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A Cynic Rips Open Source
AlexGr writes to tell us that Howard Anderson chaired an interesting meeting the other day with senior executives from Cisco, Agilent Technologies and Novell. The discussion took a look at whether or not enterprise users really want open source. "Naturally, I disagreed -- partially because I am a naturally disagreeable person. Any idiot can make friends -- but can you make some really serious enemies? I disagreed, however, because allegiance to open source depends on who you are. Let me give you an example. If you are No. 1 or No. 2 in your industry, you hate open source. You make your money by selling proprietary solutions: Microsoft and Cisco. If you are No. 3 to No. 10, you look at open source as a way to get back to those serious RSEUs, because they are where you make money."
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From TFA:
Open source is not a movement; it's a religion. It is a set of principles and practices that let everyone share nonexistent or semi-existent intellectual property.
Nonexistent intellectual property? Semi-existent intellectual property? WTF?
Any article about whether enterprise users really want to use Open Source software that starts of like this isn't worth reading any further. The guy isn't a cynic. He's someone with an axe to grind.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Enterprise (end) users don't care one way or the other about open source. All they want is something that is:
1) Reliable
2) Doesn't (ever?) change its user interface (in part, because they "develop" screenshot-based training materials too)
3) Etc.
It's only the enterprise I.T. technicians ("administrators") that care one way or the other, and then (in most cases because they're spending other people's money) because budget, deployment or licensing disputes are making their job more challenging that they feel it should be.
Is it just me, or is this guy throwing the baby out with the bathwater? While it's understandable that some of the fanaticism and philosophies associated with the OSS movement might turn him off, that shouldn't stand in the way of the fact that there is quite a bit of great OSS software*. Perhaps tellingly, much of that great software has no ties back to the GNU philosophies. Mozilla, Apache, BSD, etc. have become the underpinnings of the market without directly supporting Stallman's vision. Even Linus takes a cool approach to his ties with the GNU, speaking against decisions when he disagrees.
:P
The truth is that if this guy is as cynical as he's making himself out to be, then he's guilty of the very fanaticism that he's accusing the OSS community of. Because no OSS means no Firefox, no OpenOffice, no Apache, no PHP, etc. If he's really extreme about it, then he can forget about buying products from big names like Apple, Cisco, or Novell. Even Microsoft would be on his list for having dabbled in OSS!
Will he really cut his nose off to spite his face, or will this cynic turn hypocrite?
* Doubled up just to annoy the grammar nazis!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Since time immemorial the Yankee Group has made its money pretending to be smarter than everyone else in the room. They literally make up shit out of whole cloth in order to be the only guys with this 'new' idea whatever it is. The fact is that Yankee group gets paid by the largest customers and the largest vendors. Are they unbiased? Sort of, not really. They know full well who their own customers are. If not for the myth of self anointed 'expertise' not only would there be no closed source, there would be no market analysis consulting firms like Yankee.
To their credit though they're at least not a PR arm of Microsoft like Gartner.
Open Source software can allow some enterprises, even at the top of their industry, to focus on their core business. Take for example IBM (or SGI, or Sun). IBM is primarily a hardware manufacturer. Thus they NEED an operating system, but having to devote a lot of ressources to maintaining it is not the better way to go. It is better for them to devote SOME ressources to help make Linux better, and more importantly to make it usable for THEM. Less effort wasted on something which is not their core buisiness for the same results, and a good conscience as a bonus.
This article is chock full of misconceptions. Cisco hates open source. (Wrong, just look at http://www.openfabrics.org/. They have developers contributing to linux kernel full time.) Open Source is a religion. BS. Open Source is a way of developing software. Open Source developers do it for a nightime hobby. Wrong again. Most linux developers I know do it for their day job.
Thanks for posting a very poor article.
Time to once again introduce the old comparison with the auto industry. Every auto manufacturer automatically makes and sells full shop manuals for their vehicles. They accept this, and understand that if they didn't, they wouldn't sell many vehicles. Few customers would want to buy a car that can't be repaired by anyone but the manufacturer. Granted, they might not want a shop manual themselves, but they expect that their friendly local independent mechanic would be able to get one.
