

863
00:46:35,500 --> 00:46:39,500
it's lousy marketing, it's not something
that businesses want to hear.

864
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,400
So Eric Raymond knew
there was a problem.

865
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:44,600
We'd been calling this
Free Software,

866
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:48,600
but people took the term free
and associated with free of charge,

867
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:51,700
they thought they couldn't make money
or couldn't sell,

868
00:46:51,700 --> 00:46:53,600
which is exactly the wrong concept.

869
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:59,200
We wanted to get across the idea the software
was open and that the source code was available.

870
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,500
Very important pieces.

871
00:47:01,500 --> 00:47:05,200
We had this meeting at the VA offices
in Mountain View, where Eric,

872
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:11,700
myself, and Christine Peterson from Foresight Institute
joined us as well as some other people.

873
00:47:11,700 --> 00:47:14,600
Christine Peterson was there
by phone...

874
00:47:16,500 --> 00:47:20,100
Jon "Mad dog" Hall was also there
by phone...

875
00:47:20,900 --> 00:47:24,800
and then Todd Anderson, who later worked
for SUSE for a while, was there.

876
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:27,800
Sam Ockman, who now runs
Penguin Computing, was there.

877
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,200
He was an employee of VA
at the time.

878
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:34,100
Well, we came up with
the concept of Open Source,

879
00:47:34,100 --> 00:47:37,400
we called Linus in fact
and asked Linus if he liked it.

880
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,600
He was interested, he liked it.

881
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,100
Eventually we came up with something
that replaced Free Software.

882
00:47:43,100 --> 00:47:44,700
That was the beginning
of open source.

883
00:47:44,700 --> 00:47:46,800
How did you chose
the words open source?

884
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:51,600
You know, I think Christine Peterson was
the person who really came up with the idea.

885
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:58,800
We wanted, again, the idea that the source
code was out there and it was open.

886
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:00,200
There weren't many choices.

887
00:48:02,300 --> 00:48:06,300
Well, since the fist three recipients have
spoken for the Open Source movement,

888
00:48:07,300 --> 00:48:10,800
I think I should speak about
the Free Software movement.

889
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:14,300
The Open Source movement
focuses on practical advantages

890
00:48:14,300 --> 00:48:17,000
that you can get by having
a community of users

891
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:21,000
who can cooperate on interchanging
and improving software.

892
00:48:21,100 --> 00:48:24,900
I agree completely with the points
they make about that.

893
00:48:24,900 --> 00:48:29,400
The reason why my views are different,
while I am in the Free Software movement

894
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:31,500
rather than the
Open Source movement,

895
00:48:31,500 --> 00:48:34,500
is that I believe there's something
more important at stake.

896
00:48:34,500 --> 00:48:39,500
That freedom to cooperate with other
people, freedom to have a community...

897
00:48:39,500 --> 00:48:41,700
is important for
our quality of life.

898
00:48:41,700 --> 00:48:45,700
It's important for having a good
society that we can live in.

899
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:51,800
And that is in my view, even more important
than having powerful and reliable software.

900
00:48:52,300 --> 00:48:56,300
But I think some of the people in
the Free Software camp...

901
00:48:57,100 --> 00:49:00,500
are a little scared
by the commercialization.

902
00:49:02,500 --> 00:49:06,500
And you know, of course a rebel
is put off by success.

903
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:10,400
I think that commercialization
is very important.

904
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,200
We want to mainstream
this software,

905
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:18,400
and I work with Richard Stallman
who's the gray haired man of Free Software,

906
00:49:19,900 --> 00:49:22,900
on a regular basis,
and I don't feel

907
00:49:22,900 --> 00:49:26,400
I have any philosophical
differences,

908
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:29,500
me as author of
The Open Source Definition and

909
00:49:29,500 --> 00:49:34,800
he as originator of
Free Software as an organized thing.

910
00:49:36,300 --> 00:49:39,300
Except for one thing, Richard thinks
that all software should be free,

911
00:49:39,300 --> 00:49:44,000
and I think that free software and
non-free software should coexist.

912
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:45,700
That's the only difference
we have.

913
00:49:46,500 --> 00:49:49,300
We decided early on that
what we needed,

914
00:49:49,300 --> 00:49:54,300
a definition, we needed a kind of meta-license
to define the term open source.

915
00:49:54,300 --> 00:49:58,100
And what we came up with is a document
called The Open Source Definition.

916
00:49:58,100 --> 00:50:03,300
It's derived from the Debian Free Software guidelines
that were originally written by Bruce Parens.

917
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:07,100
I'd written the original draft
of that,

918
00:50:07,100 --> 00:50:10,600
discussed it for a month with
the Debian developers,

919
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:13,300
Debian is a Linux distribution,

920
00:50:13,300 --> 00:50:16,500
and made it their project policy.

921
00:50:16,500 --> 00:50:19,400
And Eric and I decided to relabel

922
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,300
what we'd written for Debian

923
00:50:22,300 --> 00:50:23,600
as The Open Source Definition

924
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:25,900
and to say open source is software

925
00:50:26,300 --> 00:50:28,800
that gives you a list of nine rights

926
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,100
which is in The Open Source Definition.

927
00:50:32,100 --> 00:50:34,900
The first right is free redistribution.

928
00:50:34,900 --> 00:50:37,300
This doesn't mean free as in no price.

929
00:50:37,300 --> 00:50:39,500
It means liberty,

930
00:50:40,300 --> 00:50:43,100
you have to be free to redistribute

931
00:50:43,100 --> 00:50:44,600
your software to someone else

932
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:46,800
and actually no price is a side effect.

933
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,100
You can charge for that redistribution
or not.

934
00:50:50,100 --> 00:50:52,300
It has to come with source code

935
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:56,000
so that someone can maintain
a program.

936
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,700
If they go from a PC to a Mac
for example,

937
00:50:59,100 --> 00:51:02,100
they can change the software.

938
00:51:02,100 --> 00:51:04,500
Derived works have to be possible.

939
00:51:04,500 --> 00:51:07,200
If someone has to improve
your program,

940
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:12,500
they should be able to distribute
the result.

941
00:51:12,500 --> 00:51:16,000
There is a provision about integrity

942
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:17,300
of the author's source code

943
00:51:17,500 --> 00:51:22,400
which says that the author can
sort of maintain their honor

944
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:24,200
and if you make a change

945
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,900
you might have to change the name
of the program

946
00:51:26,900 --> 00:51:29,600
or mark out your change
very clearly

947
00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:33,000
so that your change doesn't reflect
on the author.

948
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:36,800
There is no discrimination against
people or groups.

949
00:51:36,900 --> 00:51:38,700
The example I usually use is

950
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:41,900
you can't stop an abortion clinic

951
00:51:41,900 --> 00:51:45,100
or an anti-abortion activist
from using the software.

