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The Business Value of Open Source Examined
jg21 writes "'Open source developers have the opportunity to influence technology that is being used by companies and do it on a global scale in a way that cannot occur with any other type of software,' contends Bill Claybrook, writing in the current issue of LinuxWorld. The article is a historical overview of the open source revolution, starting in the 80s with the GNU Project, BSD, and TCP/IP and then moving into the 90s with Red Hat, StarOffice, and coming right into the 21st century with the Ximian Desktop and Sun's Linux-based Sun Java Desktop System."
I think in many cases, these kinds of effects can be seen with FREE software, instead of Open Source. Instant Messengers, for example, are mostly closed source, but have had the same kinds of wide-spread effects.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
Ah, but what if, by releasing it as Open Source you could get it to influence technology on a global scale, but you couldn't by releasing it in a closed-source model? What would you do then?
(And it should be pointed out that quite a few people do make a living writing Open Source software, and if you can create something great you most certainly will be able to get someone to pay you to work on it.)
The point of the article is that OSS has greater leverage than closed-source. Not really new, but neat to see documented.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
OSS is great, but many people (myself included) sometimes want it to Just Work. Look at the junk that is shovelled out of Redmond. Half-baked, half-assed authentication and directory services, insecure-by-design operating systems, no proper privilege separation, etc. etc.
But plonk down 49 USD on a USB printer and click Print, and it prints!
If I plug my USB 10/100 NIC into my laptop under RH 9, it kernel panics and dies.
If I want to use my Radeon AIW under Solaris x86, I'll be lucky to get it to even work in text mode.
The business model is to take the product and make it useful, just like a steel mill or lumber yard. Take raw material, make it accessible to the common man (consumer), who trades you the money value of his time for the product.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Many people ignore the fact that no business model is required for open source to be successful. Confederations of users can drive successful open source projects. Internal developers of non-software businesses pooling their resources to produce software to make their jobs easier and more productive. Apache comes to mind.
Logic is not Divine.
This article fluffs over how open source is a viable business model but the "success stories" and business models described are skeletal. So where's the beef? Redhat - that no longer offers a Linux distribution, RedCarpet that has all but disappeared, Stallman and GNU - the guy that can't even afford a haircut - come on guys. If you're gonna talk about the "successful open source business model" you better put some more meat on the bone. This article makes open source look postively scary from a business perspective.
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
...Open Source desktop software has been pretty stagnant in the past few years. All the great OS dekstop programs are playing catch up with their commercial relatives and most of them are lagging well behind. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge open source zealot, but it seems that innovation has been mostly confined to server related software. There are of course exceptions to this, with some truly innovative software like Dasher, but most of the flagship OS projects still feel like imitations of their popular commercial counterparts.
Ximian Desktop and Sun's Linux-based Sun Java Desktop System.
I can't say these projects come to mind when I mark progress in Free Software in the 2000's. The Ximian Desktop is arguably inferior to KDE, XFCE, and other substantial window managers, including my favorite WindowMaker. I still haven't seen Sun's Java Desktop. Come to think of it, I have never seen a usable Java Desktop program at all.
Here's my list of the seminal programs of the last three decades:
an ill wind that blows no good
No, I'm talking about a Free Software movement that has been going on seriously for some 20 years now that is more than happy to co-exist alongside commercial software.
I'm sorry to break it to you but the dot-com bubble has burst. Several years ago.
Sorry, your point is??? I thought the dot.com bubble was more about idiotic financeers overvaluing companies - what's this got to do with free/commercial software development?
You can't spent countless man-hours on man-hour intensive kind of labour (lots of manhours=high cost) like software development and make money on some low-margin side channel like customization services or support.
IBM, Novell, Red Hat, etc. seem perfectly capable of working within that model. My company, which sells telephony platforms on Linux-based systems makes a profit from services and support while developing the software in-house. I still don't see what's the problem?
That is true. They are giving something away for free that kills another persons livehood. Of cause, someone else is making something free that kills their own livehood as well.
Ah, I think I get it now. In your vision of the world, generosity and volunteer work are not allowed then on the basis that it might stop someone else profiting from it. In your world there is no room for altruism, eh?
By the same logic, rather than having the Red Cross and Oxfam goint into the Sudan with free food parcels, we send in K-Mart or ASDA (if you're in the UK) to go sell them the food. Hmmm...
I assume he does that but the commercial sector is highly affected by free products. It also drives the offshoring trend since lower labour cost is needed to counter marketloss to people who work for free.
Then how about you get your local politician /senator to speak up in the appropriate government chambers and gets a bill passed that taxes company profits heavily if they use cheap off-shore labour? In my world, a company that makes profits in a particular country should be obligated to create a certain percentage of jobs in that country also - "you take something, you give something back."
This has nothing to do with Open Source but everything to do with your commercial enterprise pandering to the rich fat shareholders.
No one has any godgiven right to live on a specific line of career and anyone can give away their own work for free of cause. But don't kid yourself, it does hurt everyone working in the industry.
So what? Virtually all of our coal-mining industry in the UK has been annihilated - not because there's no more coal to mine but because it became too expensive to mine compared to importing it (much of it from the US).
However, if I complained about that I would be a hypocrite because I also like cheaper electricity as a result of that business decision.
Sure, it sucks if you lose your livelihood but invariably it's as a result of this bigger thing called progress.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Open source is built for many reasons. One of the real strengths of open source software is that the community becomes the powerhouse of production rather than a single corporation. Profit is one motive that someone may bring to the community but it is not the only one. Helping customers, just plain fun, altruism, and hurting competitors are all common motivations for contributing to open source.
What I see as really funny is how often people complain about open source losing its soul because companies participate in open source to hurt their competitors. WTF? Open source development means you will have an organic self-governing network of developers which will include developers who have all manner of motivations.
This isn't about any one thing, people...
Funny, yesterday, I started a blog on this same topic (or one closely related). It is at http://ossne.blogspot.com
Let me tell you about my motivations for contributing open source software:
1) Fun of learning new technologies
2) Profit-- by minimizing the money my customers spend on software licenses, I can control more of their IT spending. First mover advantage comes into play here.
3) Hurting competitors: Microsoft, Siebel, Oracle etc. might make decent software, they are taking money I would rather get from my customers. So hurting them is good business.
4) Altruism. I actually think that freedom is a good thing. I think a world where open source software dominates would be better than one that doesn't.
So all these can co-exist.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP