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More MS, Less Talent In Open Source's Future
alphadogg writes "The open source industry in 2008 will be marked by more news out of Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and other big IT vendors, less start-up funding, more M&A activity, and an increasingly serious talent shortage, according to Raven Zachary, open source research director for The 451 Group. One example of the talent shortage will be people with expertise in the Tomcat open source Java servlet middleware from the Apache Foundation. 'There are 25 or so core contributors to that project,' Zachary said. 'Over the past four or five years that number has stayed virtually [unchanged]... but the growth of Tomcat has been astronomical.'"
Maybe talented coders like to get paid better.
Tomcat is an excellent product and a gem of the open source community. Just because there are 'only' 25 core developers working on it doesn't make it inferior in any of the other offerings out there. I'm not sure throwing more developers at it would necessarily make it better. See, Mythical Man Month for details...
Why does an open source project magically need more programmers because it has become popular? What's wrong with the 25 guys that have obviously been doing a kick-ass job with Tomcat? Throwing more bodies at it will just lead to bloatware.
If you can accomplish great things with a few core programmers that is called being effecient. Adding more programmers to a project usually makes it worse rather than better. Open source allows many developers to make minor changes, as they have need to, but doesn't change the fact that only a few core programmers are needed for most projects.
I don't see the number of open source programmers shrinking at all. If anything, I expect to see many new projects taking shape and a few catching fire and shaking up the industry. It's better for many small projects to be seeded so that a few can grow into new major projects. There'd be no point in adding more and more developers to existing projects.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Just because one of these groups increases in size doesn't necessarily mean the other one has to. I've worked for fairly small companies where the number of developers didn't change dramatically despite the rapid growth in end users. Sure, more developers may be hired if you start developing new products, dramatically increase the feature base of the existing product, etc. but for projects that are relatively stable and have slower growth cycles there really isn't a need for a growth in the number of developers even if everybody on the planet is using that software.
What does Multiple Sclerosis have to do with open source software?
Pirate Party UK
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
High-quality products general stay flat or lose developers over time without losing any quality. I have no idea whether tomcat is a high-quality product or not, but the core of it probably requires very little maintenance now, leaving the "core" developer circle free to work on edge features. There are an unlimited number of those for any given project, but the urgency of those edges falls off rapidly as a project ages, so it's rarely the case that a project needs to grow in developers just because it's getting older. Such projects usually split into separate projects with their own functionality core.
Also, it's ridiculous to extrapolate this process and make a statement about all open source. Developers are rarely destroyed, converting their energy into entropy. Instead, they are simply attracted to new products that need developers.
Finally, the talented open source developers pool will only grow, as it always has. If Microsoft is hiring people to work on open source, then those people will be new talented open source developers.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
In fact, it alludes the increasing pervasiveness of open source in businesses as causing developer shortages, and the increasing role of the big players in open source projects. These are signs of the success of the open source model, folks.
To err is human. To arr is pirate.
First: who the F cares about announcements from Microsoft regarding open source projects, unless they are actually contributing.
OK, that out of the way, I can't see how a shortage in one project is a shortage overall. OS is about coders scratching an itch. I have contributed to projects but only when it was something that impacted me personally, and I wanted to see it fixed in a hurry. If the number of users of a project grows astronomically, that's great, but it has no bearing on how many coders participate if nobody feels an "itch" they need to scratch. Maybe the software is good enough for end users, and they feel fine about it.
Those coders aren't "gone." They're just off scratching some other itch, is all.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Some "Tech Analyst" from some "Open Source Research Group" (451 Group???) says that Open Source is on a downward trend because Tomcat only has 25 core developers. How is this news. Tomcat has done extremely well over the years with only these 25 core developers. Sounds like a very successful Open Source project to me.
Also, I think the rise in the use of Tomcat can be attributed to the move away from huge App Servers (WebSphere, Oracle, WebLogic) and rise in smaller more nimble apps using Struts and Spring, two other very successful Open Source projects.
Open Source is alive and very well.
I don't get it. There's an open source project run by 25 or so people that's had "astronomical" growth, but since they aren't bringing in new people there's a lack of talent? If they're doing well with those 25, why does the team have to grow?
Thank God for evolution.
Uh, the 90's is calling and asking for their FUD back.
Greetings, Microsoft Shill!
Fact: Programmers are not janitors.
Fact: Programmers are almost always compensated very well. (Where the shit don't they?)
Fact: Who cares about "lives of programmers outside of the code" in this context
Programmers get paid. You're a retard if you think it's all developed for free.
I don't find OpenOffice to be total garbage and full of bugs any more then the alternatives.
You put your bullshit out there like it's fact because you must be paid by Microsoft, or you must have a vested interest in closed-source.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I actually agree with the AC.
I've been running Caucho's resin as an alternative to Tomcat for many years and it's been an outstanding product with none of the headaches I've had with Tomcat. Resin is GPL'd with very good documentation and optional low-cost commercial support.