952
00:51:45,100 --> 00:51:48,700
There is no discrimination against
fields of endeavor

953
00:51:49,100 --> 00:51:51,900
and that means the software
has to be usable

954
00:51:52,100 --> 00:51:55,400
in a business as well as in a school.

955
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,900
The license has to be distributable.

956
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:00,000
In other words,

957
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:03,400
I have to be able to give
that license to someone

958
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:06,800
and that license then should work

959
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:09,500
if that someone gives it
to yet a third person.

960
00:52:09,500 --> 00:52:13,300
The license can't be specific
to a product.

961
00:52:13,300 --> 00:52:14,500
In other words,

962
00:52:14,500 --> 00:52:19,700
if I distribute my software
on a Red Hat system,

963
00:52:19,700 --> 00:52:21,300
the license can't say

964
00:52:21,300 --> 00:52:25,000
you can't distribute this
on a SUSE or Debian system.

965
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:28,500
The license can't contaminate
other software.

966
00:52:28,500 --> 00:52:34,900
So if I distribute this on a CD
with another program,

967
00:52:34,900 --> 00:52:38,100
it can't say that other program
must be free,

968
00:52:38,100 --> 00:52:41,000
otherwise you can't distribute
my software.

969
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,700
And then the only other part of

970
00:52:43,700 --> 00:52:44,900
The Open Source Definition

971
00:52:44,900 --> 00:52:47,700
is a list of licenses
that were accepted

972
00:52:47,700 --> 00:52:51,600
and the ones that we started with
were the GPL

973
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:54,700
which was actually the example
for a lot of

974
00:52:54,700 --> 00:52:58,200
what's in The Open Source Definition
in the BSD license

975
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:02,200
because software for BSD system
pre-existed Linux.

976
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:11,800
I think the next moment that I thought
was really pivotal

977
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:14,000
was when the database vendors
flipped over

978
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:16,000
which happened about
three months sooner

979
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:17,100
than I expected to

980
00:53:17,100 --> 00:53:19,500
and actually happened in
late July early August.

981
00:53:19,500 --> 00:53:23,500
Commitments to do tier one ports
from Oracle and

982
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:26,600
Sybase and the other key
database vendors.

983
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:27,900
And why was that critical?

984
00:53:27,900 --> 00:53:30,000
Because we knew that in order for

985
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:32,300
the open source story to be credible

986
00:53:32,300 --> 00:53:35,000
and especially in order for the Linux
story to be credible,

987
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,000
we'd have to get commitments from
independent software vendors

988
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,500
to do ports of their applications
to these platforms.

989
00:53:41,500 --> 00:53:44,100
And I was actually kind of worried.

990
00:53:44,100 --> 00:53:46,500
I thought that we were in a window
of vulnerability

991
00:53:46,500 --> 00:53:49,900
between the time that we announced
the open source campaign

992
00:53:49,900 --> 00:53:51,700
and the database vendors
flipped over.

993
00:53:51,700 --> 00:53:54,300
That was the point at which
hostile action

994
00:53:54,300 --> 00:53:58,000
by Microsoft or other
close-source software companies,

995
00:53:58,000 --> 00:53:59,300
that was the point in which

996
00:53:59,300 --> 00:54:01,800
a serious marketing blitz
might have sunk us.

997
00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:05,800
But once the big database vendors
flipped over,

998
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:08,300
that opened the way for other ISVs

999
00:54:08,300 --> 00:54:10,200
that started
the snow ball effect going.

1000
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:12,300
Every six months or so

1001
00:54:12,300 --> 00:54:13,900
I would come back
to the venture capitalists.

1002
00:54:13,900 --> 00:54:15,600
I would show them the new numbers,

1003
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:17,700
showing more and more people
adopting Linux

1004
00:54:17,700 --> 00:54:19,500
and new people porting,
new users

1005
00:54:19,500 --> 00:54:21,100
and I'd show them our
customer list.

1006
00:54:21,100 --> 00:54:24,400
And our customer list was getting
much more impressive.

1007
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:27,000
It was people like Cisco that were
beginning to appear,

1008
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:29,500
people like, you know, those
dot-com companies

1009
00:54:29,500 --> 00:54:31,900
were starting to show up
on our customer list

1010
00:54:31,900 --> 00:54:34,500
and eventually the venture
capitalists,

1011
00:54:34,500 --> 00:54:36,500
you know, they kept looking at it,

1012
00:54:36,500 --> 00:54:38,300
they kept saying,
oh, we can't quite do it.

1013
00:54:38,300 --> 00:54:41,500
Finally, Linus appeared on the cover
of Fortune.

1014
00:54:41,500 --> 00:54:43,800
There was something happening
with open source.

1015
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:47,800
Well, at that point, the venture
capitalists couldn't ignore it.

1016
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,100
They just got sick of hearing
about Linux everywhere

1017
00:54:51,100 --> 00:54:53,000
and they got tired of me,
just, you know,

1018
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:56,400
showing it to them every,
at that point it was almost every week.

1019
00:54:56,400 --> 00:54:59,000
So they decided
it was time to invest,

1020
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:00,800
that there was
something happening.

1021
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:04,300
I announced open source to the world
on the internet.

1022
00:55:04,300 --> 00:55:07,700
I did a lot of the early
administrative work of

1023
00:55:07,700 --> 00:55:11,200
starting the Open Source Initiative

1024
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:13,000
and I think six months later

1025
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:15,500
I was reading the words open source

1026
00:55:15,500 --> 00:55:18,100
in the news all the time

1027
00:55:18,100 --> 00:55:20,400
and was totally astounded.

1028
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:21,600
And a year later, I believe

1029
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:25,600
Microsoft was talking about releasing
some source code

1030
00:55:26,700 --> 00:55:28,900
and someone in the press
asked Steve Ballmer

1031
00:55:28,900 --> 00:55:31,500
if they were going to open source
their code

1032
00:55:31,500 --> 00:55:33,000
and Steve Ballmer said,

1033
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:37,000
well, open source means more than
just releasing the source code.

1034
00:55:37,300 --> 00:55:39,900
And I realized that he had read
my document

1035
00:55:39,900 --> 00:55:42,700
and understood it and was now
telling the press about this.

1036
00:55:43,100 --> 00:55:46,100
Now if you are like just a guy
on the net

1037
00:55:46,100 --> 00:55:48,400
who's not doing this
for a job at all

1038
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:50,200
and you sort of write
a manifesto

1039
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:52,500
and it spreads out through
the world

1040
00:55:52,500 --> 00:55:53,500
and a year later

1041
00:55:53,500 --> 00:55:56,600
the vice president of Microsoft
is talking about that...

1042
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:59,900
you'd think you were on drugs,
wouldn't you?