So why would computer customers be stupid enough to buy computer systems whose inner workings are hidden and inaccessible to anyone not working for the manufacturer? This doesn't make any sense, and we should expect that eventually users will wise up, as they long ago did with vehicles.
It's especially baffling that people are purchasing software that is so full of "exploits", and when a new bit of malware appears, users have to wait for the software's manufacturer to come out with a patch. You wouldn't tolerate this with other purchases, why would you accept it with software? Just as you expect your local mechanic to have repair information available, you should expect that your local software hackers would have access to the information to fix problems. That is, they should have access to your software's source.
It's especially baffling that, if I want a failing gadget to be fixable, someone would call my attitude a "religion". If the term applies at all, it should be applied to the people who accept the idea that "there are mysteries" behind their purchases, and we mere mortals shouldn't be permitted access to the inner workings of the universe. That's what a "religion" is. The idea that things in our world should be open to examination by us isn't religion; it's rationality and science, which is the opposite of religion.
Or, in the case of manufactured articles like cars or operating systems, it's just good engineering.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
This guy had a deadline to fill up a few column inches, and said the first 6 or 7 incoherent things that came to mind ("open source reminds me of communism/religion/Woodstock/whatever"). This is the worst article I've seen linked from /. in a long time.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
What do you term "exchange?" When I submit any GPL code, it allows everyone to use it. In trade, I get your GPL code.
It's not a direct hand-to-cash deal but there IS a return on open source/free software. If you can't see that, this late in the game, then you MUST be brainwashed.
ps. Nearly all "significant" OSS/GPL/Linux software is developed by paid programmers. If you're a programmer, you will have a job even if OSS becomes the #1. Besides, the vast majority of code written today is for in-house use, not for sale.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Well, duh! It is a market because they are exchanging goods and services. Just not ones you would like to be exchanged. Rather than trading their hours for money like in a historical market, the open source developers, testers, and users are trading their efforts for lower costs. Sort of like being speculators in a market. There are many more types of exchanges than labor or goods for currency.
Oh my. Back to Marketing 101.
Value = Benefit - Cost or if you prefer: Value = Benefit - Cost - Risk (if you don't consider risk a cost)
Free (as in speech and beer) only speaks to the Cost portion of the value equation.
If the software provides benefit, such as a reduced time to perform a specific task, then it still has value, even if it is zero cost.
Not to mention, the open source aspect CERTAINLY has both positive aspects to risk (you are not dependent on the survival of a single supplier) and negative aspects to risk (witness Microsoft's threats about patents).
And since "The scarcity is artificially enforced" then there is no free market, which was the parent's point. His last sentence may be wrong, but his point still holds.
If you actually understood the concept of value, you would realize that you just proved the point of those naysayers. If there is a psychological benefit, then value was created. As I pointed out in my other post, Value = Benefit - Cost - Risk. The lack of cost does not indicate there was no value created.
There is _no_ exchange of value
Wrong. You now receive the benefits of not having to rewrite the functions contained within libpng. You are avoiding development expense, which has value (although it's cost avoidance and not direct value creation).
there are a lot of products where the R&D costs are well above the per-unit cost and the R&D expense is spread over the sales of the line.
How else do you sell software? Do you charge the first guy $1million and everyone else pays $1.50? That's retarded!
My posts are definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
Well than, so do many other things that are currently part of our economy. Music, movies, even books have an almost $0 reproduction cost. What is the point of this. There's tons of things that have very little actual reproduction cost that have a high cost to produce the first one. Even things like CPUs, which have an extremely high development cost, have an actual very low per unit cost to reproduce. That is, once the chip is designed, and the fab is built, the materials to actually produce a chip are nil. Even an automobile, when you break it down to it's bare parts, is worth almost nothing. I'm sure anybody who has had a car scrapped can tell you that the scrap yard dealer will probably give you around $500 for something that was once bought for $20,000.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.