Open source software has many advantages. To sum up, there are three most important things.

First of all, open source software protects users' rights more fully. For example, if Microsoft ceases to exist one day, then the software originally maintained by Microsoft such as Windows and Office will probably be eliminated because no one continues to maintain it, but open source software will not have this problem, and open source software will not become stagnant because someone does not exist. The 386 and 486 microcomputers that users once bought at a high price can only be regarded as a pile of junk now, because of the lack of continuous support from excellent application software, but powerful free software can run well on these 386 and 486 microcomputers.

Secondly, due to the wide distribution of open source software, the problems of open source software are more easily exposed, which makes open source software more perfect in solving these problems.

Finally, open source software is easier to meet the individual needs of users. Due to the excessive introduction of engineering management into software, the standardization of software is getting higher and higher. This can certainly increase the efficiency of software development, but it makes people need to operate the software according to a model. It is convenient for normal people to use the software, but it is uncomfortable for left-handed people to use it. With the emergence of new products such as mobile phones and PDA, this personalized demand will be more intense. Because the source code of open source software is open, these personalized requirements are easier to meet. Software cannot be simply expressed by engineering. On this issue, the development method of open source software has given people profound enlightenment.

Liu Peng, the co-founder of Software Alliance, pointed out that open source culture is the crystallization of thousands of years of human wisdom and the inevitable trend of historical development, and no one can stop it. Today, it is impossible for anyone to deny the value of the Internet, but have people noticed what it was like in the early stage of development? A few decades ago, the Internet only had some core protocols, and its application value did not show up, but this will not hinder the development of the Internet today. Internet is essentially an open source form in the early stage of development, and today's open source software is very similar to this. The development trend itself has a power. Windows is so widely used because it conforms to the standards of modern operating systems. The standard of modern operating system is a trend, and Linux also meets these standards, which makes Linux destined to become an excellent operating system.

Liu Peng also thinks: "At present, the development of open source software has entered a low tide period, which is actually a necessary stage for the development of open source software. Because of the problems in the early commercial promotion mode of open source software, today's development trough has appeared, which shows that this trough has not exceeded the development trend. We adopted open source technology to solve routing technology in the mid-1990s, and this project has also achieved great success in business. In fact, there are many open source projects in China, such as Hopen, which have been very successful. Therefore, in the face of temporary difficulties, it is superficial to think that there is no open source in China and that there is no hope for open source.

Ni Guangnan, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, pointed out: "From the industrial level, open source software represented by Linux has enhanced the bargaining power of China's software industry and increased the market space of software. It must be noted that the domestic CPU must be supported by Linux, otherwise it is too narrow to be put into practical application. "

The essence of open source

In many people's eyes, open source means giving nothing in return. But the original intention of open source is "when programmers can read, redistribute and modify the source code of a software, the software will evolve" (as long as programmers read, redistribute and modify a certain part of the software, it can be called open source). Even the extremely strict GPL protocol only requires the use of GPL source code, while the BSD protocol only requires the original protocol to be retained in the end-user license.

From this perspective, open source software can also make money like others, and open source and commercial interests are not completely opposite. In the case of imperfect domestic security system, domestic software companies and programmers can completely solve the problem of food and shelter by using open source software. Open source software includes not only system software such as Linux, but also popular ERP, CRM, knowledge management and business intelligence.

For individual programmers, joining the open source community is not without gain. Many foreign programmers have benefited a lot from community training, and there are many successful people. Domestic software engineers and technicians rarely participate in large-scale development projects. Although the COSIX project of ChinaSoft has failed, the personnel involved in the development of large-scale projects through this project have been divided up by several major foreign software companies. However, the real problem is that on the one hand, programmers complain that there are no projects to practice, on the other hand, they are unwilling to join the open source community to get exercise. No matter what domestic programmers think, open source community is definitely a good place to gain experience in large-scale development projects and make a name for themselves.

For software companies, open source is a good way to increase software demand. With the development of software today, due to the excessive introduction of engineering methods, software tends to be more and more standardized. For individual users, the same software is convenient for right-handed people, but inconvenient for left-handed people. For enterprise users, the use of management software is bound to be accompanied by changes in management methods. However, it does not mean that the management changes brought by management software are always suitable for users. At this time, the user will put forward the requirement that the system must interact with management. Obviously, open source software is more convenient to deal with such problems.