1043
00:55:59,900 --> 00:56:01,600
But that's what really happened.

1044
00:56:07,500 --> 00:56:11,500
The Local Users Groups
tend to be more an issue of

1045
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:15,500
building a social network,

1046
00:56:16,700 --> 00:56:22,300
especially getting people familiarized
with the issues,

1047
00:56:23,900 --> 00:56:28,100
also just acting as a kind
of supporting network

1048
00:56:28,200 --> 00:56:33,400
for people who, who do not, for example,
have the ability

1049
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:36,600
to pay for commercial support network.

1050
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:39,200
So one thing they're doing
in this area,

1051
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:41,200
for example, is they're making these,

1052
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:43,200
I think it's once a month,

1053
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:46,900
they're having install fests,
which means that

1054
00:56:47,100 --> 00:56:51,400
people who have problems getting Linux
installed on their machines

1055
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:53,100
or have some issue, I mean,

1056
00:56:53,100 --> 00:56:54,500
maybe they've installed Linux

1057
00:56:54,500 --> 00:56:57,100
but want to set up the network
in a specific way

1058
00:56:57,100 --> 00:56:59,200
can actually bring in their machines

1059
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:00,300
to this users group meeting

1060
00:57:00,300 --> 00:57:03,900
and there's a lot of people there
willing to help

1061
00:57:03,900 --> 00:57:07,900
who may have seen
the same problem before.

1062
00:57:16,900 --> 00:57:18,600
Well, actually things aren't so well.

1063
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:21,800
I tried it earlier myself.
I had problems.

1064
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:24,200
And so I came to
this install fest where

1065
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:25,900
all the gurus abound.

1066
00:57:25,900 --> 00:57:29,800
Hopefully I'll have better luck
getting it in.

1067
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,600
Instead of having,
sending e-mails or

1068
00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:34,500
writing to news groups
on the internet

1069
00:57:34,500 --> 00:57:37,000
and waiting several days for
the answers sometimes,

1070
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:40,000
it's easy to come here
and find other people

1071
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:41,200
who might know about your problem

1072
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:43,100
and may be able to help you.

1073
00:57:43,100 --> 00:57:44,200
And hopefully within a few hours

1074
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:46,400
you have your machine installed.

1075
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:50,400
Originally I wanted to install
it on my larger laptop

1076
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:52,300
and so I just did a search
on the net

1077
00:57:52,300 --> 00:57:56,300
and found where there were
resources to get help.

1078
00:57:56,900 --> 00:57:58,600
And I'm here today

1079
00:57:58,600 --> 00:58:02,300
cause I'm trying to put Linux on
this little guy right here.

1080
00:58:02,300 --> 00:58:04,600
Just a Toshiba Libretto.

1081
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:07,200
It's not the easiest thing
in the world to do

1082
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:09,800
because it's a weird piece
of hardware, so...

1083
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:11,800
Any chairs around here?

1084
00:58:23,700 --> 00:58:25,500
I think that
Department of Justice case

1085
00:58:25,500 --> 00:58:27,500
has made people aware
of the fact that

1086
00:58:27,500 --> 00:58:30,500
you should at least look
for alternatives to Microsoft.

1087
00:58:30,500 --> 00:58:34,500
And maybe Microsoft isn't
the American dream after all,

1088
00:58:34,600 --> 00:58:36,500
and that kind of shifting perception

1089
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:39,600
you can very clearly see

1090
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:43,600
that people just took Microsoft
for granted

1091
00:58:44,100 --> 00:58:46,500
and maybe they're still buying
Microsoft but at least

1092
00:58:46,500 --> 00:58:49,400
they're kind of more aware
of the issue these days.

1093
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:52,100
Microsoft actually uses Linux
as defense.

1094
00:58:52,100 --> 00:58:53,500
They used Linux to ground
a claim

1095
00:58:53,500 --> 00:58:54,500
that they don't have a monopoly

1096
00:58:54,500 --> 00:58:57,600
because Linux could essentially

1097
00:58:57,600 --> 00:58:59,500
push them off their catbird seat
at any time.

1098
00:58:59,500 --> 00:59:02,300
It was a very ingenious argument,
totally specious

1099
00:59:02,300 --> 00:59:04,100
because it didn't

1100
00:59:04,100 --> 00:59:06,300
do anything to answer
the charge

1101
00:59:06,300 --> 00:59:07,900
that they had previously
engaged in

1102
00:59:07,900 --> 00:59:10,600
bullying and various
anti-competitive practices.

1103
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:12,200
But it was clever of them,

1104
00:59:12,200 --> 00:59:14,700
and, in an event,
the judge didn't buy it.

1105
00:59:17,000 --> 00:59:19,600
While ordinarily we in the Linux community
are rather worried about

1106
00:59:19,600 --> 00:59:22,000
letting Microsoft become the issue,

1107
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:27,200
but there was a Slashdot article
about December of '98

1108
00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:33,000
where a fellow named Matt at the noodle
had pointed out that...

1109
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:36,000
a gentleman in Australia had managed
to receive a refund for

1110
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:40,000
the unused copy of Windows that
came with his computer.

1111
00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:44,500
So he declared the 19th of January,
was it January?

1112
00:59:44,500 --> 00:59:46,900
- No, it was February.
- It was February. I'm sorry, the 19th of February.

1113
00:59:46,900 --> 00:59:49,000
He declared 19th of February
Windows Refund Day

1114
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:51,300
and he encouraged everyone to go
to the computer manufacturers,

1115
00:59:51,300 --> 00:59:54,300
and return their unused copies
of Windows...

1116
00:59:54,300 --> 00:59:57,500
as it was specified in the
Windows End-User License Agreement.

1117
00:59:57,500 --> 01:00:00,600
It's important to remember that
in the license itself, it says that

1118
01:00:00,600 --> 01:00:05,500
you can receive a refund
if you don't use the software,

1119
01:00:05,500 --> 01:00:08,500
and that the manufacture
is bound by law to do this...

1120
01:00:08,500 --> 01:00:10,500
or it was bond by contract.

1121
01:00:10,500 --> 01:00:13,500
And we found if you called up
these manufactures, they basically said...

1122
01:00:13,500 --> 01:00:15,700
stop bothering me kid, and hung up on you.

1123
01:00:15,700 --> 01:00:18,700
We didn't really wanna
sort of giving out our location,

1124
01:00:18,700 --> 01:00:21,900
or where we were going to meet,
until...

1125
01:00:21,900 --> 01:00:22,900
you know, the very last seconds.

1126
01:00:22,900 --> 01:00:26,300
What we did is, we have people meet
at the place where we could control

1127
01:00:26,300 --> 01:00:28,000
in the different towns around here.

1128
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:31,500
So I was the San Jose marshal,
and I believe Nick you were...

