作者 | 王启隆责编 | 唐小引出品 | 《新程序员》编辑部
In 1998, at the dawn of computer technology, Silicon Valley became the cradle of innovation and a paradise for idealists. At that time, young engineers were "scribbling" code on the keyboard, building new projects with passion. This era is full of vitality, and "rebellious" entrepreneurs are like newborn calves who are not afraid of tigers, challenging every big man in the technology circle and chasing digital dreams.
Netscape, the inventor of HTTP and the original browser pioneer, this group of young people turned the old style of "suits and leather shoes" in Silicon Valley into stereotypes such as "shirts, coffees, pizzas, etc." Just as the spark of technological innovation burst out in the open source sky, Microsoft entered the competition with its powerful resources and huge user base, and launched a fierce battle with Netscape. Under the suppression of the "bundling" strategy, Netscape collapsed, and finally announced its decision to open source the source code of Netscape Communicator, thus opening a new chapter in the history of the Internet.
Dawn (Source: AIGC Generation)
This decision is not just a strategic move by one company, but a precursor to change in the entire tech industry. On the night of the announcement, Netscape registered the domain name "mozilla.org", which gave birth to the Mozilla Foundation and the future Firefox browser. Netscape's decision was not isolated, but was inspired by the book Cathedral and the Bazaar. Dubbed the "open source bible," this book delves into the benefits of open source software development models and highlights the importance of distributed collaboration and transparency for software innovation.
The seeds of ideas quickly took root in Silicon Valley, pushing more enterprises to adopt the open source model and forming a common innovation community.
However, just as the spark of technological innovation is blooming in this digital hot land, the entire technology world has also ushered in a sea change. In 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, and many popular internet companies went from boom to collapse. In these turbulent times, technological advances have also led to the proliferation of software patents, such as the birth of companies such as Intellectual Ventures and their appearance on the patent court stage, which has caused many to think about the intellectual property system. There are also a number of people like Clyde Prestowitz who have been involved in disputes with other companies in patent litigation, and after the bubble burst, they became voices thinking about the role of intellectual property in the tech industry.
This period not only saw the rise and fall of countless companies, but also became an opportunity for some companies to get involved in the field of patent litigation. In the midst of this frenzied bubble, some startups have embroiled themselves in cumbersome legal battles as a result of patents as a way to protect their interests. The term "patent trolls" began to appear frequently and was used to describe the profiteering of lawsuits initiated by holding patents. This phenomenon further exacerbated the problem of software patents, which became a major problem in the field of science and technology at that time.
Patent Wars (Source: AIGC Generation)
Microsoft, which defeated Netscape and still maintains tensions with the open source community, has become the most controversial player in this history. In these turbulent times, IBM, the tech giant — and Microsoft's old rival — saw the magnitude of the problems and decided to take action. IBM joined forces with Red Hat, SUSE, Sony, NEC and Philips to create the Open Invention Network (OIN) in late 2005 to find new ways to address intellectual property issues in technology. The organization was founded as a response to patent issues and as a strong support for the idea of open source.
Among the founders of OIN, Sam Palmisano, CEO of IBM, was one of the key figures of the time. He succeeded Louis Gerstner, who retired after the dot-com bubble burst, and was influenced by the company's founders, Mr. and Mrs. Watson, who "always defined IBM as a company that didn't just sell computers, believing that IBM could play an important role in solving societal challenges." Sam Palmis takes a positive approach to open source in his corporate strategy, hoping to build a more open and free technology ecosystem through the establishment of OIN.
OIN's mission is to break the shackles of patents, calling on hundreds, if not thousands, of technology companies to participate in the sharing of patents and form an ecosystem of mutual protection. At first glance, joining the OIN is equivalent to signing an "armistice agreement", I don't offend you and you don't offend me, in fact, this cross-license is limited to Linux system technology, and you can exchange your own Linux patents for free use of other members' patents, and you can cross-license each other's Linux patents.