Contrary to the situation that domestic software companies stay away from open source, Sun Company has unreservedly disclosed the source code of Solaries operating system to the industry, and Microsoft has also announced that it will transfer 70% of the source code of Windows CE, which has invested heavily in development, to the industry at a symbolic price of $5. Microsoft and Sun certainly understand the benefits of doing so. After the source code is open, it is easier for the industry to form technical standards based on certain products, which will bring a bigger market for technology owners. For downstream service providers, it is easier to provide better services for users. On the surface, Microsoft and Sun have lost some revenue in the service market, but this loss will be more compensated in the product market.

Fundamentally speaking, open source and non-open source development are just different development methods. Software products developed by open source methods can also realize their value through different business models. Open source is not a monster, nor will it make some companies lose their jobs. On the contrary, open source can cultivate more high-level talents. Open source software can be applied to core applications to create a broader demand market, thus improving the software industry environment.

According to the survey on open source from CSDN website, only one tenth of the total number of people have the idea that "open source will make the company lose its revenue source" and "joining the open source community means paying only without returning". It is clear that less than 3% of the respondents will unconditionally not join the open source community; On the other hand, seven out of ten people think that open source has good business prospects, and eight out of ten people think that they can get returns from open source.

However, the increasingly mature open source technology has formed a strong contrast with the bleak ecological environment. Developers' enthusiasm for open source is also in sharp contrast to the bleak of the open source community. Open source has been entrusted with too many missions, which makes us feel unprecedented heavy. Faced with these sharp contrasts, we have to start thinking about a question: Where is China's road to open source?

Where is Kaiyuan Road in China?

Talking about the development of open source in China is definitely a matter of different opinions. The answer to this question involves mentality, talents, government support, industry and many other aspects. It should be said that after several years of popularization, open source does have a group of fans in China, and the government has made a lot of efforts in this regard. What is needed now is to bring these forces together into a joint force. Therefore, to develop open source, we must first maintain a good attitude, then choose the right method, and finally realize the smooth transformation of open source achievements into industries. Of course, government support is also indispensable. In short, the promotion of open source software is a systematic project, which requires too much public power and wise thinking.

Open source mentality

For many things, attitude often determines everything, and developing open source undoubtedly belongs to this kind of thing. People who have engaged in open source practice have a consensus on people in the open source industry, that is, people in the open source industry are impetuous. Both Iris Miller, who founded Turbolinux in the early days, Gong Min, who introduced open source software to China, and Liu Peng, an open source practitioner, feel the same way.

People in the open source software industry are impetuous and often start to criticize without listening to others. At this time, if they can calm down and listen to others for another five minutes, the result is often that after five minutes, this accusation can't go on, because they misunderstand what others mean and their views are correct. In fact, impetuousness is not only a patent for domestic open source, but also for foreign open source. In the early days of Linux development, Linus once deleted some programs of Linux system, which was opposed by more than 20 senior developers around him. These people posted publicly on the Internet, saying that Mr. Linus should consult them before deciding whether to delete it. But Mr. Linus immediately replied to these questions, saying that he read all the documents about these programs and finally found that it was a black hole, and the consequences of keeping these programs would only continue these mistakes. Finally, everyone apologized to Mr. Linus and admitted that they had not read all the documents.

The biggest consequence of impetuousness is that it is easy to get carried away, so open source has become an emotional open source, and Linux has once become a Linux that makes people want to cry when they use it. Liu Peng, vice chairman of Co-creation Software Alliance, thinks that the development of open source software should be viewed from the perspective of "evolution". Looking at the development of open source software from the perspective of "evolution" theory is to consider the development of open source software from the perspective of market demand. Whether open source software can survive after becoming a specific product depends on whether there is demand in the market. If there is no demand and production is forced by instructions, there will definitely be problems and the life of this product will not be too long. If there is demand, even if it seems difficult at present, this product is still alive, and some enterprises will overcome many difficulties to make this product. If we look at the development of open source software from the perspective of "evolution", we can't ignore the phenomenon of "pulling out seedlings to help others".

Hong Feng believes that the development of open source software should have a learning attitude, because it is not a question of how much you invest today and how much you can produce tomorrow. A lot of knowledge is the result of several generations of human accumulation. It took genius scientists 1.50 years to solve trivial problems in calculus, but it took 1000 years to solve the root number problem.

