Sixth Thursday - Day Thirty-two

Open Source II - The Sequel
So, I woke up this morning and almost decided to delete yesterday's entry and replace it. I've thought lots about Open Source as a concept, and I've talked about it with a good number of people, but never in a coherent, straightforward, answer-all-the-questions kind of way. I've done lots of reflecting on the topic. It may seem a bit far-fetched, but I think there are strong connections between the Open Source movement (I will continue to call it that, unless someone can write and make a good case not to call it that) and the DRM debate that is going on around music CDs, movies and computer games. It also has some connections with peer-to-peer file sharing and the whole issue of copyright and intellectual propery.

So, I've talked with a number of people about Open Source software, and I freely admit that part of the point of these conversations is to help me come to an understanding in my own mind about the whole issue of "open source". Unfortunately, I am still working it all out, and that's probably why I wasn't satisfied with what I wrote yesterday (and actually if you are checking the dates and times - it was really quite early today!).

Open Source is more than just a collection of really good and really cheap (as in free!) software, although those two attributes are not to be sneezed at. For me there is an interesting ethic to be explored. And I also think there is a spirituality behind that ethic. So that, along with the fact that the software I use is both good and free, is why I am so attracted to the whole idea of Open Source. For me it has something to do with being gifted by God and using those gifts to develop software and then allow people to have it for nothing - as long as they agree to make their own work available as well.

I really do want sometime to explore the whole spiritual background of developers of open source software. Because I think that community-developed (a term that is sometimes used to describe open source contributions) software is an important, tangible example of the kind of community that is described in the aforementioned book of Acts.

The whole idea of free to use, free to change, free to buy software movement, brings one into discussions about giftedness, intellectual property and other ways of organizing ourselves. After all, doesn't free stuff do a real number on the prevailing system of values? What would it mean if we all bartered our way around the money system.

So not only does Open Source help me get stuff done freely (in all the ways you want to define it), but it helps me to reflect on the ways in which God has gifted those around us.

I still don't feel like I said everything I wanted to say in a manner that is straightforward and understandable, but perhaps a little better than last night's posting.

Of course this all sounds a bit like this: Using Open Source solutions - which end up being better in quality as well as free, helps me to think about God and the way God has gifted us. And that, my friends, is how the action-reflection- action cycle goes. Which all means that using open source is much like a Lenten discipline. They both lead me on a path which ends up being close to where we started. And they both help me to reflect on God and God's relationship with us.

I hope that makes more sense than last night, and I expect you have not heard the last of this subject!

My graphic today is one that comes from the Free Software Foundation which is known for its Gnu logo - depicting the animal called a Gnu. However the Free Software Foundation also produces software which is labeled with the Gnu name. And what does Gnu stand for? Well it is a self-defining acronym meaning Gnu is Not Unix. Do you get it? It's a little inside joke that often shows up as a kind of naming convention for Open Source software.








Yellowknife,
March 24, 2010

Sixth Wednesday - Day Thirty-one

Open Source

So this is one of those days when I wasn't sure what to write about. It was a busy enough day with it being the turn of Yellowknife United Church and Holy Family Lutheran Church to provide the lunch for the Lenten Lunch series that is offered by the Yellowknife Ministerial Association every Wednesday during Lent, but as you can see that would have been a pretty short post!

So, I spent a few minutes on Facebook looking for inspiration, but nothing served as a muse. So, off I went to Twitter. The last tweet I tweeted (is that the correct way to say that?) was almost a month ago, when I mentioned this blog. Because I haven't been on Twitter for a while there was a long list of tweets from the United Church which is one of the Twitter accounts I am following. And there I found the comment that was the spark for this evening's blog entry. The tweet asked: How would the United Church of Canada look redesigned by Apple?That turned my crank or pushed my button! I quickly replied with this: I would much rather see what The United Church of Canada would look like redesigned by the Open Source Community. 

I can't believe that I've posted thirty entries here and have not yet mentioned Open Source. You see, it is a big focus for me. It intrigues me. It inspires me. It keeps me well stocked with software. I use it every day of my life, and someday I would like to study even more closely the community that produces it. If I had taken some different turns earlier in my life I might well have been a contributing member of the Open Source Community rather than someone who simply uses the stuff that others contribute.

If you want to know more about the Open Source Software movement (I'm not sure that it is a 'movement', but for sake of a better term, that's what I'll call it) you can find out lots on the Web - in fact it is one of the best places to find out information, because a lot of Open Source programmers use it exclusively - to promote, collaborate, and distribute their products. Look up the name Richard Stallman on Wikipedia (which by the way in many ways has connections with the Open Source Community) or put his name into Google. Read the book by Eric Raymond The Cathedral and the Bazaar. There's an online version of it here.

And I really would like to see what the United Church would be like as designed by the Open Source Community - although some might argue that that's the way we are already. I haven't given this a lot of thought, but here's a quick list of good things about Open Source Software:

1. It is 'free'. The phrase that's been coined to explain this characteristic is this: "free" as in speech, not as in beer. Which means that you are free to see the code for the software and make it work the way you want to make it work. 
2. It is usually 'free' - as in "it doesn't cost you money" - or as in beer.
3. It is peer reviewed, and usually very good software - certainly very valuable when you consider how much you pay for it!
4. It is updated more frequently and therefore improves more quickly than commercial software.
5. Commercial software often charges more money for new, improved versions.
6. It sounds more like the kind of software the Acts community would have used. 

So, I wonder how does this translate to the United Church of Canada?

1. Are we 'free' as in speech? - Not bad, and our rules of governance are fairly easy to come by. Our traditions and long held ways of doing things are not always quite as transparent or easy to figure out. The General Council spent some time talking about the "source code" of the United Church last summer - better known as The Basis of Union. Some think a rewrite with an archiving of the original package might be a good idea.
2. Free as in 'not costing any money'? Free to join - a least dollar wise. Free to attend. Free to participate. But pretty soon we hope your thanksgiving and your understanding of being a steward might change that - although you are hopefully always free to choose.
3. We have lots of stuff that's peer reviewed in the United Church. It's how we do a lot of our business. Sometimes the testing needs to be more thorough, and perhaps the work needs to be better at handling a variety of special cases.
4. I'm not sure how good we are at updating. Some parts of the church get updated more often than others, and it can sometimes take a very long time to get anything new going. See the comment above about dealing with traditions. 
5. See #4!
6. This is an interesting one for me. I think that "open source" is ideally suited to the church. It's developed in community. It is free - in both ways of understanding, and I think there is something about 'grace' tied up in the whole "Open Source" ideal.

Well, this has been a bit of whimsical look at something that I take very seriously. The post has been mostly this way because it's been off the top of my head. But it has got me thinking and perhaps once I have had a chance to do some more thinking about The United Church of Canada as designed by the open source community, I'll have more to say.

Finally, just to give you an example of the way in which open source is so much a part of my world every day, let me just list a non-exhaustive list of the software I use that is 'open source' along with the commercial or closed source equivalent - some of which I have, but some which I use 'open source' instead of.

Item	Open Source	Closed Source or Commercial
Operating System	Ubuntu Linux	Microsoft Windows 7
Web Browser	Mozilla Firefox	Microsoft Internet Explorer
Email Client	Mozilla Thunderbird	Microsoft Outlook
Photo Editing	GIMP	Photoshop
Office Suite: Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Database, etc.	Openoffice.org	Microsoft Office

To name but a few....

Yellowknife
March 24, 2010