Linus Torvalds from his presentation of Git to Google in May, 2007 (@9:49 in the video):

[…] quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, I do open source because I think it’s the only right way to do software, but at the same time, I’ll use the best tool for the job, and, quite frankly, Bitkeeper was it.

Torvalds, the creator of the single most important open source operating system kernel in existence, was talking about his earlier reliance on a proprietary distributed source control management system, which was used to maintain kernel development.

My god, that’s like breeding a water buffalo with a humming bird?!

Not quite. There is a spectrum of beliefs in software development with regard to, well, how to do it. In the spectrum are many complex opinions, and unfortunately, there is no provably “right” one — though many have done proofs, laughably. Linus Torvalds, when speaking in terms of openness is, like most of us, a moderate; he favors a particular direction, but he’s not at either end of the spectrum.

It may be hard to distiguish at times between a moderate and an extremist. When all else fails this is a quick and dirty method for determination: if you feel that you are so right as to force your beliefs onto others, you are an extremist. Otherwise, you are not. The software-spectrum, like all other spectrums, has extremes at both ends, and everything else in between.

At one end of the spectrum, there is the FSF — Richard Stallman, et al — which vehemently rejects the notion of proprietary software, in every form, from its development to its use. At the other end, there is Microsoft, which, although lately has been warming up to open source — more out of necessity than out of choice — is the poster-child for proprietary software and, tightly coupled with that, profit from it.

It is good, and in fact necessary for these polar opposites to exist at such extreme distances from one another. Why? Because without this exaggerated spectrum, there would not be space in the middle for people like Torvalds, who understand both.

Neither the FSF or Microsoft is completely “right” or “wrong”; the fact that each holds its own beliefs to be true is not irrelevant, it is also necessary to keep the spectrum alive and wide enough. The most important thing here is that everyone else learns from both sides.

Richard Stallman, for example, is too jaded to comprehend that the “best tool for the job” could be proprietary. He is brilliant, and his brilliance has locked him into the idea of a pseudo-software-utopia. That is not to discount his ideas, because without them, and his belief in them, the entire force of the software industry machine would have simply crushed the open source movement (or it would have required someone else to have the ideas — ie there has to have been a Richard Stallman.)

Steve Ballmer, as another example, doesn’t care or understand that there is something more to software development than dollar signs. He doesn’t get software as an art, a science or a hobby, though he does know it as all three, because he is not as dumb as I’d like him to be. He’s like a record company executive that doesn’t listen to music — aware of the “artists” beneath him that make him his money, but completely unable to empathize because he is simply not one of them. But again, this is necessary.

I specifically stay away from Bill Gates in this spectrum, because honestly, his story is more dynamic. In his story, Gates is like Anakin Skywalker, his software the force, and money the dark side. Early on, he actually did understand software in a way other than stock quotes, but somewhere along the line was corrupted by the dollar. In the end, I think he still understands. And I think he is going to toss the emperor.

And no, I am not a Star Wars fanatic, it’s just apt. But thanks for inferring.

The point is that software, like politics or really anything else of any importance, needs extremists. It’s the only way that the median can be acceptable.