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Open Source Forcing Shift in Software Buying

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the open-source-good-for-the-digestion-also dept.

LISNews writes "Network World Has An Interesting article on recent buyouts and how they might change the open source landscape. They say moves by Oracle and IBM means corporate buyers should think carefully about future projects before making deployment decisions. It remains to be seen how these acquiring vendors will treat their new open source assets. Users are watching with caution. As more open source companies get gobbled up they say that the open source community likely would develop alternatives to fill the gap."

4 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Money where mouth is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Moves by Oracle and others force the people to put there money where there mouth is on this popular Open Source Mantra.

    Mantra: "Plus if something happens to project xyz, you always have the code so you can keep going"

    True, but how many are prepared to actually do it?

  2. Re:Sure, they can fill in the gaps by geminidomino · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think the implication is that the little guys will keep making OSS companies in hopes of being bought out by the big guys, making a killing, and retiring to a tropical island at 30-something.

  3. Sir Fred Hoyle's Last Laugh by jd · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Fred Hoyle, who rejected the Bing Bang theory and developed the rival "Continuous Creation" model, in which the Universe expanded and matter was continuously condensing and filling in the gaps, would have loved the current Open Source model.


    If you liken Open Source to the raw, new matter being formed, and the corporate sector as being the older, "stable" matter, the current buying up of Open Source, and the community re-filling those gaps with yet more raw stuff, really does fit his model very well. Far better than the physical Universe did!


    Adapting Sir Hoyle's model to the software world, it should be possible to make predictions on how well such a system can thrive, what adjustments would be required to keep it functional and keep the creation of new software going, and what the long-term consequences of such an environment would be. If the model is blatantly unstable, we would benefit from knowing that NOW, so we can deal with the commercial sector before it becomes a problem.


    On the other hand, if the model is actually very stable and prone to accelerating, we should expect to see the corporate interest fuelling an ever-growing true F/L/OSS community, which would be no bad thing.


    Instead of waxing philosophical about the whole deal, it is possible to apply abstract models that depict precisely these sorts of situations, so we can see what the longer-term results would be. Once we know what we're facing, THEN we can wax philosophical all we like, as we'll have something more solid to talk about.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  4. Open Source will eat itself by oncebitten · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I really wanted to use mod points for this discussion, but I decided to give my $.02 here.

    Building software is no longer a sustainable business model. With outsourcing to the third world, and open source, there's no margin anymore. The only exception is for the big boys, who eat the little ones and become monopolistic (see Oracle, Microsoft). Or, the companies who become service companies primarily (RedHat, IBM, etc) and fund OSS.

    All the advocates of the free market here on /. haven't realized the essential truth, the free market will eventually cause these monopolies due to what I've outlined in the paragraph above.

    The same thing happened in the telecom sector (deregulation followed by consolidation) because of the invisible hand of the free market. Why is everyone surprised that the same is happening in software?