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Management 'Scared' by Open Source

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the following-with-a-firm-push dept.

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.

5 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. The main reason is lack of clear knowledge by freedom_india · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
  2. Heard that by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When big enough companies use [or acquire companies that use] my software, I usually get a call from a manager or legal dept. Turns out big companies are not only scared of OSS but also public domain software. The idea that I give out something for anyone to use without license seems to scare them.

    It's like a fiver you leave on a bus for anyone to have, people are always skeptical if they can in fact take it.

    On the plus side, it's fun explaining the public domain to folk :-)

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    1. Re:Heard that by DRichardHipp · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've actually *sold* a few of licenses to the public domain SQLite library. Companies call me up and say they want to license the product. I carefully explain that no license is necessary and that they can use it forever for free for anything they want. But they still want a license. So I sell them one. So far, I've sold them cheap. Maybe I should charge more....

      This appears to be more of an issue in Europe where, apparently, the concept of "public domain" is less well defined than in the US.

  3. Strange conceptions indeed by thsths · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had a problem with the BSD three clause license once. If you every read commercial software documentation, there is usually a section full of advertising clauses for contributed software. But no, management deemed this not acceptable. Of course there was no time either to remove the BSD code, so we just left it there.

    On the other hand the leaking of GPL code is a reasonable concern. It happens all to often with common software such as MySQL. And you here statements such as "but if we use Perl, we are not linking against the MySQL code", which are dubious at best. Or "if the customer downloads the library himself, we are not responsible".

    Of course banning open source is not the solution. Actually most commercial software packages have some content of open source code (Windows has the BSD network stack, Matlab has BLAS, Adobe uses the JPEG library...). And even if you ban all open source software, you can still violate the license of a commercial package :-). The only solution is to be careful with what you ship, period.

  4. disempowerment by ex-geek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I believe that another important fear is that of disempowerment. Open source is usually free of charge, which means that their budgets and thus their importance decreases. Also, there is no need for developers and IT staff to go to their superiors to ask and beg in the first place. They can just download, evaluate and use free software right away.

    Free software is also not advertised unlike commercial products, which means that managers can't even communciate, what is going on, to their kin.

    Compare: "I recently negotiated a licencing deal with <known software company> for <known software product>, which i deemed to be the best solution because of <list of buzzwords>"
    To: "Well, my IT guys implemented a working system on their own, using some software I can't pronounce and really don't understand."