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Has Open Source Jumped the Shark?
AlexGr writes to tell us that Jeff Gould has a somewhat jaded look at the commercial push of Open Source and what that may be doing to the overall Open Source movement. "I've been a Linux fan for years, but lately I wonder if the drum beating from the big IT vendors in favor of open source hasn't finally slipped over the edge from sincere enthusiasm to meaningless — or in some cases downright hypocritical — sloganeering. The example that brought this gloomy thought to mind was a recent IBM press release touting a 'new open client solution' as an 'alternative to vendor lock-in'. Wow. Imagine that. An alternative to vendor lock-in."
Lots of companies use Open Source to make a buck in some way, and some of them either mis-represent what is Open, or they don't get it at all. I saw an Oracle representative give a talk on "Free Software from Oracle" in Belfast last year. It turned out that he thought Free Software was software they don't charge for. Fortunately, Richard Stallman was out getting a massage, he gave his own talk an hour later. The audience tore the Oracle guy to shreds and insisted that he say "cost-less" instead of "Free" for the rest of the talk. IMO it was a pretty low moment for Oracle.
But what does this have to do with the Open Source / Free Software community? Not too much. IBM and Oracle would say the same thing about "Data Mining" or "Self Healing" if that was the buzzword that would help them make a buck that day. It's just outsiders misrepresenting themselves. Yes, outsiders. Even if IBM participates in Open Source projects, selling Lotus is an outsider activity. The best thing you can do is point it out, but don't blame it on Open Source.
His sympathy for Red Hat being "exploited" is wildly absurd and shows his failure to understand who made the software in Open Source products. Red Hat did not, for the most part, make the system they are selling. People like me did, and Red Hat did not pay us for it. And if you want to use that software in Debian or CentOS, that's fine with us.
Overall, he doesn't show much of an understanding of how Open Source is paid for and where the innovation comes from.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
So IBM announces that Lotus Notes is portable across OS platforms and the author somehow equates this to Open Source, by some twist in logic I can't even begin to understand.
http://www.mhall119.com
I don't think it's necessarily 'jumped the shark' for to do so, it would have had to do something inherently dangerous or stupid as a grasp for attention (like the writers for the Fonz). Rather, I would point the finger at Commercialization of Open Source instead. You can read everyone's views on that from the conversation from Saturday if that helps.
I think the vendors who (they're not fooling anybody here) are in the end loyal only to their shareholders. If their motives overlap with the community's then suddenly it's an open source project. Problem is, that project cannot fail for it would hurt the company's edge and prospective foothold. As a result, you see hilarious press releases like you cited.
Once again, the community is usually in good standing with good intentions until a member (usually a vendor or large company) mangles something. Blame the mangler, not the group working together. They're the attention whores and their motives are not to promote open source but are really shady/hilarious Machiavellian moves to deepen their pockets.
My work here is dung.
End times?
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
The IBM press release mentioned nothing about open source, other than to mention that open source envrionments (in this case, referring to Linux) worked with the announced offering. (The only other occurances of the word "Open Source" in the article refer to the VP's job title.) It did not claim that the offering was open source. The use of the term "open" (as used here) to refer to products that will run on multiple operating environments is not new, and substantially pre-dates the term "open source".
IBM is simply announcing a client offering that will run more-or-less identically on multiple OS platforms. No, this isn't very big news, but it isn't as bad as the article author made it out to be.
SirWired
Jumping the shark has jumped the shark.
Reality has a liberal bias
Nonetheless, for some of us who are old enough to have done business with IBM in the 1970s and 1980s, having them talk about avoiding "vendor lock-in" is a useful test to see if the old irony detector is still working.
No longer is the common image one of a dirty geek coding away with some beer in their home after work. It's now a corporate sponsored coder in many cases. The populism has been defeated, which is a good thing. Populism usually fails to amount to anything because it expects the world to change for it, rather than for it to compromise with the world.
Take the source and make hippie-love-fest-2.0 thats the point of open-source no?
Is that gonna be like hippie-love-fest-1.0 except with even more user interaction? If so, count me in!
This guy's the limit!
http://www.jumptheshark.com/index.jspa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
I think of a lot of zero-initial-cost proprietary software that way. If you're not going to pay for it, you'll pay for the limited set of stuff that it's compatible with. It's interesting how many corporations are addicts, and how their management isn't faulted for that.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
'Keeping companies honest, to use Linus's phrase, is probably akin to herding cats but unless all OSS projects everywhere are ready to "just say no" to any and all help, financial or otherwise, from all corporations I don't see how the community at large, or even just one project, can afford to refuse help from big business.'
Exactly. It isn't the job of open source, free software, or the community to keep companies honest. It's the job of the community to maintain the integrity of the community. Hitler could fund development for all I care, I'd still take it. As long as corporations aren't buying out independent free software developers then I don't see a problem.
