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Matt Asay on the Status of OSS
OSS_ilation writes "An interview with OSBC director Matt Asay at SearchOpenSource.com gives some insight into where open source software (OSS) has been, is today, and where it hopes to be in the future. A common trend identified by Asay in the interview is that OSS has become very profitable. Asay also touched on the hot-button issue of where the GPL is headed, as well as how open source vendors shouldn't let high download rates give them a big head about the real validity of their projects."
If people use it, you can make money from it.
:-)
If people download it, it does not mean they are using it.
Funny, but I already knew that. Now I just have to find something people will use besides Video Fish
In the week that Nessus went closed source, spitting in the face of all those who helped the project thinking it was free software, let's hope that the Gnessus project (based on the last Free version of Nessus) takes off, and that the continuing-Free Snort and Nmap continue to flourish. The progress of Sourcefire and Snort will be particularly interesting to compare with that of Tenable (Renaud's company) since Marty Roesch has been clear that Sourcefire (his company) being bought by Checkpoint won't affect Snort, which will continue to be Free software under the GPL.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Just because someone downloads music, doesn't mean they listen to the crap...
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
[I did RTFA, though it's entirely possible I missed something.]
Mr. Asay did not clarify the distinction between revenue from product sales and revenue from support and other services. He mentioned Red Hat as an example of an OSS company that is making money, but he didn't indicate how much of that money came from selling RHEL and other products vice the consulting, etc. that RH also offers. He alludes to it briefly when he says "OSS has trended toward examples like the Red Hat Network and the MySQL network" but leaves it at that.
This is not a slam on Asay, btw; it's just something I thought would make the article more useful.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Can anyone shed some light on Matt Asay's credentials and achievements? Has he made any significant open source contributions, be them in the form of code, documentation, icons, etc.? What is his background, and past involvement with the open source community. His name isn't one that rings a bell, so that's why I'm wondering who exactly he is.
Is he a master contributor such as Bruce Perens, or is he more of an Eric S. Raymond?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
You may be taking the wrong lesson from that exchange.
how to invest, a novice's guide
It's because you're a troll and a total pest.
All moderators: nothing CyricZ ever posts has any real content. All of his posts are made to generate responses - sometimes he comes across as reasonable, at other times as needling and nosy, but always content-free. Please mod him -1, Troll.
`while products like Firefox, MySQL and OpenOffice.org are now thrown about in a serious manner with household names like Microsoft Office, Oracle and others. `
When was Oracle ever a household name?
You make an interesting point, albeit one that I disagree with. I'm not saying that I have the right answer - just a different one. Regardless - its an interesting discussion topic.
I do not feel that the users (or anyone else in the community for that matter) has any right to expect ANYTHING from open source developers. Indivuduals who are contributing are contributing because its a project that interests them, they see (and can help) fill a need, or they are just plain bored. The bottom line is that they are doing it on their own time and for their own reasons.
That being said, if a company is making OSS contributions and said company or an individual working for that company on that project (and thus a representitive of that company) conducts themselves in an unprofessional manor, than the company and individual should be held responsible.
Just a thought.
Are you really taking anything said on Slashdot seriously?
This is a fairly 'closed' environment. Anybody who actually reads it, knows whether or not they will use the software regardless of how somebody rants/raves about it.
If that weren't the case, we'd ALL be using Macintosh, playing Nintendo and sleeping with Real Dolls.
No reason to lie.
The post you link to is moderated +5 for a reason. This is slashdot, not a user conference or something like that. Enormous flamewars between people neither of whom actually knows what they're talking about are the norm here. Propriety software makers talking about their products here don't exhibit any more restraint. And true professionalism means telling an idiot when he's being an idiot, not yes-manning the customer because they're the customer. That's what unscrupulous profiteers do.
I am trolling
In my field of expertise a proper diagnosis is rated "very professional" indeed.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Who cares? Free Software in the 1990's and 2000's has revitalized the hobby of computing and programming. If you are in development for the money, your in it for the wrong reasons. You won't last.
I agree, nobody should be forced to contribute to an open source project. But then again, I think there is a certail level of honour that the developers of a larger project (such as KOffice or KDE) must show. That's not to say that they have to suck up to their users, or anything of that sort. What they should not do, however, is blatantly insult users in public while mentioning their contributions to said projects.
