Linux Corporate Influence: Boon or Bane?

Mark Tobenkin writes "Are corporations exploiting the Open Source community? The Linux Public Broadcasting Network has video interviews with Ian Murdock (of Progeny and Debian fame), Martin Roesch (author of Snort), Jeremey White (CEO of CodeWeavers), Bradley Kuhn (FSF), Mike Balma (Linux Business Strategist for HP) and others on the evolving OSS business models. The interviews center around whether integration with proprietary products endangers the Open Source effort or increases consumers' freedom to choose."

Comments

I'd rather use Photoshop than the Gimp

[bons]

Get Adobe and Macromedia to port to Linux and I think you'll see a major increase in usage.

The question is, "Is that really the goal?"

Do you want lots of users or lots of contributors?
Do you want to be the virus target by virtue of numbers?

If you do, then get some of the larger applications to port. If not, then why worry?

Here's another analogy

[Kappelmeister]

I was thinking about how difficult the SCO mess is to explain to a layperson -- it's front page news for nerds, but it doesn't sound very sexy to everyone else.

Here's my idea for a story you can use in case someone asks you at the water cooler. It's not a perfect analogy to OSS, but then, what is?

Imagine that there's a group of amusement park enthusiasts who love scary, innovative rides. The big 6.28 Flags parks around just don't cut it -- they're far away, admission is expensive, and the rides are boring and dangerous. So the fans decide to move to a new town, Penguina, and build their own park.

The Penguinans just love good rides, and they know how to make them. They work together to build a communal park that's scary as hell. Everyone chips in to come up with a new ride design, or build a ride. And each ride is open to everyone around, for no charge.

Eventually, word of the up-and-coming Penguina Park gets around. Lots of new residents move in each year to help build it up. Even more numerous are the tourists who just come to have fun -- more fun than they ever had at 6.28 Flags.

Eventually, the park gets the attention of ride vendors, big companies like UBM2 and startups like Red Beret. These companies can't buy out the park, since the Penguina residents agreed to never let that happen. But they can invest in the park ("this ride was sponsored by UBM2") and sell related merchandise, such as park maps, guided tours and seat cushions. Eventually Penguina Park gets so popular that everyone from government employees to Star Trek helmsmen go there for the biggest thrills they can have with their clothes on.

Then one day, Vomit Unlimited, a fading rollercoaster company with some good rides to its legacy, comes along and says to the Penguina community: "Guys, there's a ride in your park that's based on one of our designs. We didn't say it could be a part of your little hostel."

"Oops," rejoin the Penguina residents. "OK, tell us which ride and we'll take it out."

"I can't tell you that, it's a secret," says the Vomit Unlimited rep. "But I can't let you keep riding it for free, either. I've got no choice but to claim ownership of the whole park. Oh, don't worry, you can still use the rides. You'll just have to pay us $299 each to get in."

Naturally, the Penguina residents find this absurd. So do the corporations -- volunteer work is one thing, but they're not about to surrender their investments. UBM2 dismisses Vomit Unlimited. Vomit Unlimited sues.

"Oh, come on," entreat the Penguinans. "You can't win against UBM2. Just tell us which ride is yours."

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," croaks the rep. "You see, there's actually a whole series of rides that we own across the park. Infrastructure, too, so the park won't run at all if you take out our property. Now, buy your tickets, kids, since we'll be charging $699 soon." Scrawny guards with Vomit Unlimited logos (brown-green puddles with chunks of Chef Boyardee) begin to take positions around the park entrances, threatening to poke the eyes of any trespassers.

The amusement park trade journals laugh at the shop, but the mainstream papers take it seriously, leading people to wonder if there's a serious problem with the communal Penguina system.

Blood vessels breach. UBM2 sues Vomit Unlimited. Red Beret takes aim. But Vomit keeps spewing warnings to everyone who rides, from the government on down.

How will the craziness end?? Stay tuned!

What about Apple?

[f-matic]

Didn't see them mentioned yet, but they seem like a perfect example of a proprietary business model drawing from the OSS movement. But I don't think the either/or question really captures what's going on in these situations. Seems to me in Apple's case (which is fairly similar to others discussed in the videos), they're obviously exploiting the OSS movement (albeit in a fairly clever and media-massaged kinda way) -- just look at Safari, which adds value to their operating system and draws extensively from the open source technologies developed in Konqueror -- and makes them more money. But at the same time they're contributing code back to OSS and adding value back to the OSS.

I mean, c'mon, this is America -- aren't exploitation and cooperation the same thing?

It's like your favorite band getting big.

[Theatetus]

It's no different than when your favorite local band gets a big record deal.

At first you're ecstatic because now you'll hear them on the radio, see them in big venues, etc. Then you start to get annoyed at all the new fans who only know the songs off their "big" album and not their older, infinitely better stuff.

Finally they stop playing their old stuff totally and you decide they've "sold out" just because they're more popular than they used to be.

Re:2-faced approach is more appropriate

[Tony-A]

[Dan Frye, director of IBM's Linux Technology Center in New York]
"Sun is a formidable company and we would welcome them as a competitor. But we'll spend little time worrying about Sun as long as they continue to misunderstand what Linux is about."

Methinks IBM has figured something out. I do not know what, but it is substantial. It's not as simple as "Open Source Rules" and it's certainly not just open source. The closest I can get is symbiosis defined as mutual parasitism. Both benefit from what should be an antagonistic relationship.