Management 'Scared' by Open Source

A discussion panel at EclipseCon exposed how managers are freaking out over open source. Apparently a disconnect exists between managers who set corporate open source policies and developers supposed to follow them, but who end up covering their tracks to make it seem like they are not using open source. Developers, though, end up using open source because of its ubiquity and not using it 'puts them at a competitive disadvantage because their competitors are.' And the Lawyers are in a panic.

Comments

The main reason is lack of clear knowledge

[freedom_india]

1) Managers are under the mistaken impression that if i just use spring or Jakarta Commons, the company MUST open up the whole project in which it is used (like a proprietrary trading system) to Open Source.
Many managers don't realize that just "using" Spring does NOT force you to open up your systems.
You only need to open up if and when you modify Spring framework with your own code.

2) Open source hacks is another fear they have: the fear that somehow using open source tools will make their client sue them.

3) Leak Back: Managers fear developers, in their zeal to promote open source, will incorporate company's code into open source for 'benefitting' others. Much like SCO claimed. Developers are not fools.

It requires a maturity level beyond that exists today and i don't blame them since these managers were brought up an era where you pay good money for good things.

The license issues

[mi]

And the Lawyers are in panic

And for good reason. Just listening to all the talk on whether or not Novell is violating GPL (perhaps by simply partnering with another vendor - Microsoft) should make a lawyer's skin crawl...

If more code was released under BSD-type license, we would've seen wider adoption.

So, GPL was used to wrestle a few vendors into releasing their own code. And what? Who has looked into that code or used it for anything else? And how many other vendors have (foolishly) decided to avoid "open source" and come up with their own (usually inferior) re-inventions of the wheel, because of that?

It is hard enough to use an outside solution because of the NIH syndrome. Restrictive licenses exacerbate the problem...