1129
01:00:31,500 --> 01:00:33,900
I was... Rick Moen and I
did San Francisco.

1130
01:00:33,900 --> 01:00:34,400
Right.

1131
01:00:34,500 --> 01:00:38,500
And so we had maps there and we handed
them off to everybody who was coming.

1132
01:00:38,500 --> 01:00:42,500
Well, we actually met at a Denny's
that's just outside the Foster City limits...

1133
01:00:42,500 --> 01:00:44,100
Foster City city limits,

1134
01:00:44,100 --> 01:00:47,500
which meant also just outside of
Foster City Police jurisdiction,

1135
01:00:47,500 --> 01:00:51,100
which meant that any incidents
that happened at the meeting point

1136
01:00:51,100 --> 01:00:53,400
happened in the jurisdiction
of San Mateo,

1137
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:57,000
and if they told us to get lost, we'd say,
fine, we are going to Foster City. Bye.

1138
01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:00,500
It's sort of the Dukes of Hazzard method
of avoiding the cops, so...

1139
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:05,500
Well, actually, originally we marched
on the other side of this building.

1140
01:01:05,500 --> 01:01:09,500
We marched around and up onto
the parking structure that's up there,

1141
01:01:09,500 --> 01:01:12,400
and that's where Microsoft had
a reception laid out for us with

1142
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:14,500
drinks and a big sign that said...

1143
01:01:14,500 --> 01:01:16,900
Microsoft welcomes
the Open Source Community.

1144
01:01:16,900 --> 01:01:20,900
And the local news cameras got shots of
Eric Raymond and Microsoft representatives.

1145
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:24,900
Microsoft's story seems to mostly be that...

1146
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:29,500
this was not an issue for Microsoft,
rather from the OEMs.

1147
01:01:29,500 --> 01:01:32,800
So we all needed to go back to our
computer manufacturers and try yet again

1148
01:01:32,800 --> 01:01:34,900
to try and get refund from them.

1149
01:01:34,900 --> 01:01:36,600
We responded to them saying, you know,

1150
01:01:36,600 --> 01:01:40,600
that we tried that and it's not possible,
we need Microsoft to take action at this point.

1151
01:01:40,900 --> 01:01:43,500
And they just repeated the tag line
over and over again...

1152
01:01:43,500 --> 01:01:46,500
You need to go to the OEMs and manufacturers
and get your refunds there.

1153
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:52,500
We had about 150 people, probably half
of which had signs and such, so...

1154
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:56,500
Well, we ended up actually right
in this courtyard here.

1155
01:01:57,000 --> 01:02:00,500
Basically we originally met,
gathered outside,

1156
01:02:00,500 --> 01:02:05,500
various people sent groups in, people
from FreeBSD camp sent a couple of folks in.

1157
01:02:05,500 --> 01:02:09,500
We had Eric Raymond and Chris
actually tried to go up eventually.

1158
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:12,100
They had blocked the elevator off to us.

1159
01:02:12,100 --> 01:02:13,300
Where are the offices?

1160
01:02:13,300 --> 01:02:15,500
The offices are right up here
on the 9th floor.

1161
01:02:17,500 --> 01:02:19,600
We got some really nice press
out of it.

1162
01:02:19,800 --> 01:02:21,000
And we think as a result

1163
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:25,000
Toshiba made it possible for you to buy
laptops without the operating system on it.

1164
01:02:25,700 --> 01:02:27,500
So, it's a small victory, but...

1165
01:02:27,600 --> 01:02:31,600
Well, even now, companies
such as IBM and...

1166
01:02:31,700 --> 01:02:34,000
a lot of other computer manufacturers
are allowing you...

1167
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:36,600
now to buy machines that don't have
Windows on them.

1168
01:02:45,500 --> 01:02:48,300
When I was a kid and I went to school,

1169
01:02:48,300 --> 01:02:50,600
the teachers were trying
to teach us to share.

1170
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:52,600
They said if you bring some candy,

1171
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:55,700
you can't eat it all yourself,
you gotta share with other kids.

1172
01:02:55,700 --> 01:03:01,300
But now the administration says teachers
should be teaching kids to say yes to licensing.

1173
01:03:01,300 --> 01:03:04,300
If you bring some software to school,
oh, no, don't share it...

1174
01:03:04,300 --> 01:03:08,300
Sharing means you're pirate,
sharing means you'll be put in jail.

1175
01:03:08,500 --> 01:03:12,500
That's not the way society should work.
We need the good will.

1176
01:03:13,500 --> 01:03:17,500
The willingness to help other people
at least when it's not too hard,

1177
01:03:17,800 --> 01:03:20,000
because that's the basis of society,

1178
01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:22,500
that's the fundamental resource,

1179
01:03:22,500 --> 01:03:26,400
that gives us a society instead of
a dog-eat-dog jungle.

1180
01:03:26,400 --> 01:03:27,600
So what about people say that if

1181
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:30,700
you have rampant piracy and eliminate
the profit motive...

1182
01:03:30,700 --> 01:03:32,500
and creative works, software
will not...

1183
01:03:32,500 --> 01:03:35,500
Well, they were wrong on both counts.
For one thing,

1184
01:03:35,500 --> 01:03:39,500
people are making a profit from
developing Free Software,

1185
01:03:39,500 --> 01:03:44,300
but for another, the freedom to
have a community is more important.

1186
01:03:44,500 --> 01:03:48,300
People that look at, casually look at
Open Source Free Software and think...

1187
01:03:48,300 --> 01:03:51,500
well, because you are supposed to share
and do it for people's good will...

1188
01:03:51,500 --> 01:03:53,900
Doesn't that seem someone communist?
What's your response?

1189
01:03:53,900 --> 01:03:57,700
Absolutely nonsense, it makes
me really angry when people do that.

1190
01:03:57,700 --> 01:04:02,500
Well, back in, back in 1989, actually
communism would have been a compliment.

1191
01:04:02,700 --> 01:04:05,100
The word people were using at that time
was crazy,

1192
01:04:05,100 --> 01:04:07,000
and I want them to use capitalism.

1193
01:04:07,000 --> 01:04:10,500
Communism is an ideology
that forces people to share.

1194
01:04:10,600 --> 01:04:14,200
If you don't share,
you get thrown in jail or killed.

1195
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:20,500
In 1990, we got a visit from a director
of an institute in Moscow University,

1196
01:04:20,600 --> 01:04:24,500
and actually I saw him in Helsinki
just 2 weeks ago,

1197
01:04:25,700 --> 01:04:27,500
but in any event, he came by,

1198
01:04:27,700 --> 01:04:31,500
and Richard Stallman had suggested
that he visit Cygnus,

1199
01:04:31,500 --> 01:04:35,500
because he was interested in
understanding how the Free Software model...

