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Is Fear Reducing the Publicity for Open Source?
sebFlyte writes "Are companies deliberately keeping quiet about moves to open source because they are afraid of the reactions of proprietary vendors they still have relationships with? ZDNet raises and tries to answer this question in a two-part special report, 'Open source behind closed doors'. It comes to the conclusion that, in all probability, companies are keeping quiet to avoid reprisals of one sort or another. One part of the fear of publicizing migrations is nicely summed up in the second part by Tristan Nitot of Mozilla Europe: 'Guys are really shy -- it's the Munich Linux thing. They start talking about it and suddenly Ballmer comes in and twists your arm until you cry.'"
Lets see you have a new idea.
There is some risk in using it, it might not work, might upset your current suppliers or customers.
You decide to try it. If you don't tell anyone you have no risk of upsetting your customers or suppliers.
If it works you get the benefis before your customers know what's happening. If it doesn't work maybe your customers will make the same mistake.
I can't think of a compelling reason to publicise deployment of opensource technology, except to the shareholders if they want details of strategy.
And of course, when it comes to doing a big deal, companies can always try and get a discount by offering to be a case study for the vendor. So their adoption of the vendor's technology gets some press. When a company adopts an open source solution, there's never going to be the same PR push behind it. You are always going to hear more about things that someone can sell than you are about things you can just download for free.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
FUD is the _main source_ of publicity for open source.
Would you have even known Linux existed if you hadn't heard all this screaming from MS saying "WINDOWS IS BETTER THAN ALL THOSE FREE OPEN SOURCE OSES THAT RUN 80% OF THE INTERNET, NYAH NYAH!"?
You live in fear of the 100% markup that you will pay if you go against MS (for all Windows based software, not just MS's). MS has a long history of penalizing those that do not do exactly what MS wants. Yes, MS will offer 80 % off of this years prices to keep you. But they expect high prices next year, and they expect that you will not even toy with OSS anymore. Simply read what Dell had to say at the MS monopoly trial.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you have problems with a new version of Windows it really isn't your fault I mean what choice do you have but to stick with Windows since it is that standard. Microsoft will fix it. It is a great system you get to lump all the blame on Microsoft because everyone knows how bad they are.
If you try and migrate to Linux, BSD, or Open Office and you have issues then your to blame for leaving Microsoft.
Migrating from one system to another is never trouble free. There will be probably be some fun driver issues with Vista and goodness knows what else. Going to Linux is also not going to be simple for a company. Learning Linux is not trivial and it is not perfect. I happen to think that Linux is great. We have almost no problems with our Linux boxes. We also have very few problems with the only Windows Server we have left. We would like to migrate entirely to Linux for our servers and probably will at some point but I am sure it will not be "simple".
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
They start talking about it and suddenly Ballmer comes in and twists your arm until you cry.
Better that than a monkey dance!
They don't understand it and are afraid of things they don't understand.So there is little incentive to inform them. We only really need the managers when we need their approval to buy something. So they only ever hear about things that costs money and gets a distorted view of things.
TCAP-Abort
Oracle Continues Warming Up to Open Source
Intel Begins Support for Debian
IBM Turns to Open Source Development
IBM And Sony Form Linux Alliance
Linux Tablet to be Released in Two Days
There are only few of the many stories. Does it sound if companies are keeping mum about open source adoption ?
It may also be ignorance. Let's say a company whose workforce is accostumed to windows does tech support for some hardware products. One of their clients phone, they have a problem. During the phonecall the client mentions he has linux installed on a partition. Bingo, the tech support guy genuinely think that the problem is an interference or a misconfiguration because of the presence of "that other os".
:)
Once I offered to backup an old win98 machine with a linux livecd and an usb stick because the system was clogged, and I didn't trust myself to install more drivers on it. People instead were thinking the opposite, with running linux as the risky choice. D'oh!
Sometimes it works the other way. I phoned my ISP cause "my internet was broken"
Tech support starts talking about configuration, on windows. I cut short: "I am using linux and tested both my installations and one of OSX. My ethernet hub blinking lights says that my network card works, too".
"So it's the modem or the line" (both their business, and of course it was a line problem).
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Perhaps they don't want their competitors to know that they too can have the exact same solutions for free....
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
`It's free, it can't be as good as the product that costs ${large_amount_of_cash}`
Ubuntu has gone some way to changing that because people have ordered CDs and tried it (just because they're free (beer)) and realised that really, freebies aren't all that bad. But what about the vast majority of people who haven't even heard of linux, or openoffice, or any of the other free(speech) applications?
