O'Reilly on the Commoditization of Software

Iorek writes "International Data Group/Sverige has a great interview with Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly & Associates Inc. From predictions of eBay's purchase of Oracle to discussions of the failings of open source licenses, O'Reilly's certainly not reserved. I couldn't help but be reminded of the rise of this site and slashcode."

Comments

O'Reilly is right about the license thing.

[saitoh]

The best/greatest standing part about open source isnt GNOME or KDE, or that we all have free speach software, its what we are DOING with that software. Amazon is built on perl, and look what it has accomplished.

Later in the artical he comments on Debian, and how the creator and his company Progeny dont view linux as a product, but "a set of commodity software components he can put together for different purposes."

What he's getting at is that if the OSS community wanted to push forward, you need an idea and then use linux as the tools for that idea, suhc as automated backup, or something snazy like amazon (where it is a tool, and not the product). Trying to market it as a free desktop platform (in which case linux is the product) just wont cut it. I've done projects for my university, and its worked before, and it will work again.

Disclaimer: Do I beleive that linux cant be a product? No, I'm just saying that *ONE OF* (and not limited to) the best ways is to use it as a tool, not a product.

Re:O'Reilly is right about the license thing.

[Delphix]

I think a good example of this is Mac OS X.

Apple used FreeBSD as the platform on which to build the Mac OS X. However O'Reilly is right on in this case. Besides the modifications to the core kernal / toolset the Open Source community doesn't get much back.

It's not so much a case of them not distributing, but they don't distribute anything that was originally open source other than the core OS. Aqua, Quartz, Carbon, the Classic Environment and all the great apps (iTunes, Safari, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, etc, etc) are all proprietary.

So Apple gets the core of their OS devleoped for them by Open Source community. I'm not saying they don't give back, but they do get quite a bit out of the deal. And get to sell their software (&hardware) to boot.

In the end I guess Open Source is just a two edge sword.

Re:O'Reilly is right about the license thing.

[Arandir]

First, Apple has given back to every Open Source project it's borrowed from. The two main examples are FreeBSD and KDE. Why aren't they giving back Aqua? Because they didn't borrow Aqua from the community!

Second, according to the Tim philosophy of Open Source, Apple is the equivalent of Compaq. It's taking commodity software and "improving" it with proprietary additions. This works great (it worked great for Compaq), but eventually the paradigm shift will occur, and people are going to say "why am I paying proprietary prices for what should be commodity goods?"

Open Source and Government Research

[dreadlord76]

I just finished attending a Molecular Biology Training class, and I couldn't help drawing parallels between Open Source and the public Research that is on-going, such as the Human Genome Project.

Like open source software, public research labs publish the data they found, such as mouse or yeast genome, into the public domain (Humor me, I know that Open Source is not public domain, but it's darn close in terms of availability and cost). In addition, when a lab creates a new genomic library, they are supposed to make it available to anyone who asks. Sounds a lot like Open Source.

However, privately funded research usually do not have such policy, and use patents, trade secrets, and Copyrights to protect the IP. This has some effect in slowly down advancement in science in many ways. Such research also lead to imporant, and profitable advances for the companies involved.

But, due to limited public funding, not all worthwhile projects are funded in a timely fashion. A grant request to the NIH may take years before approved. A private company, seizing an oppertunity, may choose to invest and jump start a new field of research.

It seems that both models can co exist, and maybe it's time to have a publicly funded, or even an industry funded, organization, the supports Open Source development. The group should focus on open standards, common tools and platforms, and anything else someone can make a good case for. Something that will advance our knowledge, and make life easier. Something that we all cooperate on, rather than having blackmails or mighty pissing contests.

Maybe we should begin to treat Computer Science like Science, and really advance it methodically, rather than "My code is faster than your code..."

to a hammer, everything is a nail

[astrashe]

I think that a lot of the dyanamics he's talking about hold true -- obviously, O'Reilley is a very smart guy.

But it seems to me that he's looking at service industries, and calling them software companies. In order to do that, he has to change the definition of a software company, and as a result he's able to announce this as a shift in the software industry.

My problem with what he says is mostly aesthetic. It's that same old silicon valley rich guy entrepeneur guru bs.