But in the first three years, OIN attracted only 30 community members. In the years since the dot-com bubble burst, tech companies have begun to re-examine their business models and strategies. Once-thriving startups are struggling to survive, while some big tech companies are expanding their capabilities by attracting talent and acquiring. In the aftermath of the catastrophe, there was a gradual loss of trust between human beings. Collaboration within the open source community is not yet fully formed, and many companies may be on the fence about the concept of shared patents. At this time, OIN faced an initial dilemma on the road to promoting open source and breaking down patent barriers.
In 2008, OIN hired Keith Bergelt (Keith) as CEO to put out the fires. Prior to joining OIN, Keith served as President and CEO of two hedge funds (Paradox Capital and IPI), where he raised over $300 million in capital during the management of these IP-based lending activities. In addition, he founded and served as General Manager of Motorola's Strategic Intellectual Property Asset Management business unit and as Director of Technology Strategy at Motorola. Keith also served as a diplomat for 12 years, serving at the United Nations in New York and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, where he negotiated IP protection in Asia.
Keith Bergelt
Keith's addition is a key step in OIN's evolution. As a leader who understands intellectual property, "making money", and understands political methods, he has breathed new life into OIN. Under Keith's leadership, OIN set out to build its own philosophy and framework in an attempt to convince more technology companies to join the community and face patent risk together.
In 2009, OIN acquired 30 patents from another defensive patent management organization, Allied Security Trust, which were acquired from Microsoft through a private auction. If these patents are acquired by patent trolls, they could create financial hurdles for Linux developers, distributors, and users.
Intellectual property is an issue that all developers, not just open source developers. Over the past decade, open source technologies, mainly Linux, have emerged as the engine of innovation in the tech industry. From search engines and smartphones to applications, networks, trading platforms, and the cornerstone of cloud computing, it has permeated every aspect of our lives. However, some organizations are trying to distort the balance of the market through patents and hinder the progress of Linux and open source technologies.
In the smartphone space in particular, a large number of patent lawsuits are frequent, especially at the application layer, which have nothing to do with the underlying operating system, but are used to increase the total cost of ownership and limit the choice of proprietary platforms with relatively little innovation among vendors, operators, and developers.
OIN is an organization that solves these problems. According to Keith, with the integration of Linux in the core of intellectual property, and the optimization of open source code by integrated circuits, some entities may try to raise costs through patent litigation, deliberately targeting the core of the open source supply chain to hinder open competition and limit freedom of choice. In an effort to promote healthy competition in the open source and Linux deployment markets, OIN seized this direction and sought licensing agreements from multiple IC and semiconductor companies.
Since then, the community has grown from a small organization of 30 companies to a large coalition of more than 3,800 companies today. In 2018, Microsoft announced that it had joined OIN as part of the organization. It was a real handshake, and Keith has repeatedly criticized Microsoft's approach to open source on social media. And Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub this year has also become the official symbol of "Microsoft ❤️ open source".
Today, in Keith's own words, "our community is home to Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, Byte, 360, OPPO, Xiaomi, BYD, and just about every other well-known Chinese company you can think of." OIN has become a key force in the open source space by playing a key role in driving collaboration within the open source community and removing barriers between technologists.
This year, Keith was a guest speaker at the CSDN Changsha China 1024 Programmers Festival, sharing a keynote speech on "The Value of Open Source Communities". "We're removing the barriers that exist between technologists who don't have to belong to the same technology field to work together to solve a common problem that can exist in all areas," he said. This philosophy embodies OIN's core values as an organization that drives open source collaboration and technology innovation.
After he came to China, CSDN New Programmer also had the opportunity to interview him, so that we could have an in-depth conversation with this freedom defender in the open source field, listen to his mission, and appreciate his next round of layout in the open source world.
