Shane Kelly (Part 1) (037-1)
16 year-old Ethical Hacker, Shane Kelly describes the benefits of open source software.
Transcript:
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A. You can just look at this code over here, you can change a couple of things here and copy this. So it is a very, you know, it is a very collaborative community, so.
Q. Some of these things you are talking about are reflected I suppose in the current web trends, things like web 2.0 are quite connected -- how you would you describe that? What is web 2.0?
A. Web 2.0 is the idea of AJAX applications, which is basically asynchronous pages. It is kind of the new web. Have you seen Google Maps? It is kind of like that. It allows you to do more things with the web. It allows for the, you know -- it is basically a different technology to the web and allows for the creation of more interactive content, basically.
Q. But that is collaboration as well. Instead of people reading things, being able to connect with them in some way. It is about people changing from just being able to read things to what Lawrence Lessig described it as 'read to read-write culture,' do you agree with that?
A. Yes.
Q. What are other examples you think -- good examples of web 2.0?
A. Are we talking about open source or?
Q. If you could just -- it would be useful if you can describe any?
A. Both?
Q. Web 2.0, not necessarily open source.
A. 2.0 is technology which allows for interactive content on the web so things like Google Maps. When you go on to Google Maps, you will load the web page and then the maps will be loaded separately and it is that asynchronous communication that is web 2.0. The easiest is client-side scripting to grab the information from a separate request.
Q. What's asynchronous?
A. Well I think about it as the opposite synchronous. It is -- I'm thinking of a good way of describing it -- something that is not predictable in time, I would say. Something that is not -- with standard programming you have the idea of time synchronisation, so this is going to occur after this, after this, after this. With asynchronous, it can occur at any time so --
Q. What web 2.0 applications or websites do you use?
A. I think Google Maps is a good one. (Laughter) I am trying to think of some good ones actually. I do not know. I do not really use a lot of web 2.0.
Q. Any blogs?
A. No I think most of it is just web 1 at the moment. It is just, basically, it is standard content I mostly use but web 2.0, I mean, you know. There is a lot of reasons why you would and would not use web 2.0 and the reason for you not using it is it adds more complexity to the application essentially and the more complexity and the more security issues you are going to have and there has been a lot of issues with web 2.0 in terms of security. We have a lot of flaws and a lot of ways you can exploit it and developers don't want the hassles of fixing those issues, whereas with web 1 you can essentially -- it eliminates those problems. There is no reason to have interactive content if you don't need it, I mean, so --
Q. You mentioned -- do you want to have a rest, yes?
(A short adjournment)
A. (4.36) The same as propriety software. So it is basically the same thing except that you have the community and you have the open code.
Q. It is that different?
A. It is an different model, yes.
Q. That is what is exciting about it. It totally -- can you see what a challenge it is as a different way of doing things. Imagine how scary for people like Microsoft.
A. Yes.
Q. But even just the what a lot of the stuff I want to talk about is that as a model for doing things. You mentioned some -- but it is nothing to do with that because it is borne out of technology, borne out of efficiency.
A. Yes.
Q. Because it works so well. Do you think efficiency is an important part of Linux and why it works. There is not another way to create such a broad basis what do you think of those ideas?
A. What?
Q. Efficiency and this is the only way to create something.
A. I do not necessarily think it is the only way to create something. I just think it is a way that is very -- that allows for the creation of, it allows for innovation, for contribution. As a hobby, as someone that enjoys programming, as someone who enjoys creating, it is a way that I can contribute and I am sure that many other millions of people in the world would like to contribute to open source. So I mean it is a very fast moving industry and something that is going to grow and I think it is something that everyone can win from.
Q. Shall we look up web 2.0. I am all right for tea. No thanks.
A. Coffee thanks. Thanks, just me, yes.
Q. Web 3.0? Web 3.0, web 2.0, here we go, the terminology used to describe the future of the world wide web. What do you think the future of the www is. Do you agree with that?
A. I do not know. I think -- I do not think the web is going to change much. It is going to stay pretty much as it is but obviously we are going to have the idea of more content, the idea of more features such as google applications. I mean, we are seeing now a lot of applications, desktop applications such as word-processors and spreadsheets are being moved onto the web and one of the good things about that is you have the idea that whatever operating system you are running on, whether it be BSD, whether it be Linux, whether it be Windows Mac, whether it be units -- whatever you are running everything has a web browser and as long as your web browser supports web 2.0 essentially, which most browsers do, you have the idea of being able to create something that is available for all platforms.
(A short adjournment)
A. I would like to answer some questions quite good. The questions are quite hard.
Q. You are even clearer than Alan Cox.
A. Yes, what is open source? A lot of people get that confused. People say open source and free software are different things, so it is quite confusing the kind of terminology. People say free software -- the difference between open source and free software -- with free software they emphasise the freedom. Whereas with open source it is kind of, they say it is built around a business model. Richard Stallman has a lot of information on that in his book, if you look up his name. You will see that he will kill you, if you are in front of him and you don't say GNU in front of Linux. Don't film that.
Q. It is quite a weird thing that this is essentially something that has developed outside of normal economics. Do you agree with that?
A. Yes, essentially. It is communism except that, the idea of contribution. No one can take things from you because it is copied. It is information and you are copying the information and because -- the way that the open source community works, as we have discussed, is that everyone can copy and not take from each other so it just works because everyone is in the same position.
Q. And how does that work when it is quite a weird clash? How does it work between original businesses and open source software?
A. (11.16) That often depends on the way the business works and how the company wants to look at open source. Certainly suddenly there are a lot of companies, such as Google, adopting open source because they can see the advantage of it and they can see the way that they have had it work for them because Linux has been a stable operating system and they have used it on a lot of their internal stuff and certainly they, as a company, feel that it is in their interests to invest back into the community because they can only see that what they invest back is going to help them as much as it is going to help everyone else because contributing to the community obviously boosts their label as a company, it boosts their PR and also allows for other people to think Google have added this to this software feature. Maybe I should start contributing as well. So it boosts projects as well.
Q. So businesses are having to put stuff out into the public domain. Can you describe that? You have already but in a sentence -- in order to use stuff, et cetera?
A. Businesses are not required to put stuff back. It is just whether they you know they feel the need to invest back into the community. I mean a lot of open source contributers are often called consumers because they will take the -- there is nothing wrong with that. Consumers can often give good feedback. I mean it is just conventional companies such as Microsoft get good feedback off our customers and then developers will go and implement the features that they would like. But with the businesses and with -- if, you know, they feel the need to add a feature or they need the -- so they might add a feature and they might contribute it back. Whether they do or not is up to them but --
Q. Don't they have to because of the GPL?
A. The GPL only gives the freedom to be able to contribute and it gives them the freedom to be able to modify. It doesn't inherently tell them to, if that is what you are asking. It just -- the GPL is essentially saying you can do whatever you want with the software just don't take it and label it as your own, basically, is what it is saying. That is all it is saying.
Q. So there is pressure to creative commons that does say you have to put stuff back?
A. That's right.
Q. How often is open source software like a creative commons ...?
A. (13.56) I have to say I have not seen much software that is licensed with the creative commons. I think open office is licensed with the creative commons. Most software is licensed under the GPL.
Q. Do you see open source software continuing to grow and be, you know -- do you think things like open office will replace office at some point?
