Slashdot Mirror
Think Tank Report On the State of Open Source
AlexGr writes to recommend an account of a meeting a couple of months back of representatives from more than 100 software companies discussing the state of open source software. The outcome is outlined in a 16-page report, 2007 Open Source Think Tank: The Future of Commercial Open Source (PDF). Among the surprising conclusions: participants noted a growing similarity in methods between open source and proprietary software development. They predicted some kind of convergence, where the best of both approaches gets adopted in each camp.
For instance, at last year's Open Source Think Tank meeting, participants were expecting open-source software to achieve greater predominance. However, licensing and support issues have slowed the adoption of open-source solutions at the enterprise level.
Licensing and Support issues with 'Closed Source' software is precisely what drove enterprises to Open Source! Enterprise care a hoot about GPL v2 and GPL v3 wars.. they aren't interested in redistribution.. just that the Damn Thing Works (TM) !
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Who declared these people a "think tank"? Most of the people on slashdot think about Open Source/Free Software sometimes. Bill Gates does as well. Is HE an "Open Source Think Tank"?
Am I the only one that thinks "Think Tanks" are payed shills and can never be trusted with _any_ report they produce?
"(...)
Microsoft was represented by Sam Ramji, Director of Open Source Technical Strategy, while Novell was represented by Justin Steinman, Director of Marketing Linux and Open Platforms.(...)
(...)
From Microsoft's perspective, the deal it struck with Novell was driven mainly by customer demand. Sam described how its Interoperability Executive Council, which includes 30 top CIOs demanded interoperability between Windows and Linux, as both must coexist in the enterprise and neither will completely displace the other."(...)
(...)
From Novell's perspective, its motivation for the deal was primarily the need to differentiate itself in a meaningful way to gain share versus Red Hat. As number two in the market, Novell recognized that it simply could not gain significant share without a "game-changing" event. (...)"
Tanks are meat shields. They are to absorb the damage and keep the agression of monsters away from the "softer" damage dealers and healers.
Until they can get their basic tactics right, they might as well ask what Leeroy Jenkins thinks about Open Source!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
How about meeting the needs of users? Any vendor is free to adopt any licence they want, it's up to the market, i.e. the buyers, to decide if that licence is acceptable or not.
All in all, the whole article seems like an intent to spread FUD against the GPL.
This year's "platinum sponsors" were Microsoft and Novell.
. pdf
Source: http://thinktank.olliancegroup.com/ostt2007report
Nuff said.
2. IM is the preferred method of communication (with friends) for those under 25 by a wide margin and email is the preferred communication method for those over 25 by a significant percentage. This represents a major generation gap in communication modes.
3. User generated content is vastly increasing in both supply and demand, driven by such popular online properties as MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube, blogs
o Written content: 55M blogs today, up 800% in past year
o Visual content: homemade videos, mashups
4. Traditional media is losing authority with the younger generation, who are increasingly turning to "open" media for advice about music, products and services.
5. Companies are following these trends
o Adopting corporate blogs, especially by CEOs
o "Always-connected" management
o Rise of SaaS
o Virtualization of workforce
o Outsourcing
o Mobility solutions
How is this all related to Open source and its effects? I don't seem to get the point here.Is it just me or ridiculously off agenda?
What a waste of time ?... my time offcourse :-)
-- "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - TAE --
This is really a quick highlight pen read for people who haven't being paying attention to the issues and can't be bothered with in-depth reading, i.e. Dilbert's boss and his colleagues. If subtract the introductory material, it's really about an 8-page report. And nothing insightful is presented, it's just a skim over some of the news surrounding open source over the past 3-4 years.
It should have been subtitled "The PHB summary".
The document also says this -
,pansies. Linux kernel is an example which is designed better than any of your closed source binary blobs called as Vista and what not.
Universities are increasingly graduating developers that are familiar with open source technologies and
development methodologies. However a concern was expressed that due to the popularity of open
source development at universities, graduates may be lacking key skills such as sound architecture,
defining customer needs and product management.
What the...?Business and tactical way of saying open source development methodologies are inferior to closed source ones.Balls to you
Being an year old University grad myself, i think they need to study in universities once again or better reconsider this insipid argument.
-- "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - TAE --
I for one will be happy when proprietary software creators "converge" on the idea that they should release all of their programs under the GPL or another sufficiently Free software license, with all that that entails. "Open Source" is dead. Long live Free Software.
I didn't notice any of the linux writers themselves contributing to this paper. Hmmmmmm...
The purpose of existence is to make money.
The concern corporations have over licensing of open source has very much to do with licensing and support.