Accompanied by impetuousness, there is also a mentality, which is pessimism. Impetuousness makes people hot-headed, and it will also make the development of open source deviate from the normal development track. Therefore, inner fanaticism and the ruthlessness of reality are particularly easy to make people pessimistic. Liu Peng talked about his own views on this. When the open source movement fell into a trough, Liu Peng also felt lost. He feels that others owe him. Then a friend asked him, "Don't you have any shortcomings?" Therefore, Liu Peng reflected on himself and realized that "we have spent so much money for our country, but we have done many failed projects. How can this be regarded as the country's mistreatment of itself? " On this basis, Liu Peng believes that if we want to overcome difficulties and solve problems, we need to keep a good attitude. For enterprises engaged in open source software research and development, don't always complain about the surrounding environment, but look for deficiencies from themselves. Conversely, experiencing failure is not necessarily a bad thing, because failure itself is a kind of wealth. Liu Peng firmly believes that only by experiencing failure can we endure difficulties and survive in a tough environment. At the same time, Liu Peng believes that in the face of temporary difficulties, it is superficial to think that there is no open source in China and that there is no hope for open source.

Bottleneck of open source

Linus and Richard stallman did not solve the future business development model of open source software in the early days when they founded it, which made the enterprises developing open source software encounter great difficulties in operation. At the same time, at this stage, software developers in China have to solve the problem of eating and survive before they can talk about development. Therefore, the development of open source community in China lacks material foundation. These make the development of domestic open source inevitably fall into a low tide. For this reason, people in the domestic open source industry generally believe that the lack of a good business development model is the bottleneck restricting the development of the open source movement. According to CSDN survey, four out of ten programmers choose the answer "I have enough economic foundation", and nearly three out of ten people choose the answer "get sponsored or get paid from it". In other words, if the business model problem is solved, nearly seven out of ten programmers will join various open source communities, which is an exciting number.

For this problem, Hong Feng, an advocate of the open source movement, gave this explanation: the bottleneck of open source development is that open source software vendors have not found anything scarce in open source projects. The starting point of traditional economics is the scarcity of resources. Under the guidance of this theory, the government adopts coercion, and commercial software emphasizes competitiveness. But open source software only has cooperation, and scarcity does not seem to exist. Open source vendors can't find the scarcity of open source software, and the value of open source software developed by vendors can't be reflected, thus creating a bottleneck for the development of open source. But with the development of mankind, cooperation will be adopted more and more. We can feel this from the improvement of the government's legal system construction.

Take open source education as an example. If students teach themselves, the cost will be high. Many students have studied computer knowledge for four years in college, but they still can't program. And if I give a learning roadmap and provide counseling for students, the learning cost of students can be reduced a lot. After two or even two months of study, you can become a master programmer. I have spent a lot of time and energy on this, and I can collect some of the expenses saved by students as expenses. This takes advantage of the scarcity of open source. In fact, open source software can be profitable in other forms. We can see that although the mathematical theorem is open, it does not mean that everyone can become a mathematician. Becoming a mathematician also requires a lot of cost, which is the source of scarcity.

For individuals, this lack of scarcity also makes some people reluctant to join the open source community. In fact, in the open source community, you have helped others and got a lot of help. Many programmers in foreign open source communities have made use of open source communities, and finally improved their popularity and found good jobs. Therefore, cooperation can also generate value for individuals. Because only a few people in China really understand the meaning and rules of open source software, most domestic software companies operate according to proprietary software mode, which makes too few people participate in the open source community in China. Therefore, in order to break this bottleneck, we need to clarify the meaning of open source software first.

Although the bottleneck that hinders the development of open source is business model, solving the problem of business model will involve all aspects, which makes the problems that hinder the development of open source become many. Mr. Yan Ming, a famous IT critic, attributed these factors to nine problems, such as low popularity, scarce public resources, lack of talents, few open source projects, lack of cooperation between manufacturers and communities, difficulty in application promotion, lagging service, closed source code and inconsistent standards.

What kind of talents does open source need?

The most direct reason that hinders the development of open source community is the lack of popularity. To solve this problem, developers should not only understand the nature of open source, but also understand what kind of talents are needed for the development of open source. Different experts have given different opinions on this issue, but generally speaking, open source talents can be divided into talents in the community and talents in the industry. These talents need both users and high-end developers. In terms of quantity, the demand for talents at the use level is more than that at the development level, and the overall number of talents will be arranged in a pyramid shape.

