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Letter to European Commission Warns Against Open Source
An anonymous reader writes "TechWorld is reporting that they have a leaked copy of a letter written to the European Commission detailing the extent of lobby pressure coming from proprietary software groups working against open source software. From the article: 'Lueders sent the letter [PDF] on 10 October to leaders of the Commission's Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, in response to an EC-commissioned study into the role of open source software in the European economy (referred to by Lueders as Free/Libre/Open Source, or FLOSS). In the letter, he criticised the study as biased and warns that its policy recommendations, if carried out, could derail the European software economy.'"
I'm not sure that I agree. OSS has certainly changed the economic landscape...at least for developers...and, by extension, the people that we serve.
Many commercial products (and frameworks) have gone belly up in the face of OSS competition...while others have lost market share...and the future continues to look rough for folks who make their living selling development tools, libraries, and frameworks. It's tough to compete with legions of altruistic neckbeards.
Hey...how many folks here still use JBuilder, Cafe, PowerJ, CodeWarrior or one of the many other Java IDEs that dominated 5 or 6 years ago? I fight an uphill battle to buy IntelliJ for each one of my projects...and Eclipse makes it tougher everyday. My last project is currently undergoing a migration from WebLogic to JBoss...and my current project is just now adopting OSS Jasper Reports...unlike my last project, which paid over 20k for licenses for a reporting framework. Yes, Oracle may serve most large sites, but Postgres, MySQL, and others are most likely affecting their bottom line. We are certainly using them whenever we can.
It's not clear to me how the OSS movement affects the economy. It certainly does, I'm just not sure what the net effect is. It certainly hurts some people while befitting others...but, as a developer, I find it hard to believe that legions of folks giving away their labor helps enhance my bottom line. It may, but it is a very complex equation. That said, I find that writing custom software for enterprises is a heck of a lot safer than working for a software product company...and OSS has a lot to do with that situation in my opinion...and I liked working for product companies.
If there weren't economic benefits, why do you think IBM, Oracle, Sun, Google and even Microsoft (yes, Microsoft!) all have their hands dipped into the OSS marketplace? In particular, IBM is betting the farm on open source.
Indeed, one should remember that Microsoft don't have any moral qualms about exploiting OSS when it suits them. Their first TCP/IP implementation was swiped straight from BSD, something they're not in a hurry to remind anyone. As for Hotmail, unless things have changed, last I heard, the servers run on BSD too because Windows is too unstable. They hardly walk their talk...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Sure.
... for 130 years ...
1500's The Stationers had a publishing monopoly.
corruption and suppression occured
1700's
Start over with a 14+14 year copyright monopoly limit.
1900's
US copyright monopoly limit extended to 14+28 years.
US copyright monopoly limit extended to 28+28 years.
US copyright monopoly limit extended to Life+50/75 years.
US copyright monopoly limit extended to life+70/120 years.
The last time copyrighted material was released into the public domain was 1977. (non-renewed material - 1991)
The next possible time for new material to enter the public domain is 2048.
That is a huge period of information suppression.
"Open Source"/"Creative commons" picks up where the "Public Domain" stopped.
Other things to note:
Source Software is near obsolete in 30 years, but still possibly useful.
Binary Software is obsolete in 10 years.
If the copyright monopoly limits were more aligned with innovation, perhaps Open source/Creative commons would not exist. (And neither would drm).
"IBM is betting the farm on open source."
Changing from Unix to Linux and throwing a few old bones to the OSS crowd isn't "betting the farm". IBM is still very committed to its proprietary software products. For example a few years ago IBM acquired Rational. Immediately afterword they discontinued the popular Visual Test product because it competed with more expensive products IBM owned. They won't sell you a license for it and they won't convert it into an open source project.
IBM's commitment to OSS is very shallow and if OSS disappeared tomorrow IBM would keep right on rolling' like a Hummer running over a dead mouse.
For example, what is Intel (primarily a hardware manufacturer) doing on that list?
Because projects like Arduino show that Open Source can also work on the hardware side of business.
OSS has the potential of transferring the massive wealth from the few MBA types,
back to the coders and grunts on the front lines.
Companies really don't need 265 different applications to get their job done.
A lot of the closed source out there could be written into modules that plug into
a front end, and make it open source and transparent.
That is what terrifies companies like M$, and the others.
OSS has the potential to end their business model.
Piling up billions at a few dozen companies will be replaced , by more workers
and coders which is really what software/hardware support is about.
Ppl that know code, fix code, know hardware, fix hardware, and those
who network it all together.
We don't need Dilbert Pointy Haired Bosses dragging us thru some Office
Space altered reality to know, that is why dilbert and office space are
so funny to those who have lived through the idiocy of non tech ppl running the show.
I'd rather see those Mega-billions back in the hands of the workers and software recipients
vs. the MBA capitalists.
Bloatware like Vista simply is not needed to run a database, a web server, a file server,
a printer server, or photoshop, or Acad.
Lean and efficient does a better job.
Bloated OS's sell more hardware, thus part of Intel's concern...
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
MEETING TO DISCUSS UKUUG INVOLVEMENT IN LOBBYING
All are invited to an informal meeting on
THURSDAY 19 OCTOBER 2006
18:30 - 20:30
Tudor Room, The Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, London WC1B 5BB
The purposes of the meeting are
Speakers will be Leslie Fletcher and Eddie Bleasdale.