From 30 community members to bringing Microsoft back to the table
New Programmer: In 2008, you were hired by a number of major companies to be the CEO of the Open Invention Network (OIN), and what reforms did you make?Keith: In 2005, there was a widespread concern that software projects might never reach their full potential due to the cautious adoption of open source code by large companies. Therefore, OIN was born to solve this problem and make it more comfortable for people to adopt and truly use open source code. IBM, Red Hat, Sony, NEC, Philips, and Novell came together to form a competitive, defensive patent management organization that would allow freedom to move, freedom to operate, and limit the potential negative effects of slowing or halting Linux progress. IBM is most concerned about this, making its first billion-dollar open source investment in 1999. Of course, IBM is not the norm, but the exception. But about 28 months after the OIN project was founded, the entire community had only 30 members. That's when I was hired and ready to get started with a "try to change something" attitude. I don't intend to make OIN completely different when I first take office, but I start with a little change. Our focus is to turn the OIN license into a code of conduct or a set of specifications on how patents should be exploited in an increasingly open source-centric world. If one wants to use their patents to slow or halt progress on what they want to do, then it is unacceptable behavior in terms of the social contract we make with each other in the open source movement. This behavior is similar to compliance or open source governance, which stems from the legal obligations of copyright law. In the open source world, these obligations always need to be addressed, and we always go to great lengths to stay compliant. Then, it's time to define "what is an OIN community". The OIN Community is an organization that aims to promote open-source collaboration, and community members have opportunities and obligations in terms of patents and copyrights. One such opportunity is free access to the code, but at the same time there is a responsibility, including to make appropriate use of the patents owned. The community encourages members to use patents that are not related to open source and prevents their patents from being associated with the core open source functionality of the main project. Through cross-licensing, the community ensures that all members who own patents are obligated to share their patents with others in the community who use them. The purpose of this mechanism is to create an environment of mutual cooperation and shared innovation, and to promote the progress of open source projects. As a result, we began to gradually neutralize the patents held by large companies. It is usually relatively easy to bring in small and medium-sized companies because they are key members of the community, but one of the keys to protecting small and medium-sized companies is to neutralize the patents held by large companies by cross-licensing so that those who are interested cannot use them to sue, but must recognize that these patents are meant to be shared. In this way, we have succeeded in creating a sense of security so that every member of the community does not have to worry about litigation. The reform has yielded remarkable results. OIN's community membership grew rapidly and soon covered a variety of sectors, including IT, telecommunications, broader communications, security, banking and business finance, and more. Next, we started looking at the broader national picture. Historically, open source has gone through a journey over the past few years, from the United States, European countries, Japan, to South Korea, and finally to China about eight years ago. This period is crucial for us as we have witnessed this growth firsthand. We put a lot of effort into making sure that all the important Chinese companies are part of the OIN community. At the moment, our community is home to almost every company you can think of, such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, Byte, 360, OPPO, Xiaomi, BYD, etc., except for those companies that are slower to make decisions but actually qualify, such as telecom operators or commercial banks. In short, we have had a lot of success in China. In 2018, Microsoft joined the OIN, which was a big milestone for us. The friction between Microsoft and the open source community on patent issues is also not a topic to shy away...... We've been doing a lot to fight back against "patent trolls" when patents owned by OIN were transferred to companies that were being sued by Microsoft, so that those companies had a basis for counterclaims when they were sued. Microsoft reached a settlement because we own a number of patents related to Microsoft's products and their monetization. Eventually, over time, Microsoft came to realize the importance of open source and the key role of OIN in it. Microsoft not only acquired GitHub, but also focused on ensuring that it could retain top talent, something that would not have been possible in the competitive market of the West Coast of the United States unless the OIN was added. The New Programmer: It reminds me of Microsoft in the last century, which was more or less on the opposite side of open source software. Keith: yes, it's got into the history of the software market, where they sold software and didn't share it. That's exactly what OIN was founded to do to prevent these big companies from holding back software until they recognize the interdependent, symbiotic reality of open source, rather than being hostile, aggressive, and restrictive. This shift requires a voice, or a change in the dominant person in the company's leadership. Currently, OIN has 3,800 licensees/community members, making it the largest patent cross-licensing in the history of technology. We have a relatively balanced share in Europe, Asia and North America, or the Americas as a whole. I want to emphasize that OIN is a global organization, not just about the tech community in the United