As far as talents in the open source community are concerned, Hong Feng thinks that the founders of open source software such as Perl and Linux are elites, but the open source community in China just lacks such elites. Open source community needs talents at all levels, including applied talents and development talents, but what is urgently needed is high-level development talents. To become a high-level open source development talent, we have to cross a very high threshold, and there are too few people crossing this threshold in China. What do you mean you crossed the threshold? The basic requirement is to learn the Linux kernel and skillfully use various development tools. The compressed Linux kernel is 20M, which is equivalent to more than 60 brick-thick books after printing. Few people in China can finish this job. And this is just a learning process. To truly become a talent who can contribute to the open source community, you must be quite creative.

At the same time, Hong Feng thinks that the growth space of open source community in China is amazing. There are so many smart students in Beijing, but they don't join the open source community, because the university has not given a clear development roadmap suitable for students. If we give them a clear development roadmap, the development of open source community in China will be bright.

On the industrial level, Liu Peng believes that the development of open source software in China does not need elites at this stage. There are no elites. The so-called elite only realized open source software a few years earlier than others. If Gong Min didn't introduce open source software to China that year, others would. Linus really works hard to write the Linux kernel, but it doesn't mean that another person can't. Linux kernel can't be directly applied, and the reason why Linux becomes an excellent operating system really lies in a lot of work in the later period.

Liu Peng insists that people who do open source software now lack dedication. Many advocates of open source seem to be highly conscious when talking about open source culture, but in practical work, when developing a specific open source project, they often require a monthly salary of 10 thousand yuan. From this point of view, the development of open source software urgently needs talents with execution ability and belief in open source culture. In addition, domestic open source software still lacks compound talents. It is often the original researchers who work on open source software projects. These people can only play the role of "workshop director" and complete the production tasks assigned by their superiors, but they can't realize the whole process from research and development to the transformation of technological achievements into commercial achievements. Therefore, the open source software industry also needs people who learn to deal with the smartest businessmen in the market.

Liu Peng emphasized that this does not mean that open source vendors do not need high-level talents. On the contrary, we should strictly select talents with a scientific attitude. For example, a professional basketball team needs a right forward. If you find a professional player who used to play left forward and ask him if he can adapt to the position of right forward, you may get a negative answer. However, if you find an amateur generalist, you may get a positive answer. But his technical level is not good, and he will give up eventually. Therefore, we are looking for high-level professionals.

In the final analysis, the competition of software technology is human competition, and open source software is no exception. From a technical point of view, the competition of software is not only the competition of money, nor the competition of code quantity, but also the competition of creativity. It is precisely because of this that the development of software industry should put the talent problem in the first place, and open source is more attractive because it has better effect on talent training. In view of the problem of open source talents, IT commentator Yan Ming pointed out that the development of open source urgently needs two kinds of people: developers of management software using open source technology and promoters of open source education.

Is government support a panacea?

Among the factors affecting the development of open source, government support has always been a controversial issue. Korean open source software practitioners can boast that their open source software development level is much higher than that of China, among which government support is essential. On the other hand, we can also see all kinds of negative effects brought by government intervention. Therefore, whether government support is a panacea to promote the development of open source has become a major problem on the road of open source development in China.

On the issue of government support, Hong Feng believes that in the intellectual competition of software, multiple forms should be allowed to coexist first; On the one hand, there must be national team players, on the other hand, there must be individual players. Among them, the growth of open source community composed of individual players has a lot to do with the production and learning environment. Why was Linux born in Finland instead of China or the United States? The reason is that the University of Helsinki in Finland has attached great importance to the research of operating system since 1970s, and accumulated a large number of books and codes. Linus founded Linux on the basis of predecessors. However, the domestic production and learning environment has many restrictions on the development of open source. If there is a monopoly on capital control at present, not everyone who is creative can get the funds. If you want to share your ideas with others, you must publish a book, but the publishing industry is a monopoly; If you want to spread your thoughts and run an education, you can't enroll students if the country doesn't recognize your diploma. Therefore, Hong Feng stressed that on this issue, the government should not be an athlete, but a rulemaker. To benefit all taxpayers, what the government needs to do is to formulate the rules of the game. The development of open source is still an anti-academic monopoly problem.

Hong Feng also believes that the development of open source software should hold a "quiet" mentality and put aside impetuousness. You don't have to do a good job in life before you start open source software, but once you pass the basic threshold, the reward will come. You know, the founders of many open source software projects were also poor in economy at the beginning of the project, but years of efforts have brought a kind of success beyond the level. But the problem is that the whole environment is too impetuous at present For example, how many papers are required to be published a year in universities, but no one counts how many of these papers have won international awards and how original these papers are. One of the main challenges in the IT industry is originality. Creating a new idea will bring great benefits. Creativity comes from people's minds, not entirely from legion operations. Therefore, the government needs to create a good ecological environment for the development of open source, which is the most important part of government support.