He's making a lot of points that most people know -- web applications are more exciting, in many respects, than desktop applications now. Web applications are being built out of commodity pieces. The data in eBay and the customer good will is worth more than the code. All of those are good points, if not exactly earth shaking.

But the way he's stiched them together is mostly a semantic trick, and he's out there like he's been given stone tablets on some moutaintop.

It's not evil or anything, just a little icky.

Re:to a hammer, everything is a nail

[Ogerman]

My problem with what he says is mostly aesthetic. It's that same old silicon valley rich guy entrepeneur guru bs. He's making a lot of points that most people know -- web applications are more exciting, in many respects, than desktop applications now. Web applications are being built out of commodity pieces. The data in eBay and the customer good will is worth more than the code. All of those are good points, if not exactly earth shaking.

I think you're right on. In the buzz that Mr. O'Reilly is caught up in, it's easy to forget that that vast majority of computer users spend their days in MS Office, MS Outlook/Exchange, and XYZ customized core business application used by their workplace -- NOT Amazon and Ebay. Ordinary boring business applications are where the Open Source movement has enormous room to grow and conquer. While the core software 'stack' (OS,GUI,etc.) may be commoditized by this point, the rest isn't.

It is not uncommon for a medium sized business to spend literally millions USD on software licenses. Part of that is the M$ tax (OS, Servers, Office) and the other part is custom software that only runs on M$ platforms (accounting, ERP/CRM, etc.) Then, tack on all the support / training services needed to keep said software working. If anyone thinks there's no room for Open Source on the business desktop, they're pretty blind to reality. The issue is more how to coordinate developer-consultants such that they can collectively meet needs of their clients. (ie. free software / non-free services & customization)

But is there a market for an alternative? I challenge anyone who doesn't believe so to investigate what ordinary businesses are currently paying out for their IT needs -- both software licenses and services related.

Bad economy or not, there is always a market for better product at a better price. We don't need more eBay's and Amazon's; we need more Open Source entrepreneurs.

Microsoft understood this long ago.

[LibertineR]

For at least the last 5 years, Microsoft has understood that nobody buys 'Windows or Office or Exchange'. Corporation buy Networking, Information Management and Messaging instead, and the winners are those who provide the TOOLS for these business missions better than the next guy.

Linux vs Windows was never the proper battle, it was always a battle over what you DO with these things, and how you do them more effieciently than the other guy. Lots of companies NEED something like Exchange, so they by an Active Directory and Windows by default, and so on and so on.

O'Reilly is dead on right. All this shit is just commodity for the applications built upon it that actually generate income. Superiority of one platform over another is a moot point. No one decides to buy a book at Amazon because of Linux, instead of Barnes and Noble because they run on IIS, so get over it.

Windows against Linux is now like Goodyear versus Michelin. Who gives a shit? Only tire makers, not CAR makers. So, it is time to focus on building shit that rides on these things, instead of so much focus on the things themselves. No side has an advantage right now, but that could change overnight. Suppose Microsoft buys Amazon, or EBay buys Oracle? Same players, whole new battle, and all this crap over which OS is better doesnt mean a thing.

What if Microsoft buys Macromedia; takes Flash and does interesting remoting stuff with Web Services tied only to .NET? What is the competing solution from IBM going to look like?

I've got no answers, but I agree with O'Reilly that things are going to get very interesting over the next few years, and things are never going to be the same.

Hmmm....

[Delphix]

Having read the article twice I'm not qutie sure I get O'Reilly's point.

What he's saying is correct, but it's not exactly earthshattering in anyway. Amazon puts together some services that rock. They patent them. And then they sell the service to others. That just seems logical.

How that ties into driving Open Source I'm not sure. If they're only devleoping proprietary things (services) on top of an open source backbone, they're not really driving Open Source devlopment. Just because I compile my program with gcc or use a perl script doesn't mean I'm driving open source development in anyway. They're just using it as the foundation to build on.

Open Source is by definition controlled by anyone who wants it to be. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems like he's just stating the obvious and it has little to do with Open Source.

Economic drivers

[Pettifogger]

What O'Reilly has to say is pretty much on target, but I'm not sure if open source will be entirely subsumed by corporations looking to profit. Perhaps for industrial applications, but not on the home level.