States, but about every open source person in the world. New Programmer: How did you deal with funding and sponsorship issues when you joined OIN?Keith: At the time, too, the Linux Foundation was experiencing incredible growth, and OIN was always in close contact with them. Due to the Linux Foundation's rapid growth, the number of new projects they launch each year is simply staggering. In addition, we work with Apache and other people on open source projects, and these collaborations inspire us to feel like we're part of the open source family. Apache is experienced and has set up a very convenient process to get the project up and running, and the whole process takes about 30 days to complete. I think that one of the guidelines for dealing with funding and sponsorship is to make sure that the two sides do not get in the way of each other, so that the work can be carried out, and to emphasize the importance of collaborative development. So I never thought it was actually a problem, and OIN did a great job of doing that for a while. I'm also thinking of Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Open Source Foundation, who is becoming more and more adept at doing this. New Programmer: As a professional in multiple roles in the open source space, how do you balance different interests and partnerships? How do you make sure that your actions are open source and serve the interests of the community?Keith: I'm in a unique position to be in a service model all the time. OIN's mission is to provide services to businesses so that they can exist smoothly, and we can even say that we are some kind of guardian angels. This is very unusual because an entity like OIN is unprecedented, and our service is completely free and only requires the business to agree not to use their patents. Therefore, for OIN, all actions are aimed at promoting lower costs and wider adoption of open source code by all existing companies. Our position is unbiased, regardless of where businesses come from or what their strategy is. We only want all companies to be able to launch their open source products and succeed without worrying about patent litigation.
Maintaining security is a shared mission for diplomats and OIN CEOs
New Programmer: What has been the most rewarding experience in your career and what motivates you?
Keith: I'm motivated by the perception that we're part of something bigger than ourselves.
I've always believed that I'm driven by a mission. I've worked as a diplomat and focused on pushing the world to be safer, more democratic, and more selective. This belief has continued throughout my career. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, I left government and entered the private sector, went to business school, and became a lawyer-trained lawyer.
In business school, I've always been trying things that no one else has done before. For example, with OIN, I was able to successfully solve such a complex software patent problem and serve this community. I'm proud of that, because my actions have really made a significant impact on the world. However, the real protagonists on the stage are the companies that have contributed millions, billions of dollars to support open source, who are committed to open source adoption, and who believe in the power of OIN.
That's why I've been working at OIN for 15 years focused on making the world safer, democratizing innovation, and enabling anyone, anywhere in the world, to participate in open source through choice and collaboration. It's not just about Highway 128 (the ring line that connects countless startups and colleges and universities like MIT) or the elite of Silicon Valley, and it shouldn't force people to access capital, talent, and venture leadership through geography. People should be able to work anywhere in the world to create value. That's exactly what open source is achieving.
New Programmer: When it comes to security, the development of AI technology has brought new opportunities and challenges to open source security. In the field of open source security, how do technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine Xi detect vulnerability fixes, security measures, and code specifications?
Keith: We've been using AI for about seven years, and AI can help understand patent portfolios more effectively and quickly to avoid wasting a lot of manual time digging into the law. We have found this application very helpful.
However, the training of the dataset is actually the key. It understands what you're looking for and develops training programs so you can find it accurately. Without such an approach, the tool cannot be expected to be as effective as it can be. So I think once these technologies start to be open and available, we can accelerate the work that other people are doing in the traditional open source way and make even more significant progress.
We focus on creating maximum utility and better control over the environment in which data is used. If the data is random and we don't have a clear understanding of what the data means, that's when we get into trouble. Therefore, the ownership of the data is important, and as long as we are granted permission to use the data, we leverage it and share what we learn from it. At this stage, open source has to be part of the solution to make people understand that we're working together to create something more special.
In fact, there are currently two views on open source and security. One view is that open source is more secure because all code is publicly visible, and another view is that a high degree of openness carries higher risks.
New Programmer: Do you think there is an inherent contradiction between open source and security?
Keith: I'm going to take a different look at this. My focus is on what risks are being mitigated by OIN, and how to minimize the risks that are currently being dealt with. In doing so, we don't over-expand the scope of cross-licensing to ensure that the open source community's cooperation doesn't negatively impact non-open source technologies that are reasonable and should remain proprietary.