On the other hand, Liu Peng thinks that the protection strategy of open source must be re-examined. We can't completely adopt the protection strategy of open source software. If open source software is regarded as a flower in a greenhouse, it will never grow up. We should face up to a very interesting phenomenon: for thousands of years, the number of mice that everyone has shouted and beaten has doubled compared with that of humans who dominate the world, while tigers that people regard as protecting animals have entered animal protection parks. At present, the open source community has encountered some economic difficulties, but it is also difficult for open source software companies such as ChinaSoft, Hongqi and Gong Chuang to operate on their own, so it is impossible to expect them to fund the open source community. At the same time, state funds should only be used to support those who engage in open source research in a down-to-earth manner, and should not fall into the hands of those who seek personal gain under the guise of open source.

In fact, there is still an important problem that affects the development of open source, that is, the effective demand for domestic software is insufficient. In Keynes's view, when enterprises can't find a way out, the government should take some measures such as starting public works construction to stimulate economic growth. In the same way, the government should also consider that under the same conditions, the government can tilt the procurement demand to domestic software (especially open source software). Shen Changxiang, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, said: "At present, China urgently needs an operating system with Class A security. When the domestic A-level operating system can't be developed, we have to adopt foreign products, which is a hidden danger for many security departments. Because of this, our country is developing A-class operating system, and many institutions engaged in open source software research and development have come to me and asked for a chance. This is actually an example of demand-driven open source development. "

From this point of view, under the current circumstances, the development of open source is indeed inseparable from the support of the government. The prerequisite for government support to become a panacea for open source development is that, firstly, it is impossible to control open source by arranging alternatives, and secondly, it is necessary to give timely policy assistance in combination with the needs of open source development.

Open source and industry

Speaking of the development of open source, another problem that has to be mentioned is the relationship between open source and industry. Experts in the industry generally believe that the development of open source software can promote the development of software industry. Conversely, the industrialization of open source results can solve the problem of open source business model and make open source software develop better. From this perspective, open source and industry are mutually beneficial.

Regarding the relationship between open source and industry, Hong Feng cited an example: in the west of China, people thought of opening mountains because they didn't have enough to eat, which led to the deterioration of the ecological environment, and in turn, people became poorer. This forms a vicious circle. Now that the policy is reversed, the government has begun to encourage everyone to plant trees and grass and give some subsidies. In this way, the living environment has improved, employment opportunities have increased, a good cycle has been formed, and people's lives are getting better and better. Hong Feng sighed, why can't the same method be applied to open source development?

Academician Ni Guangnan pointed out: "The original practice of the government was to support five or six kinds of Linux, so that every family received insufficient support. Now the government has begun to formulate Linux standards to guide the development of Linux. At present, the Chinese Linux standard formulated by China has attracted the attention of some countries, Linux communities and multinational companies. " The healthy development of an industry requires competition and cooperation from different manufacturers, and standards are related to all aspects of the entire industrial chain. Gou, vice minister of the Ministry of Information Industry, can fully express the government's intention: "From the past, the government's support for enterprises often failed to achieve the results of scientific research and technological development required by the government. Even if it is realized, it will form a new monopoly. Enterprises are often reluctant to share their research results with other enterprises, and ultimately can not realize the good wishes of the government to promote a certain technology product to form mainstream products in the industry through a single enterprise. Therefore, in the case of Linux, our government will turn to supporting basic, open, public and service capacity building, instead of just supporting the development of some enterprises and relying on them to take this road. "

As early as the end of 1980s, Mr. Ni Guangnan put forward the problem of "no core and no soul" in the domestic IT industry. At that time, Mr. Ni Guangnan's suggestion was not generally taken seriously. Later, in order to make up for the problems of the operating system, a closed development path was taken. Imagine that if we had solved these problems through open source at that time, I believe that the pattern of IT industry today is not like this. From this issue, we can easily find out how important open source is in the whole IT industry.

As the old saying goes, today's open source has reached a crossroads with mature technology and fragile ecological environment, and risks and opportunities are mixed in front of us. Faced with risks and opportunities, we must understand that our actions today will determine the fate of China's open source tomorrow after the fusion of ice and fire.