1200
01:04:35,500 --> 01:04:40,600
might apply to stimulating entrepreneurial
innovation in Russia of all places,

1201
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:44,800
and we had been kind of secretive
about our business plan,

1202
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:47,700
because you know, we weren't really
sure that it was gonna work,

1203
01:04:47,700 --> 01:04:50,500
we didn't want to look too stupid
if it failed.

1204
01:04:50,500 --> 01:04:52,800
But I was very very open with him.

1205
01:04:52,800 --> 01:04:56,700
The more I told him, the more he started
to shake his head like this,

1206
01:04:56,900 --> 01:05:00,500
and I finally said,
you know, what's wrong?

1207
01:05:00,500 --> 01:05:05,500
And he said, this sounds to much like
communism to be successful in Russia.

1208
01:05:07,500 --> 01:05:11,500
You got to go a Gulag and end up in a mass grave
with a bullet in the back of your head.

1209
01:05:11,500 --> 01:05:15,500
Open Source is not communism
because it doesn't force people.

1210
01:05:17,500 --> 01:05:20,500
Karl Marx did not invent helping
your neighbor.

1211
01:05:22,300 --> 01:05:26,300
It's not communist to have a commons.

1212
01:05:26,400 --> 01:05:33,100
A commons existed long before communism
as a philosophy of government.

1213
01:05:33,900 --> 01:05:36,000
There are many commons in our lives.

1214
01:05:36,000 --> 01:05:38,100
For example, we drive on the highway,

1215
01:05:38,100 --> 01:05:41,500
something that is maintained
for our common good.

1216
01:05:41,500 --> 01:05:45,500
Actually labeling our business model...

1217
01:05:46,100 --> 01:05:48,200
means that it misses the point
a little bit.

1218
01:05:48,200 --> 01:05:49,300
Whether it's communist,
or whether it's capitalist,

1219
01:05:49,300 --> 01:05:52,900
the label doesn't matter,
the real question is,

1220
01:05:52,900 --> 01:05:56,500
how much value can you deliver,
how scalable is the business,

1221
01:05:56,500 --> 01:05:59,800
what kind of problems, what kind
of rate of innovation can you sustain.

1222
01:05:59,800 --> 01:06:03,500
And then, however you want to label that,
it's really up to you.

1223
01:06:32,100 --> 01:06:33,600
A lot of people described,

1224
01:06:33,600 --> 01:06:36,500
that August LinuxWorld
as Linux's coming-out party.

1225
01:06:36,500 --> 01:06:40,500
Linus Torvalds was very funny about this,
he said, what, was Linux gay?

1226
01:06:42,500 --> 01:06:45,500
But some people said,
yeah, that was our debutante ball.

1227
01:06:46,100 --> 01:06:47,200
That was when the...

1228
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:51,200
Linux Gods, and the hardware hackers
really got it together with the suits.

1229
01:07:01,300 --> 01:07:04,300
At 3 p.m. on August 10th 1999,

1230
01:07:04,300 --> 01:07:07,900
Linus Torvalds delivered the keynote
address at LinuxWorld.

1231
01:07:07,900 --> 01:07:12,400
The crowds of 6000 people began
lining up at 12 noon.

1232
01:07:32,000 --> 01:07:34,500
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Larry Augustin...

1233
01:07:34,500 --> 01:07:40,300
LinuxWorld Conference Chair and President
and CEO of VA Linux Systems.

1234
01:07:48,500 --> 01:07:51,500
These guys have to clap, I pay them.

1235
01:07:51,500 --> 01:07:55,800
Thank you all for being here,
looks like it's been a great show so far.

1236
01:07:55,800 --> 01:08:02,100
If you'll indulge me for a moment, I'm going to
try to avoid the glare of the lights.

1237
01:08:02,300 --> 01:08:05,500
I still think there's lots of people,
even though this is the 2nd show,

1238
01:08:05,500 --> 01:08:09,000
I still think there's lots of people
who don't quite get...

1239
01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:11,500
what it is that's so exciting
about Linux.

1240
01:08:11,500 --> 01:08:13,500
So there is a great show going
on next door,

1241
01:08:13,500 --> 01:08:16,200
there's huge exhibits and everything,

1242
01:08:16,200 --> 01:08:21,100
but it's the people out here that are
real contributors, not those companies.

1243
01:08:21,100 --> 01:08:24,000
The person on next
I know you all know,

1244
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:26,900
so I don't have to give anything
in the way as introduction.

1245
01:08:26,900 --> 01:08:30,500
Ladies and gentlemen,
I give you, Linus Torvalds.

1246
01:08:38,500 --> 01:08:39,500
Thanks.

1247
01:08:42,500 --> 01:08:44,500
Calm down.

1248
01:08:50,000 --> 01:08:52,000
Calm down.

1249
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:53,500
Say ooooo...

1250
01:08:53,500 --> 01:08:54,500
Yes.

1251
01:08:54,700 --> 01:08:58,100
I don't want to just give one
of my normal talks,

1252
01:08:58,100 --> 01:08:59,600
because I find them boring,

1253
01:08:59,600 --> 01:09:03,600
probably by now most of you find them boring
too because you've heard them like 10 times.

1254
01:09:04,500 --> 01:09:07,200
But after the technical updates,
we will actually try...

1255
01:09:07,200 --> 01:09:11,700
whether we can do a question and answer
session with 5,000 people,

1256
01:09:11,800 --> 01:09:14,500
or how many of you
there are there.

1257
01:09:15,500 --> 01:09:17,700
And it may not actually work out,

1258
01:09:17,700 --> 01:09:21,400
because one of the 5,000 people
is really loud.

1259
01:09:21,400 --> 01:09:22,500
The one thing I will do,

1260
01:09:22,500 --> 01:09:26,500
which I always do in all my talks
is the gratitude thing.

1261
01:09:26,900 --> 01:09:30,000
I want to kind of acknowledge
the fact that...

1262
01:09:30,000 --> 01:09:32,500
I'm obviously not been alone
in doing Linux.

1263
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:40,200
Red Hat, up 228%.

1264
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:43,300
This is the IPO that everybody
was waiting for.

1265
01:09:43,300 --> 01:09:45,800
They of course are behind
the Linux operating software.

1266
01:09:52,500 --> 01:09:55,500
- R-H-A-T.
- I know...

1267
01:09:57,500 --> 01:09:58,500
All I've gotten today,

1268
01:09:58,500 --> 01:10:01,900
are comments about what
the stock price is, all morning,

1269
01:10:01,900 --> 01:10:05,400
you know it was at 41,
it was at 42, it was at 47,

1270
01:10:05,400 --> 01:10:08,300
it was at 53, it was at 51...

1271
01:10:08,300 --> 01:10:12,100
Every machine as far as I can tell
on the show floor

1272
01:10:12,100 --> 01:10:16,100
is pointed to their e-trade accounts or their
broker accounts, they know the Red Hat's price.