I do scrutinize patents in various areas, review projects like OpenSSF, see what core code they produce, and incorporate that into the discussion. My main goal is to defuse the threat posed by patents by getting hundreds or thousands of companies to license each other. I'm not too worried about any single patent or company having to take steps to protect against certain threats.
So I usually focus on a range of different issues, because if a technology is built in an open source project and a community member has patents associated with it, then in my opinion, those patents have to be included in the discussion. I don't want to make choices that are dictated by projects where the nomination code is incorporated into our mutual licensing projects.
Open source is an irreversible social movement
New Programmer: This year has been hailed as the "first year of AI", and celebrities from all walks of life in the tech world have expressed their views on the times. Among them, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said: "Uniting global developers is the key to solving security problems. "But in practice, what are the biggest barriers to global collaboration?
Keith: Actually, I've observed that global cooperation is moving forward, and it's not constrained by bilateral and multilateral relationships. Even during the war, we could see that Russian programmers were very active in the open source community. At the same time, developers from both China and the United States are able to continuously participate and communicate with each other in the development of a variety of projects in today's complex international environment.
Therefore, open source is actually an irreversible social movement, and its strength lies not only in its ability to create advanced technologies, but also in its belief in collaborative development, which is the essence of open source – a collaborative approach. Once you start the process, you can't stop it, it's no longer the "you develop the technology, I develop the solution" model, which is outdated. Now open source is that we're always collaborating, we're constantly building on each other's ideas, and we have the tools to meet the new economy's need for continuous iterative innovation.
Open source cannot be stopped because it brings together smart people from all over the world to solve software problems together. No one cares where these people come from, the only thing they care is whether they create elegant code and present themselves in the right way as contributors. Open source software has a set of specifications, a set of specifications for copyright and patents, that enable developers to demonstrate their authenticity and prove that they are part of this community. That's why this social movement called open source is so thriving.
All in all, I'm not sure what the biggest obstacle to open source collaboration is, but at least the complexity of the international environment hasn't been an obstacle to global collaboration, which is something I've observed.
New Programmer: In addition to license members, how does OIN work with other open source organizations?
Keith: I worked with Eric Brewer (VP of Infrastructure at Google), and Google was one of our investors. So his push for the OpenSSF, as well as the OpenSSF, which was led by Brian Behlendorf, became something I followed closely. However, I don't think open source security issues are unsolvable, and they're moving in a positive direction. It's not the time for the Heartbleed vulnerability (a 2014 security flaw in the OpenSSL cryptographic library) to first appear, and I think people are already becoming more efficient at working together to address them.
From my point of view, the importance of security cannot be underestimated, but it has led to a lot of good collaboration in this area, and OpenSSF, as well as other security projects, are good examples. But when we see companies from different countries and regions and individuals from all over the world working together on a project, it's usually a sign that we're going to solve a problem, not make it worse.
It is important to be globally inclusive among the participants, and it is also critical that the leadership who is able to lead these projects understands the overall management approach to the various functions of the organization in order to ensure the success of the projects.
In China, the OpenAtom Foundation is also a good example. I spoke with Jim Zemlin (Executive Director of the Linux Foundation) and we all want OpenAtom to be a success. In a recent keynote, I also emphasized that the whole goal is to keep pushing, to keep being better at guiding the project, and to ensure that the code is developed and the participants are happy with the environment they create.
Therefore, we will be working with OpenAtom to ensure that we can collectively identify the code that is important to these projects and incorporate it into our Linux system definitions, so that anyone who signs the OIN license commits not to litigate over the core functionality generated by the OpenAtom project. This allows people to use the code not only internally in China, but globally. This is channelled through global engagement and through good governance.
Dive into the world of open source: Don't be afraid to continue to coding
New Programmer: How does OIN assess the competencies of contributors and assign them key roles?What are the most important qualities and skills of contributors in the open source community in your opinion?
Keith: I think talent is key, and that includes the ability to write code, as well as being efficient and graceful when writing code. In addition, it is also necessary to know how to assess the situation and not be afraid of the continuous development of coding, such as the AI of coding tools.