1) They do not want to be compelled to release their own software, and GPL does not make clear what constitutes distribution. They send their internally-developed software to company divisions all over the world, which may or may not be sold in the future, and to vendors and suppliers. Sometimes they make licensing agreements with third-parties to support or even take over internally-developed applications. Does that constitute distribution?
So, they play it safe and forbid the use of GPL code for development.
2) Who do you call for support?
That "convergence" is probably in the past. Similar problems, etc.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
It isn't rare for an Open Source project to be entirely developed behind closed doors before its first appearance on the 'market'. This approach is typical of larger companies, like RH and IBM (which can afford an extensive internal testing roadmap) and doesn't at all imply that the software is closed source in itself.
Once finished such software is released under an open license after which point it is continued to be developed in collaboration with the community; particularly in areas relating to bug-squashing and building interoperability with applications not considered important at the time it went to market.
Is the development of such software then considered 'open' or 'closed'? I think it's hard to generalise.
I read the report, and I believe the word think tank is misleading. It was a just seminar or workshop, where people in the industry exchanged experiences for their mutual inspiration and benefit.
A think tank is more of a permanent or at least longer term organization, where similar minded people tries to build a rational justification for their already existing viewpoints.
Both are actually quite useful. The seminars / workshops are a fine place to learn from others mistakes, so you can make your own new and exciting mistakes instead of merely repeating the old and boring mistakes made by others.
The think thanks are just about the only thing today that even attempts to raise political discourse above the level of sound bites. I'm very glad they exists, even those think thanks that support the opposing side.
"How many enterprise customers do you think actually read those things?"
Bingo. They read the pitches from the vendors, which contain gigabytes of FUD saying e.g. there's no company "standing behind" open source software (which, of course, is false). The pitches do not mention that their own EULA disclaims every liability it possibly can.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I'm just a beginner, but you don't need the "safety word" in cases of self-flagellation. You just stop.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Report finds that when compared to proprietary software, Free and Open Source fails to meet proprietary benchmarks. Main stumbling blocks are licenses which don't allow proprietary software to be adequately protected from an "IP" standpoint. Unnamed, vague, uncertain risks involved in the adoption of said software licenses, some of which are said to explode on contact with light. Customers complain of support centers telling them to perform operations utilising the R, T, F & M, keys. Report's main sponsor says, "stick with us, we've got the future mapped out. Our licenses are so good you don't even have to read them."
"The 2 Open Source Think Tank was held on March 8-10, 2007, at the Silverado Resort in Napa,
California"
Heh. Sounds like it was prolly *lots of really hard work.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
nosdkfjnalk j ashbfkjhv w ehb gw hk
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Although their software tends to suck, Microsoft at least offers very good documentation. Such documentation is essential for enterprise-class users. Unfortunately, most open source projects do not have anywhere near sufficient documentation.
Even worse, some projects (I'm looking at you, Mozilla) have documentation available online that is just plain wrong. An example of this is the documentation concerning the embedding of their Gecko rendering engine in other applications. There are several different online documents available. Some haven't been updated since 2002, and are basically irrelevant today, yet no note of this is made. So developers must sift through the online documentation, trying to find what's still relevant, what's blatantly incorrect today, and so forth.
Sure, they have some embedding examples. But they're barely commented! We don't need pages and pages of comments. But two or three sentences describing some important points would go along way towards making things easier for developers. The Mozilla codebase and API has a long history, and consistency is something it often lacks. So we do need such hints and notes to truly understand the codebase.
I seriously think we should create a "Godwin's Law" when referring to anything related to Free Software, Open Source Software or Linux. As nearly every article relating to the subject on Slashdot ends up having some sort of discussion about the MS/Novell deal.
Yes, Novell should not have signed the deal when it included "Patent Protection". Yes, Microsoft is a huge company that destroys all competition by any means necessary. Yes, the community is pissed about it.
Let's get over it already!
'Sam described how its Interoperability Executive Council, which includes 30 top CIOs demanded interoperability between Windows and Linux'
.. was necessary as Novell required sanctioned access to Microsoft's code in order to develop open source interoperability without violating MSFT's IP'
Then instead of a closed two company deal, why not open up the protocols to everyone, unemcumbered by patent and rand restrictions.
'Sam defended Microsoft from the accusation that its deal with Novell will lead to Microsoft suing other Linux distributors for patent infringement. Sam described Microsoft's patent portfolio as primarily defensive'
Depends on which end of the portfolio you are staring at, as Kissinger once said when asked to define the difference between an offensive and defensive weapon.