1273
01:10:16,900 --> 01:10:19,400
- I can't believe this.
- 47...

1274
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:21,200
I just heard 53.

1275
01:10:21,200 --> 01:10:22,200
Oh, boy.

1276
01:10:22,200 --> 01:10:24,200
Hang on, I didn't buy it.

1277
01:10:24,200 --> 01:10:25,600
You didn't buy?

1278
01:10:25,600 --> 01:10:27,800
No, no, I didn't buy.

1279
01:10:27,800 --> 01:10:29,500
I should've bought, but...

1280
01:10:29,500 --> 01:10:31,100
No, no, that's great.

1281
01:10:31,100 --> 01:10:32,600
If it's... If it's...

1282
01:10:32,600 --> 01:10:33,900
You guys don't know?

1283
01:10:33,900 --> 01:10:35,000
Well, you know

1284
01:10:35,000 --> 01:10:37,300
Red Hat being successful,
just means that

1285
01:10:37,300 --> 01:10:40,800
it legitimizes Linux, so
it's much easier for us to go out.

1286
01:11:00,500 --> 01:11:02,500
It's kind of been a little bit
divided.

1287
01:11:02,500 --> 01:11:03,500
You've got a lot of people

1288
01:11:03,500 --> 01:11:04,500
that are pretty hardcore and

1289
01:11:04,500 --> 01:11:05,800
they're kind of offended by that,

1290
01:11:05,800 --> 01:11:08,900
you know, cause they work really hard,
they are not really getting...

1291
01:11:08,900 --> 01:11:11,400
maybe their fair share out of that.

1292
01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:12,600
Some people do get ticked,

1293
01:11:12,600 --> 01:11:13,700
and you know the thing

1294
01:11:13,700 --> 01:11:15,900
that you see that on a lot of mailing lists
or on Slashdot, you'll read, you know...

1295
01:11:15,900 --> 01:11:21,700
this guy is really mad because he didn't get
a chance to, he didn't get a chance to do...

1296
01:11:22,800 --> 01:11:24,200
to get stock from Red Hat,

1297
01:11:24,200 --> 01:11:29,200
he didn't get a chance to get a job
from this other company, you know.

1298
01:11:29,700 --> 01:11:33,200
But the kind of the shocking secret
there is that,

1299
01:11:33,200 --> 01:11:36,300
most of the really hardcore guys,
you know, they don't care so much.

1300
01:11:36,300 --> 01:11:38,100
The guys that are kind of really down
in the trenches.

1301
01:11:38,100 --> 01:11:40,500
They're writing this code because
they need this code.

1302
01:11:40,800 --> 01:11:42,900
If we could invite Richard Stallman

1303
01:11:42,900 --> 01:11:46,300
who's the founder
of the Free Software Association

1304
01:11:46,300 --> 01:11:48,200
and Tim Ney,
who's the managing director.

1305
01:11:48,200 --> 01:11:49,500
There we go.

1306
01:11:51,500 --> 01:11:53,700
Ah, here it is.

1307
01:11:54,500 --> 01:11:59,300
Now, Richard, I saw you playing your recorder
in Paris at that Linux conference

1308
01:11:59,300 --> 01:12:00,700
but I didn't have audio tracks.

1309
01:12:00,700 --> 01:12:02,900
So would you get them to add
audio to their...

1310
01:12:02,900 --> 01:12:04,900
video downstream next time.

1311
01:12:04,900 --> 01:12:07,100
I don't have any control over that

1312
01:12:07,100 --> 01:12:11,100
unfortunately those things can
only be done with non-free software.

1313
01:12:14,600 --> 01:12:17,900
We'll give you the award,
and before you say a word,

1314
01:12:17,900 --> 01:12:22,800
we'll have Tim and yourself hold up
a little representation of the contribution

1315
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:25,300
towards the Free Software Association.

1316
01:12:25,300 --> 01:12:29,300
So, very ironic things have happened,

1317
01:12:29,700 --> 01:12:32,500
but nothing to match this

1318
01:12:32,500 --> 01:12:36,100
giving the Linus Tovarlds award
to the Free Software Foundation

1319
01:12:36,100 --> 01:12:40,100
is sort of like giving the
Han Solo award to the rebel fleet.

1320
01:12:44,700 --> 01:12:50,500
You see, some of you may not realize
how far that analogy goes.

1321
01:12:52,300 --> 01:12:55,800
But actually let me tell you how this,
how we got here.

1322
01:12:55,800 --> 01:12:57,300
See, what happened is,

1323
01:12:57,300 --> 01:12:59,900
15 years ago,
if you wanted to use a computer,

1324
01:12:59,900 --> 01:13:03,900
the only way you could do it was to,
was with proprietary software.

1325
01:13:04,800 --> 01:13:07,500
Software that divides and subjugates
the users.

1326
01:13:07,500 --> 01:13:09,400
And most people just...

1327
01:13:09,400 --> 01:13:10,700
a lot of people didn't like it

1328
01:13:10,700 --> 01:13:12,200
but they saw no alternative.

1329
01:13:12,200 --> 01:13:16,000
But some of us were determined
to make an alternative

1330
01:13:16,000 --> 01:13:20,000
and we said we're gonna develop
a free operating system,

1331
01:13:20,100 --> 01:13:21,900
a free software operating system

1332
01:13:21,900 --> 01:13:27,600
that will give users the chance to have
freedom while they use their computers.

1333
01:13:28,200 --> 01:13:30,800
Now a lot of people said,
well, it's a nice idea

1334
01:13:30,800 --> 01:13:33,100
but it's so hard,
you'll never get it done,

1335
01:13:33,100 --> 01:13:37,000
so I don't wanna participate,
I don't believe you can ever get it done.

1336
01:13:37,000 --> 01:13:39,800
But luckily not everybody said that.

1337
01:13:39,800 --> 01:13:43,700
And clearly, we knew we would
eventually get the kernel done.

1338
01:13:43,700 --> 01:13:45,000
But as it happens...

1339
01:13:45,000 --> 01:13:48,100
somebody else did a better kernel
before we did.

1340
01:13:48,100 --> 01:13:51,700
Now in the old days,
we had an overall strategy

1341
01:13:51,700 --> 01:13:55,300
from calling people's attention
to the importance of freedom

1342
01:13:55,300 --> 01:13:59,300
to the freedom they can have, or not have,
when they use a computer.

1343
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:02,100
Well what can we do about it?
As far as I can tell,

1344
01:14:02,100 --> 01:14:08,100
the only workable way of trying to change
this make that strategy work again

1345
01:14:08,500 --> 01:14:14,300
is to spread the word that the operating system
you're using is actually the GNU system.