There's a minimum standard, and that particular developer sunk below it in that particular instance. Intentional or not, it did reflect poorly on the entire project, including all of those individuals who have been extremely helpful in the past. If anything, such insults are more disrespectful to those with the KDE project who have helped built its fantastic image, rather than to the person the insults were directed towards.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The fact that it's moderated +5 shows that professionalism is a concept that many in the open source community fail to grasp. Now, that doesn't surprise me in a way. The community itself has academic roots, and many members do not have the experience necessary to understand professionalism.
If you follow that particular discussion back far enough, you would clearly see that that KOffice developer was incorrect with respect to his basic points. Follow it forwards and you'll see him blame his inappropriate behaviour on a headache. Either way, such behavior is inexcusable. It shouldn't fly here, and it would never fly in a business setting.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
*LOL*
And true professionalism means telling an idiot when he's being an idiot, not yes-manning the customer because they're the customer. That's what unscrupulous profiteers do.
What fuckin job do you have buddy?
In the -real world- where us real people with real jobs live and work, we do what our unscrupulous profiteer bosses tell us to do or we become fired in a fast and unpleasent way. Our customers are very often total idiots, they don't know their hands from their asses, but if we told them that, they'd call up our bosses and complain -- and boom -- your fired. The customer will occasionally get a retarded idea you just have to let him implement his stupidity before he realizes the error of his ways. Then, and only then, can you implement the correct way without losing your job.
Thats the way things work in reality. "Professionalism" as you describe it, is a luxury of upper management, the rest of us have to content ourselves with the knowledge that we are doing the best we can with the bullshit that we have.
--SD
"Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
as long as they get their products and support from mandriva, red hat, novell/suse, ibm or whatever they will not care about what the individual developers of the office pack is on about. just like they dont care about the individual workers view on stuff at microsoft as long as microsoft sells them the products that they want.
its basic economics, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, as long as one get what one wants.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
When more than a select few companies (only three listed) prove to be capable of pulling a profit, then I'd call it a trend. But considering that most open source development teams pursue their software with little to no financing, it's far too early to even call this a trend. I'd call this the beginnings of a foundation that may begin to include other viable open source products.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Indeed. Even the janitors and burger flippers at McDonalds know not to insult the customers. I would hope that an open source developer could hold himself or herself to that basic standard, if not far exceed it.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I think that any list of open source should include Don Knuth's TeX and derivatives. I have no idea how to factor that into any economic discussion, but it must be a huge impact.
I would like it if he did an analysis of professionalism in the open source world. As open source software starts to play a greater role in business and enterprise computing, it will soon be expected that the open source developers gain a certain level of professionalism.
That is roughly as useful as reviewing the professionalism of "people", which are full of assholes. You trust those you do business with, you don't care that there are also conmen pretending to be businessmen. If he's being like that towards his fellow developers I expect they'll give him the boot, if he's not he's just an arrogant prick that should be kept as far away from the customers as possible. Which is also not difficulty (dev only forums and the like), and quite common at most companies. And that's even if his team members care. Many projects are run by geeks for geeks and people that ask stupid questions get flamed. They never ask for "customers" as such, they just thought other geeks might be interested. They will never give a fuck about what someone else thinks. And why should they? Not every OSS project out there is trying to please the "great public" with their software.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Note your use of the word 'potentially' right behind 'misleading' when you claim that the developer who wrote the open letter made a 'potentially' 'misleading' comment.
Your claim that he is in any way obliged to consider the potential ways his comment could be misconstrued is incorrect.
In this world, if you don't find his statement professional, you don't have to do business with him. The extent to which businesspeople consider FLOSS developers 'professional' likely varies based on their own experiences, and each one of them has to decide for {him,her}self whether or not to do business with FLOSS developers.
Since you seem to be so keen on facts and figures as being part of the argument, I'd like to point out how many businesspeople today are involved with FLOSS software developers.
My suggestion would be to separate your personal feelings regarding one experience you've had from your view of the world as a whole. Your attempt to extrapolate some larger point about the abrasive and unprofessional nature of FLOSS developers is highly illogical, and seems more like a personal vendetta than any genuine concern to improve, well, anything.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
**LOL** I read the thread you linked to. Get over it CZ. You sound like a petty little child that had his feelings hurt.
The fact that it's moderated +5 shows that professionalism is a concept that many in the open source community fail to grasp.
The fact that it's moderated +5 shows that intelligence is a quality that many users of open source software fail to possess. I'm not necessarily calling you out as stupid, I just liked the flow of your original sentence and chose to recycle it.
Now, that doesn't surprise me in a way. The community itself has academic roots, and many members do not have the experience necessary to understand professionalism.
