A success story: From free software to open source

In order to illustrate the idea of a meme map to the attendees at the peer-to-peer summit, I drew some maps of free software versus open source. I presented these images at the summit as a way of kickstarting the discussion. Let's look at those here as well, since it's a lot easier to demonstrate the concept than it is to explain it in the abstract.

I built the free software map in Figure 3.1 by picking out key messages from the Free Software Foundation (FSF) web site, http://www.fsf.org/. I also added a few things (the darker ovals in the lower right quadrant of the picture) to show common misconceptions that were typically applied to free software. This figure, and the others in this chapter are slightly edited versions of slides used at the summit.

Figure 3.1. Map of the old free software meme

Please note that this diagram should not be taken as a complete representation of the beliefs of the Free Software Foundation. I simply summarized my interpretation of the attitudes and positioning I found on their web site. No one from the Free Software Foundation has reviewed this figure, and they might well highlight very different points if given the chance to do so.

There are a couple of things to note about the diagram. The ovals at the top represent the outward face of the movement - the projects or activities that the movement considers canonical in defining itself.

In the case of the Free Software Foundation, these are programs like gcc (the GNU C Compiler), GNU Emacs, GhostScript (a free PostScript display tool), and the GNU General Public License, or GPL . The box in the center lists the strategic positioning, the key perceived user benefit, and the core competencies. The strategic goal I chose came right up front on the Free Software Foundation web site: to build a complete free replacement for the Unix operating system. The user benefit is sold as one of standing up for what's right, even if there would be practical benefits in compromising. The web site shows little sense of what the core competencies of the free software movement might be, other than that they have right on their side, along with the goodwill of talented programmers.

In the Beam models, the ovals at the bottom of the picture represent internal activities of the business;

for my purposes, I used them to represent guiding principles and key messages. I used dark ovals to represent undesirable messages that others might be creating and applying to the subject of the meme map.

As you can see, the primary messages of the free software movement, thought-provoking and well articulated as they are, don't address the negative public perceptions that are spread by opponents of the movement.

Now take a look at the diagram I drew for open source - the alternative term for free software that was invented shortly before we held our open source summit in April 1998. The content of this diagram, shown in Figure 3.2, was taken partly from the Open Source Initiative web site http://www.opensource.org/, but also from the discussions at the summit and from my own thinking and speaking about open source in the years since. Take the time to read the diagram carefully; it should be fairly self-explanatory, but I'll offer some insights into a few subtleties. The figure

Figure 3.2. Map of the new open source meme

As you can see by comparing the two diagrams, they put a completely different spin on what formerly might have been considered the same space. We did more than just change the name that we used to describe a collection of projects from "free software" to "open source." In addition:

• We changed the canonical list of projects that we wanted to hold up as exemplars of the movement. (Even though BIND and sendmail and Apache and Perl are "free software" by the Free Software Foundation's definition, they aren't central to its free software "meme map" in the way that we made them for open source; even today, they are not touted on the Free Software Foundation web site.) What's more, I've included a tag line that explains why each project is significant. For example, BIND isn't just another free software program; it's the heart of the Domain Name System and the single most mission-critical program on the Internet. Apache is the dominant web server on the market, sendmail routes most Internet email and Linux is more reliable than Windows. The Free Software Foundation's GNU tools are still in the picture, but they are no longer at its heart.

• The strategic positioning is much clearer. Open source is not about creating a free replacement for Unix. It's about making better software through sharing source code and using the Internet for collaboration. The user positioning (the benefit to the user) was best articulated by Bob Young of Red Hat, who insisted that what Red Hat Linux offers to its customers is control over their own destiny.

• The list of core competencies is much more focused and actionable. The most successful open source communities do in fact understand something about distributed software development in the age of the Internet, organizing developer communities, using free distribution to gain market share, commoditizing markets to undercut dominant players, and creating powerful brands for their software. Any aspiring open source player needs to be good at all of these things.

• We've replaced the negative messages used against free software with directly competing messages that counter them. For instance, where free software was mischaracterized as unreliable, we set out very explicitly to demonstrate that everyone counts on open source programs, and that the peer review process actually improves reliability and support.

• We've identified a set of guiding principles that can be used by open source projects and companies to see if they're hitting all the key points, or that can be used to explain why some projects have failed to gain as much traction as expected. For example, Mozilla's initial lack of modular code, weak documentation, and long release cycles hampered its quick uptake as an open source project. (That being said, key portions of Mozilla code are finally starting to appear in a variety of other open source projects, such as ActiveState's Komodo development environment and Eazel's Nautilus file manager.)

• We made connections between open source and related concepts that help to place it in context. For example, the concept from The ClueTrain Manifesto of open interaction with customers, and the idea of " disruptive technologies" from Clayton Christenson's book The Innovator's Dilemma, link open source to trends in business management.

While some further discussion of the open source meme map might be worthwhile in another context, I present it here mainly to clarify the use of meme maps to create a single unifying vision of a set of related technologies.