I am actually more concerned about prominent free software developers being given jobs by corporations. Of course these people need to eat and I am all for them making a living and being able to work on free software full time. What concerns me is that in such a situation the corporation has bought the right to 'lobby' those developers as much as they please, if not dictate what they work on outright. This has resulted in a more pro-business stance and sympathy for the concerns of these entities, many times at the expense of individuals, users, and the community at large.
Linus himself is probably the most clear cut example of this. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not intending to put down Linus in any fashion, he has done and continues to do a great deal for the community. That said, since entering the corporate workplace Linus has become very sympathetic to commercial entities and their concerns.
Jumping the shark is a metaphor that was originally used to denote the tipping point at which a TV series is deemed by a viewer to have passed its peak, or has introduced plot twists that are illogical in terms of everything that has preceded them. Once a show has "jumped the shark," the viewer senses a noticeable decline in quality or feels the show has undergone too many changes to retain its original charm. The term has also evolved to describe other areas of pop culture, including movie series, music, acting celebrities, or authors for whom a drastic change was seen as the beginning of the end. These changes are often attempts to attract their fans' waning attention with over-the-top statements or increasingly overt appeals to sex or violence. Some have broadened its use to simply describe any decline in appeal for the subject in question, without requiring a significant "jump the shark" moment.
More specificly it refers to an episode from the latter years of Happy Days, (if you don't remember the show or it's cultural impact when it was running, don't bother reading further). At the end of the episode Fonzie, in his customary leather jacket 'bad boy' attire, dons a pair of water skis and literally performs a jump over a shark. This is seen by many (especially after the term was coined) as the definitive point when the show went from entertaining to just crud.
Open source is just barely starting to mature. That commercial influences are in the mix is a happy thing. Coders will continue to do what they love, and for all of the reasons that have made OSS and collaborative development a good thing.
Any coder-- any human for that matter-- can get burned out. Self-rejuvenation is a good thing and isn't limited to programming, development, and engineering. All of his diatribe points to frustration and stress. The basics haven't changed, but they have matured. Along the way, we get to shape this. He's seemingly feeling powerless against the Big Boys. That's natural, and the basics of doing code because you love it and want to contribute haven't changed. ANYBODY gets to use the code, subject to licensing-- little guys like me, and big guns like IBM and so on.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Well for the preachers of the virtues of open source, yes. It has jumped the shark in a sense but also no it has not because every now aand then a new group of apps come along that make even us jump up and pay attention again.
And keep in mind (and I know I'm about to get flaming causes I can feel the heat), we are still a minority when it comes to people outside of IT. Those people still have never even heard of open source, have no idea what it is or what ir means and don't even know that they are already using it and what the benefits are.
However, due to the fact that even politicians in several states now are calling for open voting machines, open document formats and other open processes and formats, it seems that they are beginning to get it and for them, it hasn't even begun to jump the shark. In their world, Fonzy just got his first leather jacket.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Bruce,
With all due respect, it seems to me that all software costs. Your distinction about initial costs would directly apply to F/OSS too.
I used to work for a company where vendors were excited to say "used by company XYZ" or they wanted us to assess whether the product was worthwhile for enterprise deployment. Even assessing the compatibility of those tools costs something - our time ain't free, even if the vendor asks for no money!
You also mention "the limited set of stuff that it's compatible with" My experience with F/OSS as a whole is that it tends to be compatible only with the one use case that represents the itch the author needed to scratch. Of course, it is possible to take the source and scratch my own itch - if I want to invest the labor to customize a hack to solve my problem, but many times it's less time and hassle to pay for the packaged work.
There was a time when I thought "who would pay for a TV show on iTunes?" I found myself in the middle of a "part one of two" episode, and didn't see part two on the program guide in the near future. I started to think about illegitimate P2P downloads, and then realized that for a mere $2 I could save myself the time and hassle of downloading for "free" (copyright violations aside.) My time and my integrity were well worth $2, and that's been my experience with software, too. Many times the "fit and finish" of commercial code is worth much more than the actual dollar cost to me.
All software costs. Sometimes F/OSS costs more, sometimes less. Sometimes commercial software is a better deal than F/OSS. There's room in the ecosystem for lots of business models.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I used to be a pretty heavy user of GNU/Linux. But then I kept seeing more and more crap like this. On one hand, we have people on mailing lists, newsgroups or other forums who'd go on and on about how the GPL "maximizes freedom". Of course, they fail to realize all of the restrictions that the GPL imposes. They say that the restrictions are there to guarantee freedom. At first I believed them. But then I realized that they're just full of shit.