What an extremely broad and insulting statement. Stereotype without apparent knowledge somewhere else please.
If you follow that particular discussion back far enough, you would clearly see that that KOffice developer was incorrect with respect to his basic points
Seemed spot-on, if somewhat agitated, to me.
Follow it forwards and you'll see him blame his inappropriate behaviour on a headache. Either way, such behavior is inexcusable. It shouldn't fly here, and it would never fly in a business setting.
As another poster pointed out in that thread, to paraphrase: Only smarmy hucksters cater to each and every idiot whim of a customer. With respect to the referenced discussion, there should be some meaning there for you, but you seemed not to have recognized it let alone understand it.
And if the developer's behavior, in part influenced by a migraine, is so inexcusable, why did you accept his-or-her apology? And yes, regardless, it would not "fly" in a business setting, but Slashdot is not a business setting, now is it? If you wanted the proverbial handjob I think you may have erred on your choice of venue.
Open Source developers as a group or as individuals owe you exactly nothing. You do not have a business relationship with any Open Source developer unless they so chose. This one obviously did not. For most of us, writing apps/scripts/what-have-you and releasing them as Open Source is a hobby, a pasttime. As such, I would expect anyone who feels that any of their work of personal satisfaction is being shat upon will turn right around and denounce you as impertinent, if not piss in your cornflakes outright. When you attack someone's activity of pleasure, you are attacking them personally, not the company they happen to work for persuing (or not) said activity--expect heated responses in such situations as a natural byproduct of the whole endeavor.
You can be an atheist and still not want to succumb to some weird cross-over sheep disease -- AC
WHAT????
You mean I an the only one???
ooooooooooo finally someone else who has seen the light at the end of the tunnel!!1!1!!!!1
/. is good for you.
You got pwned.
I'm so glad i'm not the only one who gets it cyric is a troll.
to anyone with mod points check his posting history what little you can since he posts at a prolific rate. the down mods from tuesday have already disappeared from his history on wednesday.
And there I was thinking someone was starting an Open Sound System vs. ALSA flamewar...
I swear we should be allowed to give mod points to sigs... "-1, Offtopic"
...Microsoft funding a TCO study?
Seriously though, if corporations can't be trusted to be objective about their own products/ideologies then why would we immediately decide that we should take to heart the word of someone who is clearly pro-OSS regarding the state of OSS profitability? Following that, where do we look for an objective opinion these days?
Granted there are a few key profitable OSS creator/providers, but in the same breath, I'm sure there are many, many more that fall on their faces and drown in debt.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
This is yet another case of someone claiming a company is profitable by looking at their revenues. Meaningless.
Also, MySQL (I know less about RedHat and JBoss) has dual licensing, and I'm sure their product revenues come entirely from the non-GPL side of the business. Their services and training revenues may come from both. Where their profits come from, if they have any profits, is unclear.
To my way of thinking, a dual-license company uses the free license to gain market share, so as to reduce their customer acquisition costs. The business is really about the non-free ("as in beer") side. The risky thing, for which OSS companies should be admired, is to make even the non-free side open source, rather than closed, trusting that customers are honest. (Many companies have a watered-down free product along with their non-free product, but neither are open source. To go all open source is exceptional.)
I started a company once that reached #72 on the Inc 500, based on revenue growth over 5 years, not one of which was profitable. In fact, for a venture-capital-backed company, which we were, as MySQL is, running the business conservatively enough to make a profit may not be the best course. Also, you can't count investment money as revenue when it comes in, but it is an expense when it goes out, so this also reduces profits, and usually results in big losses.
Hear, hear, why not ban his account for stupidity and public mocking of a Free Software contributor?
I think there is a certail level of honour that the developers of a larger project (such as KOffice or KDE) must show.
I think you will find that if you show respect, you will be given respect. If you behave like a spoilt child, you will be treated with contempt.
I'd rather see that that some pretend subservience.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
It probably saved a lot of dough for publishing houses of mathematics books, such as Springer Verlag, Kluwer and Birkhäuser.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Indeed, in that particular instance the developer was treated with nothing but respect. It was the developer who came out of the blue and attacked the user, due to a discussion the user was having with others.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Are you still sore at being called a blathering idiot because you spouted off on a subject you knew nothing about and got called on it by someone who did?
If so, then I agree with him, you're a blathering idiot ;-)
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Indeed, in that particular instance the developer was treated with nothing but respect.
I think you should take a long hard look at your understanding of what respect means.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."