1346
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:16,600
Somewhat modified of course.

1347
01:14:17,700 --> 01:14:19,600
And when people know this,

1348
01:14:19,600 --> 01:14:23,100
they'll take a look at the reasons
we developed this system.

1349
01:14:23,100 --> 01:14:25,000
They'll think about these issues

1350
01:14:25,000 --> 01:14:27,800
and some of them will decide
they agree.

1351
01:14:27,800 --> 01:14:31,100
So I ask people, please tell
the people this is the GNU system.

1352
01:14:31,100 --> 01:14:35,100
It's the combination of GNU and Linux,
so we can call it GNU/Linux.

1353
01:14:41,100 --> 01:14:44,400
So Larry, when you were at Stanford
8, 9 years ago during your PhD.

1354
01:14:44,400 --> 01:14:46,100
Did you ever think you'd be
in this position?

1355
01:14:46,100 --> 01:14:47,000
No.

1356
01:14:47,000 --> 01:14:48,400
All kidding aside.

1357
01:14:48,400 --> 01:14:50,300
No, I had no idea honestly.

1358
01:14:50,300 --> 01:14:53,100
What did you think you would be
when you were finished up with your PhD?

1359
01:14:53,100 --> 01:14:54,500
You know that's a good question,

1360
01:14:54,500 --> 01:14:56,800
I really didn't have a good idea.
I mean...

1361
01:14:56,800 --> 01:15:00,100
here we are,
on this huge show floor.

1362
01:15:00,100 --> 01:15:03,100
There are people just going crazy
about Linux.

1363
01:15:03,100 --> 01:15:06,500
We had 6,200 people crammed
into a room

1364
01:15:06,500 --> 01:15:09,800
to see Linux, Linus, speak last night.

1365
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:11,400
Here we are with, you know,

1366
01:15:11,400 --> 01:15:14,100
all of these huge venders
all over the show.

1367
01:15:14,100 --> 01:15:17,200
It's, just, you have no idea that
this is gonna happen.

1368
01:15:17,200 --> 01:15:20,000
I mean this is just this little operating
system that we're happy with,

1369
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:22,000
that a few people cared about,
you know,

1370
01:15:22,000 --> 01:15:24,000
I thought I'd have a nice little
consulting business.

1371
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:25,400
And here I am suddenly,

1372
01:15:25,400 --> 01:15:27,900
with all of this huge show
going on.

1373
01:15:27,900 --> 01:15:28,900
It's just incredible.

1374
01:15:28,900 --> 01:15:32,100
I mean, a year ago, you could look and say,
you know, this is gonna be big

1375
01:15:32,100 --> 01:15:33,900
and everyone standing
at the show going...

1376
01:15:33,900 --> 01:15:36,300
You know the show was big last year,

1377
01:15:36,300 --> 01:15:39,300
is it gonna, is it gonna be as big
this year?

1378
01:15:39,400 --> 01:15:40,600
Then you remind them...

1379
01:15:40,600 --> 01:15:42,800
You know, last year
was only 6 months ago.

1380
01:15:42,900 --> 01:15:44,800
And then they go, oh, Linux time.

1381
01:16:11,500 --> 01:16:13,700
So leading up to the IPO...

1382
01:16:13,700 --> 01:16:19,700
we had arrived actually in San Diego
on Tuesday night.

1383
01:16:20,000 --> 01:16:24,000
We spent Wednesday morning meeting
investors in San Diego.

1384
01:16:24,400 --> 01:16:25,800
We flew up to San Francisco,

1385
01:16:25,800 --> 01:16:29,700
spent Wednesday afternoon meeting
investment firms in San Francisco.

1386
01:16:30,600 --> 01:16:34,000
Then on Thursday morning
of the IPO is

1387
01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:36,500
when our stock would be traded
publicly.

1388
01:16:36,500 --> 01:16:40,300
So it was nice we had ended
the tour in San Francisco

1389
01:16:40,300 --> 01:16:44,200
because we could go to the Credit
Suisse trading desk the next morning

1390
01:16:44,200 --> 01:16:46,100
to watch the public offering.

1391
01:16:46,100 --> 01:16:50,100
And in San Francisco being close
enough to the company, and to our families,

1392
01:16:50,100 --> 01:16:54,100
we could invite people up to
actually join us in the first trade.

1393
01:16:54,100 --> 01:16:57,200
So I invited my wife and
we invited Linus and Tove,

1394
01:16:57,200 --> 01:17:00,700
and a number of other friends and people
who worked in the company to join us.

1395
01:17:00,700 --> 01:17:02,200
Whenever we invite Linus and Tove,

1396
01:17:02,200 --> 01:17:05,300
they have two young children,

1397
01:17:05,300 --> 01:17:07,300
and I have a daughter, Andrea,

1398
01:17:07,300 --> 01:17:08,800
and we always bring the kids along,

1399
01:17:08,800 --> 01:17:10,800
so we went in to the Credit Suisse
trading floor

1400
01:17:10,800 --> 01:17:13,200
with all these traders and there are
these 3 year old kids

1401
01:17:13,200 --> 01:17:15,500
running around and chasing each other
around the show floor,

1402
01:17:15,500 --> 01:17:16,500
around the trading floor.

1403
01:17:16,500 --> 01:17:21,700
So Linus and I walked in and
we walked up in to the trading floor

1404
01:17:21,800 --> 01:17:23,100
and everyone was very excited,

1405
01:17:23,100 --> 01:17:26,300
and we kept asking them, well,
how's it going? Are things going ok?

1406
01:17:26,300 --> 01:17:29,100
And they said, oh, it's...
we're really excited,

1407
01:17:29,100 --> 01:17:30,300
I think things are going well.

1408
01:17:30,300 --> 01:17:33,900
We don't wanna, we don't wanna say,
we don't wanna jinx anything.

1409
01:17:33,900 --> 01:17:37,900
We walked in and it was a
big screen TV showing CNBC.

1410
01:17:38,500 --> 01:17:42,500
And it was amazing to us, but
the theme for the day was Linux.

1411
01:17:42,600 --> 01:17:45,000
Now we have an IPO
that's gonna go today,

1412
01:17:45,000 --> 01:17:47,200
and when I mean go,
it is going to go.

1413
01:17:47,200 --> 01:17:49,200
The estimates I'm hearing
are staggering.

1414
01:17:49,200 --> 01:17:52,700
But watch VA Linux Systems.
It goes at 12:40 today.

1415
01:17:52,700 --> 01:17:54,400
The symbol is L-N-U-X.

1416
01:17:54,400 --> 01:17:58,000
A provider of large scale computer
servers and workstations,

1417
01:17:58,000 --> 01:18:00,200
specially designed for the Linux
operating system.

1418
01:18:00,200 --> 01:18:06,300
The original range on this IPO was
11 to 13 dollars, then 21 to 23, then 28 to 30,

1419
01:18:06,500 --> 01:18:09,800
priced at 30, and the estimates I'm hearing
I don't wanna repeat

1420
01:18:09,800 --> 01:18:11,100
because I don't have a confirmation.

1421
01:18:11,100 --> 01:18:16,000
But if they're true, they will blow your mind
when this stock takes off at 12:40.

1422
01:18:16,000 --> 01:18:18,400
I turned to Linus and I said,
gee, did you ever think,

1423
01:18:18,400 --> 01:18:23,600
you know, you'd walk in here some day and
Linux would be the theme on CNBC?

1424
01:18:24,200 --> 01:18:26,900
And Linus said in his joking way,
said, oh, absolutely!

1425
01:18:27,300 --> 01:18:30,800
So we walk in and they show us
the buy and sell orders coming in...

1426
01:18:30,800 --> 01:18:32,800
and it's incredible.

1427
01:18:32,800 --> 01:18:36,400
We're seeing numbers like
320 dollars, 340 dollars a share.

1428
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:38,900
And I'm just in complete shock.

1429
01:18:38,900 --> 01:18:44,200
You know, this is over 10 times where
we priced the offering. It was incredible.

1430
01:18:44,500 --> 01:18:48,500
And I remember Linus just kind of,
sort of patting me on the back and saying,

1431
01:18:48,500 --> 01:18:52,500
you know, relax, and it was pretty
exciting to see that.

1432
01:18:52,500 --> 01:18:55,400
We were, it was just amazing.
We were stunned.

1433
01:18:55,800 --> 01:18:58,800
We were lucky that we were able to
get back to the offices,

1434
01:18:58,800 --> 01:19:02,600
we'd been in San Francisco, so
we could come back to VA's offices

1435
01:19:02,600 --> 01:19:05,100
to see everyone in the office
for the IPO.

1436
01:19:05,100 --> 01:19:10,000
When we got back, we had,
everyone was obviously very excited.

1437
01:19:10,600 --> 01:19:13,300
The IPO had done
just tremendously well.

1438
01:19:13,300 --> 01:19:16,900
We had a little party
that we put together.

1439
01:19:16,900 --> 01:19:18,600
It was interesting,
while we were celebrating,

1440
01:19:18,600 --> 01:19:21,100
there were plenty of people that
were still trying to work.

1441
01:19:21,100 --> 01:19:24,900
I recall cries of be quiet!
We're on the phone! We're working!

1442
01:19:24,900 --> 01:19:28,600
As we went in to the offices

1443
01:19:28,600 --> 01:19:32,400
one of the things I did was
I gave the road show presentation

1444
01:19:32,400 --> 01:19:34,200
for the employees back at the office,

1445
01:19:34,200 --> 01:19:37,300
so they could have an idea of
what we'd been telling investors,

1446
01:19:37,300 --> 01:19:40,900
and understand exactly what we'd
put together for them.

1447
01:19:40,900 --> 01:19:49,600
But again the story of the day is VA Linux,
now up 766% to 235 dollars to 265.

1448
01:19:49,800 --> 01:19:52,200
Sue, the best performing IPO ever.

1449
01:19:52,200 --> 01:19:57,700
Here it goes, Sycamore Networks was priced
at 38 dollars, surged to $270.

1450
01:19:58,000 --> 01:20:00,300
This has just beat it and by the way...

1451
01:20:00,300 --> 01:20:04,300
How do you feel about potentially billions
of dollars of wealth being created

1452
01:20:04,500 --> 01:20:08,500
from your creation,
that you're not directly cashing out?

1453
01:20:09,100 --> 01:20:12,500
So, if I hadn't made Linux available,
I mean,

1454
01:20:12,500 --> 01:20:15,800
I wouldn't have gotten any money
that way either.

1455
01:20:15,800 --> 01:20:18,700
So, I mean, it's a win-win situation.

1456
01:20:19,700 --> 01:20:25,500
Just the fact that there are
a lot of commercial companies

1457
01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:31,500
means that there are a lot of Linux people
who used to work on Linux kind of on the side.

1458
01:20:32,000 --> 01:20:34,700
And now they get paid for doing
what they wanted to do.

1459
01:20:34,700 --> 01:20:39,300
And that helps me in the sense that
I wanted them to work on Linux anyway.

1460
01:21:00,900 --> 01:21:06,200
The whole GNU project is really
one big hack.

1461
01:21:06,700 --> 01:21:10,700
It's one big act of subversive
playful cleverness,

1462
01:21:10,700 --> 01:21:16,800
to change society for the better, because I'm
only interested in changing it for the better,

1463
01:21:16,900 --> 01:21:21,100
but in a clever way.

1464
01:21:21,300 --> 01:21:25,300
Hi, we're the GNU/Stallmans, and this is
the Free Software song.

1465
01:21:26,300 --> 01:21:29,900
<i>Join us now and share the software</i>

1466
01:21:29,900 --> 01:21:36,700
<i>You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free</i>

1467
01:21:37,600 --> 01:21:38,400
<i>You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free</i>

1468
01:21:46,100 --> 01:21:49,200
<i>Hoarders may get piles of money</i>

1469
01:21:49,200 --> 01:21:56,600
<i>That is true, hackers, that is true</i>

1470
01:21:58,400 --> 01:22:01,800
<i>But they cannot help their neighbors</i>

1471
01:22:01,800 --> 01:22:09,800
<i>That's ain't good, hackers, that's ain't good</i>

1472
01:22:14,000 --> 01:22:17,000
<i>When we have enough free software</i>

1473
01:22:17,000 --> 01:22:24,300
<i>At our call, hackers, at our call</i>

1474
01:22:26,400 --> 01:22:29,600
<i>We'll throw out those dirty licenses</i>

1475
01:22:29,600 --> 01:22:37,400
<i>Ever more, hackers, ever more</i>

1476
01:23:12,400 --> 01:23:15,700
<i>Join us now and share the software</i>

1477
01:23:15,700 --> 01:23:22,900
<i>You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free</i>

1478
01:23:24,800 --> 01:23:27,800
<i>Join us now and share the software</i>

1479
01:23:27,800 --> 01:23:34,400
<i>You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free</i>

1480
01:23:36,600 --> 01:23:39,400
<i>Oh, you'll be free</i>

1481
01:23:39,400 --> 01:23:41,100
<i>I let you know</i>

1482
01:23:41,100 --> 01:23:44,000
<i>That you'll be free</i>

1483
01:23:44,000 --> 01:23:45,900
<i>I let you know</i>

1484
01:23:45,900 --> 01:23:49,900
<i>That you'll be free</i>

1485
01:23:53,000 --> 01:23:57,000
<i>That you'll be free</i>