So now I tend to use BSD-licensed software wherever possible. Yeah, somebody might create a closed-source product based on some BSD-licensed source code. Good for them! They have the freedom to do that. And I still have the freedom to use the pre-forked code. So we're all better off.
A vendor offers their commercial products for an open source platform! Outrageous!
What do you expect IBM to bundle with their open client? An Outlook Express?
I am not sure about the blogger, but I actually used (and still do time to time) the Open Client. It's not a perfect product, but it is definitely a big step towards an adoption of Linux as an OS platform in a corporate environment. Unfortunately in a corporate world it takes a bit more than a latest Ubuntu release to switch to a different platform.
Open Client does include a "native" Lotus Notes client, so if this is an environment of choice at your company, it might be a huge reason to look at the alternative to a Windows desktop.
With certain exceptions, Open Client does provide a working environment, in which I can do most of my job functions (and I am a developer). Yes, it's not as slick as Feisty Fawn, but good luck trying to make your corporate e-mail, IM and VPN work on your own!
The point of Free Software (and to a lesser extent Open Source) is to achieve source code compatability. Binary compatability is a "nice to have" but it is not essential to allow any user to benefit from the software.
That's not to say that you may save money in the long term by having a provider package your software for you and charge you a fee for doing so - but that's not the point of Free Software.
All software costs. Sometimes F/OSS costs more, sometimes less. Sometimes commercial software is a better deal than F/OSS. There's room in the ecosystem for lots of business models.F/OSS costs you NOTHING to acquire. Whatever happens after that, you still have the software, the opportunity to compile it, change it and distribute it further. If your time is money, then the time spent compiling the software is a cost "to you". If I compile software in the evening at home, there is no financial cost to me.
Microsoft and other commercial vendors love to beat the ROI drum, because they can't win against FOSS on the acquirement cost basis. Funnily enough, only a minority of companies use the ROI metric for their future planning (I think the last figure I saw floating around CIO-type magazines was 31%); the reason is simple enough - most companies are concentrating on solving problems and improving productivity. If existing FOSS solutions fit a companies needs, they will use it. And yes - they may well pay Redhat or Canonical to service those FOSS solutions.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Boy, I better think twice before asking people to open the door. Somebody might think I'm asking them to break it into pieces and distribute it to the neighbors.
La-dee-da, randomly reading Slashdot stories, BOOM, Bruce freaking Perens gets FP. Only on Slashdot.
I think the real question the article was asking was "Has the Linux-in-business buzz jumped the shark?" I think the answer is unequivocally yes, not because Linux is overrated, but because it is so widely deployed and such a fact of life in business now that trying to sell yourself as "OMG WE DO OSS SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS TO MAXIMIFY YOUR CAPITALIZATION POTENTIALIFACTION" is just redundant and useless. Great, you sell Linux solutions. So does everybody else.
+++ATH0
Um... in spite of Richard Stallman's rather pathetic attempt to redefine the English language, that is what the term "free software" actually means. You cannot legitimately criticize the Oracle representative for using the English language correctly.
It's always amuses to read posts from people who bandy about terms carelessly while invoking the phrase "the English language".
Allow me to put on my pedant hat for a moment. If you're looking to understand a word, you'll have to go a bit farther than picking up a random dictionary and start quoting from it. You'll have first to learn or at least be aware of its etymology before weighing traditional usage against more recent usage against a possibly more specialised usage. Then, of course, you'll have to consider its connotations. If you've done all that, you're now ready to consider the context in which it was said or written, and if you're honest with yourself (and others), the context in which you're willing to interpret it.
Sounds complicated? Life generally is.
Pop quiz. Which of the following suggests or implies that the word "free" means "without price".
a) Free at last.
b) She's free.
c) My dog was free.
d) Free download.
e) I'm free today.
f) Free to use freely.
g) None of the above.
h) All of the above.
If you picked (h), you'd be right. And wrong. That's true even if you parsed the word "price" correctly. Put another way, I know what I mean. Do you?
Richard Stallman understands that the choice of words often defines the terms of a discussion. Irrespective of your feelings towards things of a political nature, his actions are perfectly justified. And "correct".
It's always been a sort of vague mass of largely compatible concepts. Some people like getting free software. Some people want to have the freedom to modify it. Some see it as an ideal. Some see it as a business opportunity. Some just have an idelogical opposition to entrenched monopolies. It doesn't really matter.
free software has never been opposed to commercial software, and neither has the related concept of Open source. The FSF just wants to ensure people are freeish. They like commercial involvement because it validates the concept.
Given the contributions that IBM has made to Linux and other open source projects and the fine work that IBM and its lawyers are currently doing to reduce SCO to a small pile of quivering ectoplasm, I hardly think that IBM needs to be held up as an example of a corporation that lacks serious commitment to open source software.