Translator: Vincent Keunen Reviewer: Claire Ghyselen
(Applause)
Sharing makes you rich.
20 years ago, a young Finnish student
named Linus Torvalds,
wrote his graduation essay.
In his essay, he developed
an operating system,
the computer´s brain.
You probably know Windows,
which is another operating system.
Obviously, when he conceived this system,
that he called Linux
(the combination of his name Linus
and the existing system Unix),
it was very small.
Linux looked like this,
while Windows had functionalities like this.
Linux was more modest,
not too ambitious.
Today, 20 years later,
LInux runs in a huge number of computing systems.
Today, the well known and extremely popular Windows,
that runs a huge number of computers
looks like this,
and Linux has grown like this.
Linux runs the vast majority of internet servers:
Google, Facebook or Amazon run on Linux.
When you use Android smartphones,
that's also Linux.
Linux is in cars,
in modern refrigerators,
and in particle accelerators.
So, a huge success!
Today, Linus Torvalds' assets
are estimated to 150 million dollars.
Sharing makes you rich.
Because, where does this huge...
success, Linux, come from?
It originates in Linus's decision
to share his graduation essay.
When he was writing his essay,
it was the beginning of the web,
and he published his work,
instead of limiting access,
he said, "Use it, change it, fix it,
reuse it for other and unexpected purposes."
This is why Linux developed so much.
But if you only consider money,
his 150 million dollars net worth,
you miss the most important part of this phenomenon.
Today, 20 years later,
thousands of people contribute to the core Linux system.
But if we count all applications around Linux,
there are millions of people who are contributing to it.
This is an extremely important phenomenon,
extremely popular, extremely big,
in countries all over the world:
China, Japan, South America, etc.
Linus's idea to share...
is called 'open source'.
What does 'open source' mean?
We understand 'open'.
It's straightforward: it means 'open'.
But 'source', what does it mean?
In fact, the proper term is 'source code',
'open source code'.
When you use an application on your computer: Word, Excel...
you use a so-called executable program.
But there's also the source code,
that's the instructions that have been written
patiently by programmers.
It usually represents tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands lines of program instructions.
That's the source code
that has been shared.
You can think of it as the recipe
that allows you to write a program.
Usually those recipes are secret.
They are patented, copyrighted.
You don't share these things.
It is the trade secret of applications.
But Linus did exactly the opposite.
Look at this graph,
1993 on the left, 2008 on the right,
it shows the size of the 5,000 most popular open source projects.
It means that open source projects
develop exponentially,
in regard to source code produced.
It means that the project is expanding,
and that there are many people contributing to it.
This curve is the average
of the 5,000 most popular projects.
But, in this second graph,
very similar to the first one,
you see another metric:
the number of new open source projects that start every month !
You can imagine the popularity of this.
When you combine the two graphs,
the number of new projects explodes,
while each project itself explodes.
Open source is really a very significant phenomenon
in computer business.
We are talking only about computer science.
I work in a company
where I develop software,
which is very important for the company.
Out of the 100% of the software that we develop,
at least 80% of it is based
on re-used open source projects,
at no cost to us.
We use them to create
the company's core computer system.
In other words, 80% of the system,
is based on free and reused code
from those kinds of projects.
You must wonder why programmers
spend all those hours developing,
sharing and giving away their work to all
so that it can be reused for free.
Maslow's pyramid, well known in psychology,
describes the progression of needs of human beings,
according to whether specific needs are or are not met
Of course, the basic needs relate to
breathing air, access to food,
access to shelter, procreation etc.
Those are the first level needs.
Second, there is the need for security.
The third need relates to social relationships
with other human beings.
The fourth is self-esteem,
self-confidence.
And the last level is creativity.
When a developer shares
his source code with others,
he feeds the three highest levels:
he has social contacts,
sometimes with people on the other side of the world,
he is self-confident, because if his program
is later used by thousands or tens of thousands people,
it empowers him,
it gives him satisfaction.
And it fulfills creativity too.
Because he must be creative
to develop his program.
At the same time,
he witnesses other programmers
reusing his work in totally unexpected ways.
This generates creativity
based on his work.
Today's young people might say that
they have other needs...
but that's another story.
Where lies the rebirth of open source?
Open sourcing is an IT phenomenon:
you share your source code that generates programs.
Lawrence Lessig, an American lawyer,
decided to expand the concept outside the IT world.
You know the little © from copyright.
Copyright means: "Here is my work,
but don't use it without my approval,
don't copy it,
don't alter it; I own the copyrights."
It's a license that protects work
against free distribution,
against its use by other people.
CC, Creative Commons
-- I think there is some irony there,
because it makes me think of Pacman,
the C eating the © from copyright --
Creative Commons licenses do the opposite.
They say, "This is my work,
I share it with you, you can reuse it,
you can alter it,
use it to do other things,
Use it as you want!
