| THE REBEL ALLIANCE
| An unlikely army of hacker hippies, geek visionaries, idealistic teachers
| and corporate giants is making Portland ground zero of a digital
| revolution.
|
| BY ZACH DUNDAS
|
| Tux the Penguin is a fat little thing. He's google-eyed and sports a grin
| that suggests a recent lobotomy.
|
| Weird symbol for a revolution. Yet Tux is the mascot of a movement that's
| rocking the computer world.
|
| One of the strongholds of that rebellion is in a ho-hum Beaverton office
| park, home of the Open Source Development Lab. The Lab is the self-
| proclaimed "center of gravity" for the global phenomenon Tux symbolizes.
| The mission is evangelical. The cause is Linux.
|
| Linux is a computer operating system invented in Finland in 1991 by a
| college kid named Linus Torvalds. Torvalds, now a 34-year-old tech
| superstar whom some see as the love child of Thomas Edison and Che
| Guevara, works for the Beaverton Lab, backed by a roll-call of tech
| titans: Intel, IBM, Hitachi, Dell, Cisco. Last month, Torvalds unveiled
| the latest version of Linux. Nicknamed "the Beaver," it's viewed as a huge
| improvement to a system already beloved by geeks.
|
| Why is Linux revolutionary? No one owns it. Anyone can download its
| essential code, use it and change it. (That makes Linux "open source"
| software--and if such terms make you nervous, see the primer on page 21.)
|
| And who's threatened? Well, lots of people. Most particularly, Microsoft,
| the tightly controlled Seattle empire with more than $10 billion in
| quarterly revenues riding on software that competes with Linux. Linux has
| been branded the anti-Microsoft, the scruffy rebel army charging
| billionaire Bill Gates' imperial legions.
|
| "It's an MTV-style Death Match," says David Chen, an analyst for the local
| investment firm Oregon Venture Partners. "Between Portland and Seattle,
| you potentially have the centers of the two most important operating
| systems in the world."
|
| For some, the rivalry is about more than software.
|
| "This thing," says one Portland observer, "is like Protestants and
| Catholics debating theology."
|
| Others have a more flippant take.
|
| "Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft
| empire,'" Torvalds told The New York Times last year. "I'm not out to
| destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side
| effect."
|
| Any way you look at it, the stakes are high.
|
| In Portland computer circles, you can't swing a mouse without hitting a
| partisan of Linux (pronounced "LINN-ix"). Walk into the little closet that
| houses Riverdale High School's computer servers, look up, and you see a
| gigantic flightless waterbird looming above you. For Paul Nelson, the
| Southwest Portland school's affable geek-in-chief, it's all about the
| penguin.
|
| Nelson uses open-source software to run all 110 Riverdale student
| terminals. The terminals themselves are bare-bones: just monitors, black
| $5 keyboards and nearly empty black boxes Nelson scrounged on eBay for $86
| apiece, stripped of everything but video cards and the gizmo that connects
| them to four central servers. The terminals have no hard drives, no memory
| of their own. The servers (code-named Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica)
| provide all the software--free word processing, spreadsheet, email and
| web-browsing programs.
|
| Nelson figures that the Linux system saved Riverdale about $50,000 in set-
| up costs alone. And instead of shelling out for tech support when a
| problem crops up, Nelson emails educators around the world, with answers
| arriving minutes later from Norway, North Portland or elsewhere.
|
| Most important to Nelson, the centralized system allows him to teach,
| rather than wrestle malfunctioning machines.
|
| "I used to spend three-quarters of my time fixing computers, and one-
| quarter teaching," he says. "Now it's the opposite."
|
| Portland Public Schools technology chief Scott Robinson says his district
| has outfitted 17 middle schools and three high schools with labs similar
| to the one at Riverdale, using Linux to power more than 600 terminals. He
| claims setting up a Linux lab costs the state's largest district just over
| half the tab for a Microsoft Windows lab--$21,000 per school, instead of
| $40,000.
|
| In 1996, Nelson and Eric Harrison, who works for Multnomah County's
| Education Service District, founded the K-12 Linux Project, aiming to
| spread this low-cost computing gospel. Any school in the world can grab
| the Project's custom-tweaked version of Linux off Harrison's computer for
| free. So far, the software has been downloaded more than 150,000 times.
| Schools across the United States use it, as do teachers in places like
| Pakkret, Thailand, and Bydgoszcz, Poland.