And then there is the problem of education. Throughout the whole of my education, the institutions were wedded to windows, you weren't able to use a linux live CD, that would be a bannable offence, and just forget being able to work on documents at home if you didn't have windows. The MSDNAA is just another snare to get universities using microsoft products and to try and gain loyalty with students. Still there is the perception that cheap = crap. Just how far does it extend? And how many of the kids in school right now are going to grow up thinking microsoft is the only, or best, choice?
I'll let the GNU foundation take it from here : Free Software in education~HTP~ Hug that tux
Sure, blame the programmer. In the meanwhile, the systems that run MySQL will continue to silently fail due to bugs, and distrupt your data, while those who run better database systems will catch the bug and fix it at an earlier stage.
If this is true that is. I saw something in vTigerCRM where if I store a long website URL into an account, it will just become shortened without any warning. So I'm inclined to believe this is true. That is *Very*, *Very*, *Seriously* foobar, IMHO.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
And why is it you're not validating user input? Bad data should never have a chance to get to the database in the first place.
I disagree with the implication that the application layer is the only layer responsable for data intgrety.
Maintaining a constant database is as important as maintaining a secure network.
You wouldn't simply install a firewall on your network, ignoring all other security measures and saying "but it's the firewalls job to do that..."
The same applies to data integrity. Both the app layer and the data layer should do their own validation.
their internal tech moves because nobody really gives a damn. It would be the height of arrogance for a company to assume that the world cares whether it moves to open source or any other tech for that matter. Most companies aren't in the business of announcing to the world what their internal tech moves are.
I don't know what internal tech McDonalds uses, and don't care. McDonalds knows that I don't care, and therefore doesn't waste time bothering to make irrelevant declarations to the world regarding their internal tech.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
In 1996, I was working at a Fortune 500 company, and we were planning to migrate many of our systems from Big Blue to Microsoft. I was in charge of choosing the best C++ tool, and after some meetings with programmers I chose Microsoft Visual C++. We had a conference call with some Microsoft sales people one day, and while there were only 2-3 of us speaking with them, the move to Microsoft was a really big deal in the company, and a lot of people were opposed to it, so there were several big wigs in the room just listening in. Microsoft got on the line, and they immediately started shouting. They asked me questions and then cut me off before I could answer them, they swore at us, and they said that if we didn't choose their product that they were going to go to our managers and show them how daft we were, etc. We were buying the product! After a couple minutes of this, we just sat in stunned silence. It was my meeting, so I said "Alright, I think we're done here." and hung up. I was completely flustered and terrified, and my hands were shaking. We all filed out of the room, and I tried not to look at anyone in the eye. A year later, I was writing Java code.
And communists always do things in secret.
There was a CNET interview with Bill Gates earlier this year in which he suggests:
There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.
There is another explanation. I worked for an expert systems company when it was "the next big thing". There were very few reports in the press about companies developing expert systems, though people in the field knew a lot was being done.
The major reason was that the possibility of getting a competitive advantage by producing something that nobody else had.
The same may be true here but in a different way - you just removed a large amount of your cost base, but you don't want your competitors to know about it because they might start doing the same thing.
Parent is so true. Debugging a friends PHP/MySQL code in order to check why his PASSWORD() function for a simple user login does not work anymore on the productive host just, to find out that MySQL cuts of data instead of returning a big fat warning, is rather annoying. Oh and the fact that MySQL moved the PASSWORD() function to OLD_PASSWORD() and introduced another hash function in PASSWORD() with one of the latest releases in the 4.n version family is another thing to walk away.
Please don't label me as a troll. I understand the benefits of OSS as much as anyone.
Honestly, I think much of the problem comes from over-hyping OSS. It should be obvious that the usefulness of OSS is directly related to the quality of the software, but unfortunately there's a tendency to lump all open software together. Witness how many people respond to "There's no good OSS equivalent of Photoshop" with "Use the GIMP!" when in reality there's no comparison, even with the Photoshop GUI hacks for The GIMP.
Numerous times I've looked at open source clones of software, only to dismiss them because they're written by bored students with little software engineering experience. I'd hate to become attached to something that the author could drop when he gets a job or girlfriend or new game system. You run much less risk when there's a company behind it. Sure, I *could* learn the code and take over it myself, but that's unrealistic. You can't just pick up a 50,000+ line program and understand it. (In many cases looking at the code would be enough to make me avoid that program.)
Bottom line: Some OSS is good, some is crap. J"OSS" isn't any kind of magic term.
They've been complaining about the Billy-as-Borg icon for years. Let's get rid of it...and replace it with Billy-as-the-Godfather. Really, they aren't Borg anymore, they've been busted down to "common thugs"...still fearsome, but no longer insurmountable. The fact that they have to resort to such tactics proves this.
Writing as an AC for obvious reasons.
We're moving a lot of things to Linux and open source, not because of any political agenda but because we're trying to get the best tool for the job, and when it comes to science, a lot of the best tools are Unix/Linux-based.