'Sam emphasized that Microsoft has robust patent licensing programs, and would much rather license its patents than sue'
Well, yea fat Tony would also much rather do a deal than have to pay somebody to break somebodys legs.
'From Novell's perspective, its motivation for the deal was primarily the need to differentiate itself in a meaningful way to gain share versus Red Hat. As number two in the market, Novell recognized that it simply could not gain significant share without a "game-changing" event''
It sure is a "game-changing" event but not in the way you imagined. A big part of the reason people choose Open Source is to not be locked into any one vendor. These utterances seem to imply that NovoSOFT Linux is somehow more legitimate than others, Red hats for instance. Imply being too kind a word, more like insinuate.
'The cross-licensing agreement
Is there a lawyer in the house for I do not follow the logic. MS gives you access to the source code in order to promote interoperability. A reasonable request would be for your developers to sign a NDA. How by any logic do you have to sign away your companys IP rights to MS in order to view source code. Does the agreement mean that if I use a non-MS licensed version of SuSE that I , by default, acknowledge MSs IP claims against Linux.
'Novell consulted numerous open source leaders before signing the deal, including leaders of Mono, Gnome, Samba, and Linux. He said that these leaders had significant opportunity to provide useful and meaningful feedback on the deal to Novell and few chose to do so''
We heard not a whisper of this deal until the deal was signed. And we here on slashdot make it our business to know what's happening in techland. What were the names of these Open Source leaders, what did you tell them, who did respond, what was their response and who exactly didn't respond ?????
davecb5620@gmail.com
Platinum sponsors: Microsoft, Novell
.. negotiate license terms (such as indemnification) .. adequate internal compliance policies and procedures to manage risks .. GPL'
..
,in an address from the Vatican, that Devil worship is not viewed as positive or negative but Religions must focus on solutions that deliver believers needs.
.. :)
. pdf
What the f**k is Microsoft doing on an Open Source conference. Oh, I forgot, Novell gave them a complimentary pass in exchange for some paper.
[ indemnification FUD ]
'While customers
One of the 'sponsers' of this report having spent years and a whole heap of money on promoting IP and patent FUD now gets to contribute to a report on the indemnification dangers of the GPL, how f*****g ironic.
[ Lack of support FUD ]
'The lack of commercially available support for some open source solutions continues to be a big barrier to adoption'
[ not compatible FUD]
''Another significant barrier to adoption by customers is integration and interoperability'
[ Open source standards not standard FUD ]
''Open source lacks compliance with many standards when compared with proprietary solutions'
[ Open source is only ever used to bargan down proprietary vendors ]
'canny CIOs are using open source's reduced acquisition costs as leverage in negotiations with proprietary vendors'
[ Open Source vendors lack the personal touch FUD ] ( a new one on me ? )
''The CIOs agreed that some level of personal touch by commercial open source vendors is needed'
[ Open Source has no known positive attributes ] ( another new one on me ? )
'The fact that a product is open source is not viewed as positive or negative'
Conclusion: If Open Source has no added value as compared to proprietary code then we might as well stick with the lawyer proofed fully supported touchie feely version
In related news, the Pope said today
Money well 'sponcered' on this 'report' methtinks
http://thinktank.olliancegroup.com/ostt2007report
davecb5620@gmail.com
So the 16-page report covering the open source think tank is a .PDF document?
Anybody?
From the Report:
"Confusion over OSS license terms is a major issue, as ISVs and customers of open source do not fully understand license obligations."
"The sheer number of OSI-approved licenses was not a major concern to most participants."
"Incompatibility of licenses--specifically that software distributed under the GPL often cannot be used with
software distributed under MPL, Eclipse or Apache licenses--was a serious concern for everyone."
"Think Tank participants bemoaned the lack of a business-friendly license that adequately addresses issues such as copyright, patents, attribution and indemnification."
"These licensing issues have led to higher-than-expected legal costs for opensource vendors vs. proprietary vendors of comparable size."
"GPLv3(Draft2)was a subject of much concern at the Think Tank....Fears included the potential for a fork in Linux...The anti-DRM provision was universally disliked,as it was viewed as social policy masquerading as a software license. Overall,
participants generally felt that businesses would manage to reduce their exposure to GPLv3, mainly through policies restricting the procurement or use of GPLv3 software. This could have serious repercussions on the future of opensource if many open source projects are license their software under GPLv3, forcing customers to make hard decisions on whether or not they should continue using GPL software, including Linux."
You put in what, where, when and how you want to.
Its really amazing how it was once laughed at and now all these articles trying to constrain what open source is.
Its like the single god and being saved thing goes... My god not yours....
But the hard reality, if there is a god, hes/shes not any one and all of them at the same time.
Want to add another facet to the open source jewel? Have at it, do it your way, I'll do it my way and everyone else will do it whatever way they so chose.
The fact that it comes together at all is a result of someone else taking it all and doing it their way...
Think tank 0f 100 companies???? I could have sworn there are more open source dev that what are at these companies...
The mistake these people are making is that they are still thinking in terms of "vendors" and "customers". The point of open source software is that the users are the developers.
As soon as you have vendors in the mix, companies that expect to make money from the software, you have conflicting interests: vendors want to make money, and that money has to come out of the pockets of users. It doesn't matter whether the software is nominally open source, these companies are going to find a way to get at the money somehow.
Often, a "hybrid (open source/commercial) model" translates into simply "we're going to let people do a lot of development and bug fixing for us for free, and then we're going to sell the stuff commercially.
A simple rule of thumb is: don't use software under a "hybrid" or "dual license" model; somehow, you are going to be paying for it sooner or later.
is that there usually is not much thinking involved.
Why, yes! I AM new here.
If the community is pissed about it, why should we get over it already? On the contrary, there has not been enough outrage about it--not until Novell backs out of the patent agreement.
"Open source lacks compliance with many standards when compared with proprietary solutions"
I admit I didn't read the report all that carefully, but this particular observation made my jaw drop. How can anyone argue that open-sourced programs lack compliance with standards when many of the most significant programs were written precisely to conform to well-established standards. Doesn't sendmail comply with RFC2822? Doesn't ISC bind comply with the various DNS standards? Don't MySQL and PostgreSQL comply with SQL standards? Some of these programs (e.g, the DBMSs) might have additional non-compliant extensions, but really how can anyone say that a program like Firefox is less compliant with what passes for the standards on the web than Internet Explorer?
Or are we talking here about "standards" like NTFS or, perhaps worse, "standards" like .doc or .xls?
My prediction is that in twenty years these types of arguments will have faded away as an entire new generation of IT people brought up on open source will be filling these suits rather than the guys around this table. Oh, and I'm at least as old as most of them if not older, but I haven't been put through the corporate mill like these folks, thank the gods, or I'd be writing stupid things like this myself.
On a somewhat-related note, did any of you see the list of the supposedly "most important open-source products of all time" at eWeek? How this list could have excluded X, sendmail, bind, or kerberos is beyond me. Firefox is nice and all, but how much of an Internet would we have had without name services or mail exchange? Heck, even Microsoft decided to adapt Kerberos when it created Active Directory.
Instead of asking 100 company representatives, maybe they would have been better of asking 100 users.
Its unfortunate that people care so little about liberty, they just come for the beer....
Indeed! Just today, I read a story about using GCC (the Gnu C compiler/GNU Compiler Collection) that is used heavily in Linux. It can also be used to create programs on windows systems, and has always done so quite well, however, under Vista, it can only allocate a maximum of 32 megabytes of memory.
The story is here (just googled it).
http://www.trnicely.net/misc/vista.html
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
'If you read the report "that carefully" you would have noted that it says that open source usually *excels* regarding *technical* standards like, humm... RFC2822, SQL, IPv4 and the like, while it isn't so strong on industry procedure standards like, humm... ISO900x'
.. eg. 'its not about Open Source but open standards' and 'open standards aren't about technical specifications but industry procedure'.
Was this HMO medical system ISO900x compliant. Doesn't seem to have made a difference to the quality of the product. What indemnification did the patents who died receive, because of receiving the wrong medication.
If a computing system conforms to an RFC then it is by default standard. All other such phraseology is trying to do is confuse the concept in the minds of the CEOs reading such reports. Could have been dictated straight from billg himself
And to further confuse the issue, open standards don't mean compliant to a technical specification but some bureaucratic compliance specification. Which usually amounts to filling out a bunch of forms and paying over a big fee. In my opinion the whole IP litigation and compliance issue is designed purely to drive up the cost of software. After all once you've factored in the compliance fees and bogus TCO studies, it sounds as if it costs almost as much as the proprietary stuff. What's curious is that the 'Open Source Think Tank' is spouting similar stuff to the MS fast FUD site.
--
ME: hey PHB I just completed this beautiful piece of software, wanna see what is can do?
PHB: Sorry, no can do, first we have to run it by the lawyers to make sure it's ISO9000 compliant.
was Re:Open source lacks standards compliance?
davecb5620@gmail.com