|
| "It's a question of ethical choices," says Riverdale's Nelson. "In a
| school, it's public money. How should it be spent? Is it ethical to buy
| software instead of hiring an art teacher? Me, I want an art teacher--not
| the Microsoft help assistant dancing on every student's desktop.
|
| "Our motto is, 'It's free. It works. Duh.'"
|
| You can find equally strong feelings in the private sector. Linux powers
| the website of the ubiquitous Portland tavern chain McMenamins. McM's
| webmaster, John Sokol, admits that his own antipathy to Microsoft helped
| drive him into the penguin's flippers, but he says Linux has much else to
| recommend it.
|
| "It's as secure as you can get, it's always changing and improving, and
| you don't have to pay for updates," Sokol says. "We can get away from
| giving money to Microsoft every year."
|
| On a slightly grander scale, Amazon.com switched much of its massive
| internal network to Linux in 2000. By the third quarter of 2001, the
| company reported saving $17 million, slashing nearly a quarter of its tech
| expenses.
|
| "Why spend billions," said one Amazon tech guru at the time, "when you can
| spend millions?"
|
| Riverdale High, Amazon and McMenamins are kids under Tux the Penguin's
| Christmas tree. The Open Source Development Lab might be Santa's workshop.
| Outwardly, it's a drab environment, the domain of about three dozen
| techies who dress like they scored bulk discounts on nondescript sweaters,
| white socks and functional shoes. But since it was founded in 2000, the
| Lab has become the best-known testing ground for cutting-edge Linux code
| and the machines it runs on.
|
| Any programmer in the world--provided his or her project is judged
| worthy--can beam code into the Lab, where scores of computers stand racked
| in row after row of 8-foot-tall metal cabinets. Under the watchful eye of
| a single upside-down rubber chicken--"The Sacred Rubber Chicken," says
| engineer Cliff White, "makes sure everything works"--the Lab tests the
| code on next-generation machines provided by Intel, IBM and Hewlett-
| Packard, all members of the Lab consortium.
|
| If it seems odd that corporate monoliths want to work together, welcome to
| Linuxland. Some companies behind the Lab, like North Carolina's Red Hat,
| make money by charging for specialized versions of Linux, and for
| expertise. Others, like Intel, build the hardware the computer universe
| runs on and want their machines to run Linux to perfection. Linux is used
| in everything from cell phones to refrigerators, in addition to PCs and
| large corporate mainframes. That means a lot of people have a stake in its
| development--and in a degree of standardization.
|
| "It's like, automobile manufacturers decided long ago all cars would have
| steering wheels," says White. "We're Switzerland--neutral territory where
| they can all come together and discuss ideas."
|
| This approach is in keeping with the ethos of Linux, and the remarkable
| Internet-connected cabal of programmers that's fostered the system since
| Torvalds released its embryo 13 years ago. It's a full-fledged subculture,
| with its own media (the frenetic Slashdot.org, among other sites), obscure
| sectarian beefs, even its own online dating service. Linuxland welcomes
| all comers, but be warned--you're only as good as the code you write, and
| how well you work with others.
|
| "It's all about what a friend of mine calls 'the mark of cred,'" says
| Accardi, a Portland State grad who works as a Linux developer at Intel.
| "You either have it, or you don't."
|
| At the center of it all sits Torvalds, the "benevolent dictator" of the
| Linux world. Though he has very little legal control over the operating
| system's evolution, Torvalds is so respected that his stamp of approval
| determines whether or not a piece of code gets into Linux. Though Torvalds
| still works out of his Silicon Valley home (he didn't answer emailed
| questions for this article) he sometimes treks to Portland.
|
| Linux has made Torvalds famous--at least for a computer programmer. Books
| have been written, movies made. When his placid Nordic countenance
| appeared on the cover of Wired, a reader wrote to thank the magazine for
| giving him a pin-up for his bedroom wall. At the Lab, though, Torvalds is
| just the first geek among equals.
|
| The Lab's engineers can and will happily grind a layman's mind to paste
| with technical detail. But that doesn't mean they don't also look at the
| big picture. White, a friendly guy with an ambling gait and a close-
| cropped fringe of graying hair, doesn't count himself as one of the open-
| source world's political zealots. "That's kind of the great divide in the
| community," he says. But he does acknowledge that there's more at work
| here than ones and zeroes.