Being a private company on a fierce market we keep our mouths shut about this for obvious reasons, as I'm sure all of our competitors do too.
My business customers don't seem to give a crap. If it works, they'll use it. MSFT can whine all they want and it'll get them nowhere. On the other hand if MSFT offers them a compelling deal they're not going to have any more loyalty to OSS.
Ballmer is engaged in an endless game of whack-a-mole. And the moles are popping up faster than even the mighty MSFT can keep pace with. The fact that Ballmer has to waste his time to personally strong-arm organizations is the highest compliment he can pay to those of you involved in OSS projects. Not only can you change the world for the better, you can get under Ballmer's skin and make him burn some avgas in that expensive plane he flies around in. Hehe. Bonus.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The point is, it shouldn't. The only people that should fear from this are OS vendors -- because that's the only fundamental difference. So what I use Linux on my webserver -- if you want me to run IIS, because you think it's right for my situation, and I'm familiar with IIS, then port it to the operating system I'm using, please!
The problem is the os-tiein you get with a lot of software. That's bullcrap. If you're marketing software, and you want everyone to use it, you should have builds for the OS your customer is using. After all, theyre YOUR customer and YOU should be jumping through hoops for THEM.
-- incubus
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
I've been through one software audit ... we were squeaky clean, but it took about 4 hours of my time. Multiply that by the 25,000+ employees of that company, at their fully loaded pay rate and it was DAMNED EXPENSIVE to come up squeaky-clean.
Of course it's never the fault of the programmer. From the description of PASSWORD() from the MySQL docs:
"Calculates and returns a password string from the plaintext password str, or NULL if the argument was NULL. This is the function that is used for encrypting MySQL passwords for storage in the Password column of the user grant table.
Note: The PASSWORD() function is used by the authentication system in MySQL Server; you should not use it in your own applications. For that purpose, use MD5() or SHA1() instead. Also see RFC 2195 for more information about handling passwords and authentication securely in your applications."
This has been in the docs for years, long before 4.1 (the version in which the internal hash algorithm was updated) was released. The possibility for application breakage from this change was also fully documented in the upgrade release notes. In fact, it's mentioned in the first real step. As if that wasn't enough, you actually have to want to use the new password algorithm. If after you upgrade the grants table isn't manually altered to support the new hash length, the PASSWORD() function works exactly as it did in versions 4.0 and earlier.
We are seeing some strong shoots now. The first commercial laptops appearing from major manufacturers bundled with Linux, Nero for Linux and cities looking at switching (and a switch to OpenOffice.org is an "unbinding" of your users).
I think that we'll see slow growth for the next 5 or so years, followed by it really moving very fast.
Running your business on OSS or making money of OSS is about shutting up about it. How would I look if I'd say I've underpriced my competitors by 50% for that corporate website because it runs of an OSS CMS? It's the remaining 50% we make money on. And finance our active support and development of OSS. The competitors make even a larger amount of money (if they'd sell) but they can bullshit about their efforts and technology all the way because it's closed source.
:-)
When you do OSS on the other hand, you market yourself more than the product. That's why OSS isn't talked about that often.
There are partners we have who couldn't care less if the framework we're using is being built as OSS and available under a different name at sf.net - but they do want us not to advertise that to their competitors. Quite logical.
Be it that that extremly powerfull framework at that famous software copmany costs 15000$ dollars. It doesn't matter as long as only a few know that the very same thing is available as OSS. And even those who do will shut up about it.
OSS business isn't about talking about things, it's about knowing things. And talking usually doesn't cut it anyway, because people who need the advantage of OSS technologies explained often are to dumb to understand that explaination. I've learned that more than once. Might aswell just wait until it sinks in and gain business momentum along the way.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Economically speaking (I'm a linguist, not an economist, damnit!), this relates to things like scarcity and COGS (cost of goods sold). The direct expenses in selling software come from the expectations of the consumer: flashy box, manuals, media. The bulk of the expenses in producing software come from time: paying people to make things (code, packaging, marketing). In the case of downloadable software, the only realy direct expense in distribution is bandwidth.
In the ham sandwich case, for example, the price is driven by the relative scarcity of the item. There is only one ham sandwich, and you can only sell it to one interested party, before you as the salesperson no longer have the sandwich and have to prepare anothher. Each incidence of an item sold increases the COGS numbers in a pretty linear fashion; for software, what expense there is comes in the form of labor. Gold code can be reproduced and distributed for far under the ham-sandwich-type model.
And furthermore, bullshit to grandparent's "you wouldn't take free stuff". Ever been to a college campus or a radio station remote broadcast? People will do freaking anything to get a free t-shirt or a can of Coke.