Re: ICQ

[Stephen Witt <witt@pairgain.com>]

I apologize for this in advance for this is going to be a major
soapbox speech.

I think that programs like ICQ, that may or not have great functionality,
are inappropriate as a general solution to the problem (whatever it is)
unless the source or the protocol specification is freely made available.  
If a company wants to make a product and sell it, and people buy it, that's 
fine with me.  But that is a proprietary solution and it doesn't really
fit in with the whole philosophy of Linux, GNU software, the Internet 
(protocol development), etc.

I think that the development of the Internet protocol suite is a fabulous
achievement of mankind (I'm serious...) and the method by which it was 
accomplished is even more fantastic.  A lot of researchers (etc.), some
of which were funded by DARPA, built the protocol suite and particularly
the applications associated with IP, such as telnet, FTP, finger, etc., 
etc., in a open fashion.  What one needed to get an application/protocol
accepted was a specification (though some of these are pretty light) and
working source code that could be examined, tested, or modified by an
interested user community.  If the protocol/application had utility, it
was adopted by people and became a "standard" in the sense that it was
now important for OS suites to have an implementation of the protocol/
application because users needed it.  That's how most if not all of the
applications associated with the IP suite were originally developed.
Some had limited utility and didn't make the cut, so to speak, but it was
the user community that really made that decision.

Unix, because of its researchy like flavor, the availability of BSD
(and other) source code, and maybe a little because of
Sun Microsystems (who has given away a tremendouse amount of software
technology that is take for granted today, and no I don't work there) was
closely tied to the development of the IP suite.  But it only ran on 
expensive workstations and so wasn't really available to everyman/woman.
But now that Linux (and personal computers) are so capable, this whole 
philosophy is available to just about anybody, along with participation
in the development process.

I think it is the openess of the IP suite that has allowed computers
with ANY OS to have these "standard" applications implemented for them.
What OS doesn't have an FTP, telnet, web browser, etc.,etc. client/server
implemented for them?  The company I work for just spent a tremendous
amount of money changing our email system to Novell GroupWise.  Some
of us asked why the company would actually pay for a capability that
had free implementations that met all open standards that was available
for all OSs (in use anyway).  Our MIS people just looked at us like
we were crazy.  "Of course you must pay for software.  Who would ever
trust free or public domain software?"  Of course nearly all of our
MIS people are Microsoft/Novell desciples and don't have the Unix/Linux
experience of public software.  The thing that really irritated me was
that with this sort of monolithic application, I don't have the freedom
to use the mail user agent I want to use, I must use GroupWise.  That
is, I think, the beauty of the Unix philosophy, that well known (I almost
said specified) interfaces between applications allow one to hook 
applications together in a manner that is user specified, rather than
vendor specified.

So, I would hate to see the continuation of a proprietary solution to 
a particular problem by the free software development population of
the general public.  It goes against nearly every basic part of the
Linux/Unix/IP philosopy and in the end denies us functionality and
choice.

Again, I apologize for the speech.


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