|
| "It's more in the back of my mind," he says. "I'm pretty pragmatic, day to
| day. The idealism comes more late at night, when I look in the mirror.
| It's nice to work for a group that's doing positive things, and doing them
| for the world in general."
|
| The hard-headed engineers at OSDL have to dig deep--beneath the argyle and
| tech-talk--to tap the vein of idealism running through the Linux world.
| That is emphatically not the case across town, at the anarchic Southeast
| Portland headquarters of FreeGeek. The nonprofit's ponytailed and tie-dye-
| clad ringleaders see the open-source system not just as a kinda cool way
| to run computers, but as a weapon of liberation.
|
| "We're social revolutionaries," says Ron Braithwaite, a white-maned,
| fiery-eyed former Vietnam combat photographer and tech-industry veteran.
| "For me, this was a chance to get off the spinning wheel in the cage and
| do some good."
|
| FreeGeek's front windows are decorated with a tableau of Linux penguins--
| Tux and his comrades?--frolicking in the snow. Inside the sprawling
| warehouse, piles of equipment lie helter-skelter on crumbling linoleum
| floors: dirty gray PC boxes, rag-bag lumps of wires and circuit boards,
| mausoleums of keyboards and monitors.
|
| FreeGeek takes in unwanted old computers, salvages some and recycles the
| rest. The collective loads the retreads with Linux and free applications,
| then gives them away in exchange for volunteer labor. The idea is to chip
| away at the digital divide, the Information Age caste system separating
| those who can afford good equipment and those who can't. FreeGeek
| estimates it's given away about 2,500 machines since it started in 2000.
| The FreeGeeks say Linux works for them because it's free, because they can
| customize it and the programs that run on it, and because it runs systems
| in a lean, economical way, working well with clunky old machines most
| would consider obsolete.
|
| "At OSDL, you'll see the best equipment there is," says Oso Martín, the
| bearded 39-year-old who founded FreeGeek. "We're at the other end, working
| with the dregs. But Linux is what makes it possible."
|
| Of course, any system so exciting to self-styled revolutionaries (not to
| mention Fortune 500 companies) is bound to scare the hell out of someone.
| Just look north.
|
| Think of battle scenes from Braveheart. Picture the Montagues and the
| Capulets, the Yankees and Red Sox, snakes and mongooses. The way some
| people look at it, that's Microsoft and Linux.
|
| It's worth noting that most open-source insiders seem to think the whole
| Linux vs. Microsoft thing--which the tech press follows the way the rest
| of the media tracks Jacko gossip--is a bit overplayed.
|
| "I don't see people totally turning away from Microsoft, unless they're
| real open-source zealots," says White.
|
| Microsoft likewise downplays the conflict; a spokesman told WW that the
| company views open-source programs like Linux and proprietary goods like
| Windows as parts of the same "ecosystem."
|
| And yet Microsoft obviously finds Linux...disturbing. Just last June,
| Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer raised the alarm in a memo leaked to the
| press. "Linux...presents a competitive challenge for us and our entire
| industry," he wrote. He seemed especially perturbed by IBM's full-throttle
| promotion of Linux. Big Blue has barraged TV with commercials touting the
| system. The ads star a little blond kid as the personification of Linux
| and affect a beatific, Zen-like calm. Featuring cameos by the likes of
| Kurt Vonnegut and Muhammad Ali, the spots end with slogans such as "Linux
| Is Everywhere" and "The Future Is Open."
|
| That gets Ballmer right where he lives.
|
| "IBM's endorsement of Linux has added credibility and an illusion of
| support and accountability," Ballmer wrote.
|
| But despite dramatic strides by Linux, experts will still tell you to buy
| Microsoft stock as fast as you can. Portland's Pacific Crest Securities
| recently concluded that even in a worst-case scenario (from Microsoft's
| point of view), right now mass migration to Linux could only reduce
| Microsoft's earnings per share by a penny or two. The Seattle company
| still makes the software most computer users need to get through their
| days.
|
| So why is Microsoft so freaked out?
|
| Perhaps it's because this time--unlike when Gates' crew whacked Netscape,
| for instance--the enemy isn't a company. It's a worldview. And Microsoft
| isn't the only one hearing the penguin's waddling footsteps. There are
| proprietary operating systems besides Windows, and they're worth big bucks
| to their owners, who are also threatened by Linux.