In the open source world, Huawei is a good example. They have a lot of patents, similar to IBM. Huawei has built a large organization that is very supportive of open source as well as having patents. They have been on the Linux Foundation board for seven or eight years. On that board, they've been exemplary participants, and I think they've set the benchmark for a lot of companies in China. They are true leaders when it comes to participating in open source efforts, setting an example for everyone and clarifying how, responsibilities, and obligations to participate.
So I think it's no accident that they're playing an important role in this area.
New Programmer: You talked about coding skills, but there are a lot of AIGC tools out there, so a lot of open source contributors who don't have an IT background can still help the open source community even if they don't know how to code. What are your thoughts on contributors who don't come from an IT background?
Keith: I think most of the OSPOs (Office of Social Programs) directors — maybe most, maybe a little less, but about 50% or so — have never had coding training. Some of them aren't even that good at technology, but they're the ones who build a good bridge between community, law, and development.
They emphasized the importance of compliance and open source governance, such as OpenChain is now a standard, an ISO standard on compliance and governance, which is used by Huawei and many other companies. So, I think there are a lot of different roles in the open source world, and marketing is also important, so it's not just the world of coders.
In the past, I might say that open source was more focused on coders, but as open source has become more mature, there has been more balance between those within the supporting company and those within the community. There are some community members who just build the community and work with the community on different tasks, so not all community members are technologists.
New Programmer: Actually, there are many college students or young developers in China who have solid theoretical knowledge but lack practical experience. What advice do you have for these young developers or junior programmers who are just starting out?
Keith: Keep Xi going. In my opinion, whether you are a programming professional, a non-technical practitioner, or a non-technical person, there are two keys to success: continuous Xi learning and hard work, the so-called "work ethic".
In fact, the world is not that complicated. Those who have worked very hard all their lives, have been slackening, and have been constantly Xi themselves, are usually able to make up for many shortcomings. You can fill in a lot of gaps by learning Xi more knowledge, learning Xi language, you can master the skills of coding, which is essentially a language, or you can learn Xi how to communicate with programming professionals, which is also invaluable because then you become a translator.
Therefore, I believe that interdisciplinary talents who understand technology will always be in demand in the market. In fact, most strategists within an organization have this skill set. This is where they start and doesn't have to be as technically complex as one might expect.
New Programmer: But language issues have been one of the main challenges for many developers. Due to the language barrier, it may be difficult to even get started.
Keith: It's true that it's not just a problem for developers in China, there are a lot of developers in Japan and South Korea who need to Xi learn English, but the global level of English has improved significantly compared to the past, and I think that's the biggest change in the world in the last 10 to 15 years. Today, the entire academic field is focused on English, which is widely adopted by the academic community at a record rate. I feel very fortunate because I come from a country where my mother tongue (English) is the base language.
However, the reality is that I should have spoken Mandarin in this interview, and I should have spoken Mandarin when ordering food in Chinese restaurants. When I take Didi or other means of transportation, I don't actually fulfill my promise to communicate normally as a guest and driver. Therefore, we all have a responsibility to learn Xi language. The question is not whether Chinese developers have to speak English, but that everyone in the world should recognize how interconnected the world is.
New Programmer: In the new era of AIGC, do you think students still need to learn Xi traditional theories?
Keith: It's like why French school students still learn Xi cursive française, why do Chinese students learn ancient Chinese, why do European students read Edgar Allan Poe? Because it's a discipline. We should be educated in all kinds of disciplines.
However, discipline is not the same as rote memorization, we only need to have some basic elements of traditional skills. Because there is value in the way information is presented and the stories told by those who have gone before them. It's as if people in certain cultures will quickly bypass basic education and go straight to technical schools. I think some general knowledge is very important when children's minds are especially receptive as long as they are affordable.
I don't think we should abandon this way of education, but this kind of education takes time and must be handled with care. I've observed a number of IT schools in India and China that lack a holistic curriculum due to an over-focus on developing technically proficient individuals. So I hope we can slow down and really focus on educating people more holistically. It's not just about literature and art, economics, finance, or technology, it's all about how the world works, and they're just as important.