I only ask you to mention my name,
acknowledge me as the author of the original work"
-- so as to feed my self-esteem.
This license, and other initiatives, have contributed to develop
many other initiatives outside of IT.
You all know Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia
that contains a huge amount of information
exceeding paper encyclopedias.
All of this is contributed by volunteers,
joining forces together.
Everyone can create his own pages.
They control each other
to make sure that no-one is abusing
or entering any fake information.
There have been abuses,
but they all have been fixed relatively quickly.
So, we have a huge amount of knowledge,
the knowledge from the whole world,
available free of charge.
It is not even sponsored by advertising.
People truly exchange knowledge.
Music is another example of open source
growing outside IT.
There are more and more
authors who share their music.
Major labels usually own the rights,
even for digital formats.
And they have developed systems
to prevent you from making copies of CDs.
However, more and more artists say:
"I do the opposite:
I publish my music on the web,
everyone can use it, play it for free,
and can even make samplings, mixings,
or take pieces of my music to create something new."
Today, you will have the opportunity
to witness that kind of music.
A third example:
open source hardware.
Hardware means equipment,
or electronic equipment in this case.
Today, on internet, there are people
who publish the recipe
to build electronic equipment,
such as smartphones, basic computers...
Their recipe is published,
so anyone with minimal electronic skills
can go and purchase electronic parts,
to re-create electronic equipments.
In the human body, in human blood,
there are about 5,000 white blood cells per cubic millimeter.
In 2007, my doctor told me
that my blood contained 120,000 of them.
Instead of 5,000, I had 120,000.
This is not normal.
It is called chronic myeloid leukemia.
Blood cancer.
For a few weeks I asked myself,
"What are my hopes of survival?"
So I looked for information on the web.
Wikipedia and similar sources told me
that, with this type of leukemia, you can live 1 to 5 years.
Rarely more.
I pondered about my future, my family etc.
Then, thankfully, my doctor told me
that there is a small pill called Gleevec,
a relatively recent discovery,
about 5 years before I got this cancer.
This drug is effective in 95% of the cases
of chronic myeloid leukemia.
Unfortunately, this is one of several leukemias,
and it's not effective against other types of cancer.
It targets a very specific disease.
It's a niche, but within this niche,
it saves the life of 95% of the people
who had less than 5 years to live:
they can live as long as other people.
It's a miracle drug. Really exceptional.
There are almost no side effects.
I take this pill once a day,
and as you see, I'm healthy.
3 months after this event,
I learned that my 10 years old son, Pierre, had bone cancer.
Bone cancer is very difficult to cure,
it develops very fast,
especially in children.
So, at 10 years old, a bone cancer means
that we had very little hope
that our son, Pierre, would survive.
This is Pierre, without hair, because of the chemo.
And without his right leg,
because after one year of chemo,
the doctors told us some very good news:
they were convinced Pierre would make it.
But to improve his chances of survival in the long run,
it was safer to amputate the leg where the cancer had started.
Pierre has lost a leg
and he lost his hair.
Hair is all right because it grows back.
That was in 2007.
Today, 7 years later,
Pierre is alive and kicking.
He has a prosthesis and he is quite used to it.
He has a normal life.
But he spent 2 years of his life going through heavy therapies.
One year of chemo is a real pain.
He was confined to a sterile room
when he received bone marrow.
He lost one leg and needed physical therapy.
He also had radio-therapy.
Not your usual therapy.
Couldn't open source help
accelerate the drug discovery process?
Gleevec, the pill I told you about,
was commercialized in the early 2000.
But the discovery of the disease mechanism
was made 40 years earlier.
40 years were necessary to go
from discovery to a drug on the market.
40 years. A long time.
Enough time to let many people die.
Open source makes things go faster.
Why not do 'open source' drug discovery,
and get medicine faster on the market?
Jay Bradner is one of those who believe in this.
The mechanisms that you know,
used by pharmaceutical companies,
consist of patenting and hiding a discovery
that seems promising
to become a cure, a successful medicine.
It becomes a huge secret.
Good for their business.
But it slows down the process.
Bradner and his team chose another approach.
When they discovered a protein
that seemed promising
to treat some cancers,
they published their results on the web.
They told researchers that, upon request,
they would provide extracts,
and the recipe to produce them too.
Since then, a number of labs
from the whole world, as far as Japan etc.
have found out that this particular discovery,
combined with their own research,
could lead to major discoveries faster.
Today, this protein, called JQ1,
has been used for researching new drugs.
There is no medicine yet,
at least, as magical as Gleevec.
But, in a few years only, we are close
to develop new therapies
to cure some cancers.
A team of researchers believe
that it could bring some answers to AIDS too.
So yes indeed, sharing makes you rich.
But more important,
sharing makes your life richer.
Thank you.
(Applause)