|
| The most recent cause célčbre in the open-source world revolves around a
| Utah company called SCO, which controls another proprietary operating
| system. SCO is suing IBM, claiming IBM copied code SCO owns into Linux.
| The Utahans are also threatening to sue Linux users, unless they pony up
| licensing fees--basically, to do to Linux what the recording industry is
| doing to Kazaa. (Recent rumbles suggest Google.com, which uses thousands
| of Linux-driven servers, might be next on SCO's hitlist.)
|
| While many dismiss the suit out of hand--"It's a nuisance lawsuit on every
| level," says FreeGeek's Martín--OSDL isn't taking it lying down. The Lab
| itself has been subpoenaed, as has Torvalds. This month, the Lab launched
| a legal defense fund, immediately acclaimed as "an ACLU for Linux users."
| Kicking off with $3 million in donations from Intel and IBM, it's a shot
| across SCO's bow.
|
| "Someone needed to stand up and say to users, 'If you get hassled, we will
| stand with you,'" says OSDL spokesman Nelson Pratt.
|
| One question, to get parochial about it, is what the Lab and its mission
| might mean for Portland. No one claims to know. But the hints are
| tantalizing.
|
| To hear some tell it, Portland is already an open-source hotbed.
|
| "It's strange," says Bart Massey, a Portland State computer-science
| professor. "You can look around, and in every significant open-source
| field, someone in Portland is a leader."
|
| "The very nature of Linux is that it's uncentered," says OSDL's Pratt.
| "But I can say that there is probably no richer concentration of Linux
| development talent anywhere. And there's a good possibility--which is not
| to say that it's guaranteed--that you could see the same kind of spinoff
| businesses that you saw with hardware in the '80s and '90s. It's really
| too soon to tell."
|
| Portland's open-source rep is already attracting jobs. PolyServe, a
| company selling software that runs on Linux, moved its 60-person
| headquarters from California to Beaverton in early 2003 because key
| programmers it worked with were already here. Other local firms who are
| here in part because of what analyst Chen calls "a very rich Linux
| intelligentsia" include UXComm, a telecommunications company that moved
| here from California last summer, and Immunix, a firm that sells security
| programs for Linux systems.
|
| "Portland has an extremely high talent level," says PolyServe's Steve
| Norall. "The cost of doing business is low compared to Silicon Valley or
| Seattle. So you have the advantage of a great pool to hire from, and in
| the West Coast time zone, you're close to the other tech meccas."
|
| Maybe the most interesting subtext to Portland's emerging Linux saga is
| this: Some believe there's an X-factor in the city's cultural DNA which
| resonates with a system whose very lifeblood is openness.
|
| "Why Portland?" Bart Massey asks. Then he answers. "Open-source people are
| usually into open-everything. Open software, open government, open
| community," says Massey. "People in Portland have traditionally been very
| opposed to the idea that stuff should be secret. It puts you in a good
| place to succeed in a realm where everything is open."
|
| Timothy Witham of OSDL puts it another way: "The way open source works and
| the way Portland thinks just seem to go together."
|
| THE SECRET DECODER RING
|
| Some tech talk, explained.
|
| Do you suffer an anxiety attack just looking at this article? Maybe
| defining a few terms will help.
|
| Every computer needs an operating system--this is the program that tells
| the hardware how to schedule and execute functions. Operating systems
| determine whether and how well other programs run on a machine. The raw
| lines of programming that make up an operating system are its source code.
|
| When Linus Torvalds created Linux in 1991, he determined that anyone
| should be able to download it for free, custom-alter its source code and
| distribute it. That makes Linux open-source software, as opposed to paid-
| for proprietary software like Microsoft Windows. (Other proprietary
| systems include Unix and Apple's Macintosh OS X.)
|
| Even though anyone can download and set up Linux if they want, it takes
| some technical acumen to get the system running. That's why companies like
| Red Hat can make money by selling prepackaged, specialized versions of
| Linux called distributions.
|
| Operating systems are protean things--Linux itself currently consists of
| more than 10 million lines of code, growing all the time. The heart of
| Linux is the kernel, the operating system's root, on which everything else
| depends. Linus Torvalds is directly in charge of deciding what gets into
| the kernel, and it's something of a holy grail for code hounds.
|
| "Imagine geek nirvana," says programmer Kristen Accardi. "Geek nirvana is
| writing code that ends up in the Linux kernel."
| Originally published 1/28/2004
|
| Find this story at www.wweek.com/story.php?story=4764
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