What's going to happen on the home level is what's already happened to the hardware market. Everyone is looking for the lowest price. When the PC first came out, a lot of people were concerned about the brand/reputation, et al., and were willing to pay a premium for an AT&T, IBM, or other high-line product. That's where the software market is right now. The high-end hardware makers got slaughtered by price. And now the high-end software market is about to get slaughtered. Microsoft (and lots of others) are going to have to compete against the software equivalent of incredibly cheap clone hardware... and they are going to lose.

Yes, But...

[LibertineR]

True that the market for Developers(the new mechanics) will shrink. But other markets for those skills will open up, as long as developers keep a business focus to what they do. There is nothing left to innovate in software itself, but much to innovate in the use and application of same to solve or streamline a business process or customer's service.

I'm happy for the change, so we can get over these stupid platform wars, and focus on things that actually do something besides send bits back and forth. Now we get to focus more on the value of those bits, and I think that is a good thing.

Re:Yes, But...

[GrayArea]

There is nothing left to innovate in software itself...

Nothing left to innovate in software? We've been at this for, let me see, about thirty years now, and you think we've done all that can be done? That sounds like saying we've seen the end of history. I'd say we'll be seeing a whole lot of different ways to build software, and fifty years from now, people won't even notice that's what they are doing. Just look at them using spreadsheets today.

Hm, socialist potsmoking hippy or corporate drone?

[mikeophile]

I'm not sure what kind of point you're trying to make, but making a living in my basement home office coding applications while high sounds a lot better than writing TPS workflow scripts for a faceless corporation in a partitioned rat maze.

to expand on one point you made

[mindstrm]

regarding an open source gui...

(agree with everything you said, btw)

As a long time hardcore technical guy, and let me back that up by saying I'm a unix nut, I've been using linux heavily for 10 years now, solaris before that, and I get right into the guts.. I like assembly, circuit boards, and whatnot. I like a command prompt and I don't like microsoft.... anyway....
as a hardcore technical guy, open source liker, and a recent convert to OS-X... the comment about a gui got me thinking.

I like open source. I like open everything. I don't like being told what to do with my computer. Yet, I LOVE OSX, and I recognize that the one strength MacOS really has is that apple controls the desktop. It's not that you can't skin it, ,or change it's behavior.. but, in general, it's built to behave a certain way, and you can go around to macs everywhere, and the machine behave the way you expect them to. The developer knows what the user expects, and doesn't have to account for a dozen different ways to interface with things. More importantly, he has somewhre to start.. look how many windows applications have varied interfaces. To really understand this, in case anyone is doubting it, just sit down with a fresh mac and mac user for a few hours and learn how to install software, work with files, etc... you'll get it.

So.. we want an open source gui. Here's the thing... the only reason the mac has the "world class gui" feel to it is BECAUSE of a certain lack of openness.. we're talking about a benevolent dictator here. Apple developers know what to expect on the desktop, know how the mac user expects it to behave... and that's the main attraction. If you don't want that, you might as well go use linux.

Yes, we can do stuff in linux that OSX can't do. Yes, open is good, no argument here...I'm just tossing out the thought that, when it comes to providing a rock solid user experience, for a general purpose computer... a lack of choice is sometimes what's needed.. to get people thinking and doing the same thing.
You can sit someone down and show them windows -vs- mac.. and invariably, the mac people get more done, and are more comfortable with their gui.. and it's not because one is more customizable, or more flexible.. in fact it's the opposite.

Re:There's another great example of commoditizatio

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

...Apple. Look at what Apple did with OS X. Apple took an Open Source OS and pinned it up with a proprietary front-end. The system benefits from all of the Open Source advancements in hardware control, while at the same time, the user has all the benefits of a modern, easy-to-use interface.

The FreeBSD folks get some benefit as well. Besides having another big company using their code, testing it (and supplying patches) they kind of avoid the tug of war that part of Linux is going through - the whole "is it for geeks or the masses?" The coders who are good at one tend not to be as good in the other. So the FreeBSD coders can concentrate on the lower level bits, and have the Apple folks worry about getting the real fancy GUI on top of it.