Just because it's from apache doesn't mean it's the best for the job at hand. I find more often than not, people use tomcat because they believe that there are few options available, let alone easier and more elegant open source solutions.
with an alexa rank of 152 and involved in running a site of comparable size that uses adsense i estimate sourceforge makes 2,000 -> 3,000 $ a day from adsense
The assumption that a bigger team is an indicator of health is insane. Large teams in software development spend most of their time NOT WRITING CODE and NOT DEBUGGING CODE. They spend their time in meetings trying to figure out how to get 25 people or 50 people to all work together. If you have a really big job, like making a modern spreadsheet product, your best bet is to figure out how to partition it into a series of jobs that can be handled more or less independently by separate 5 person teams.
How many automobile manufacturers were there at the beginning of the 20th century? How many do we have now? Since the number of manufacturers has changed little at all, or even shrunk, can we assume that even with astronomical growth in the use of automobiles, that there is something wrong with the automotive industry?
While that doesn't quite fit perfectly, I think it makes a point. If your 25 coders are putting out code good enough for astronomical use growth, then no more coders are needed. Every OSS project does NOT have to turn into a MS look alike to be successful. I think the author needs to re-evaluate their definition of success here. The hummer vehicles are successful as business goes, but there is not one in every driveway in North America yet. I have some very successful code, and there are 3 users total. It hums along nicely, 24/7 doing it's thing and all the end users are happy. It does not have astronomical growth, but it is SUCCESSFUL.
Why does F/OSS HAVE to compete with MS? That's not really rhetorical. For most of what I do, OO is absolutely great. I have no need to run and load MS Office. To me, OO is successful. I don't have to drive a Silver Ghost to have a great car. Tomcat and Apache are very successful at what they do because (IMO) MS sucked at that job and offered no real competition.
MP3 players are a successful market... not because of the superior sound quality, or because they were made by MS, but because they do their intended job very well. Some better than others, but all do the job. In the software world, it seems rare that there are more than two options for a given product precisely because of MS (not counting Mac products). If you only had a choice between an H1 hummer and a Mitsubishi Galant, or a BMW motorocycle... which would you drive?
The insistence that software must be like MS is at best absurd, and at worse, it's the worst thing that could happen to the F/OSS software industry.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
That's the typical opensource situation where whom you need is NOT a core developer.
25 developers are a pretty good team to constantly write, re-write and improve the inner workings of tom-cat. In fact, there are a lot of commercial project that don't have that much developer 100% dedicated to the project. And as GP poster pointed out : "Mythical Man-month" explains us why this team doesn't need to grow much more because of the added inter-communication and training of newcomers overhead.
What a lot of newcomers into the OSS world fail to realise, is that there is a lot beside "writing code" that is important for an OSS project to be useful. There's, for example, a very strong need for artist to make the visuals (UI design, themes, other graphics) in order to avoid having the OSS project look like some 10 year old ass-ugly Athena interface with a cryptic UI based on a non obvious metaphor.
And, like in your case, projects also needs people with good writing skills, to write nice documentation, specification, HOW-TOs, and other guides, because frankly there are a lot of OSS projects out there that are technical marvel from a technological point of view but whose documentation consist mainly of a a big dump of code comments and function names and where, in fine, the old classic formula "Google + {error message} = posts in newsgroups" is the only way to get decent help.
People usually fail to realise it. For them Open-Source mostly remind them of complex C/C++-code and they think that GPL is only for programmer good at writing code. And thus a lot of people aren't motivated to contact a project and start helping because they think they don't have the necessary coding skills. Whereas in fact, even with no competences at all in programming, they could be critically important with their artistic, litteracy, or other skills. (Even things like helping organising appearances of the project at major Meetings and Expo can help because it bring attention to the project, and that requires skill that are neither coding nor artistic).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Fact: People can work only 40-60 hours a week without burning out and writing crap code.
Fact: Programmers have lives outside of the code.
For Open Source to survive, it's going to have to figure out how to compete in a market economy.
Part of that means making better code, since some OSS projects (OpenOffice) are total garbage full of bugs.
Part of it means a path by which the average OSS application can monetize itself and pay its developers.
Maybe SourceForge needs to distribute profit from its AdSense earnings, I dunno. Funny...
Most places I see the kind of problems these 'facts' show are closed-source shops.
Oh yeah, another 'fact' for you. Open Source projects kicks closed-source projects in the groin in software best practices, construction techniques, usage of tools, etc, etc
how long until
Is /. using targeted ads now? I was reading this story using the RSS feed and the annoying embedded ad image proudly (and weirdly) announced:
"Using Tomcat but need to do more? Discover WebSphere Application Server."
People who use Tomcat tend to be enterprisey types (which perhaps goes without saying; using Java to solve web problems is like using a chainsaw to shave), so it's no surprise that few of them are willing / able to contribute to the project. The kind of domain knowledge required to create an http server and to do the wiring necessary to make things easily configurable is pretty far removed from the typical day to day work of these engineers. I think this is kind of true for most open source projects. The free spirited "hacker" types who want to work on open source projects (write code without being paid? crazy!) tend to be the types of people more interested in algorithms and data structures than they are with worrying about the best way to implement GOF stuff.
For ANY programming jobs, the end objective these days is not good programming.
It's turning out servicable CRAP as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Programmers constantly under pressure to spend 80+ hours in front of a screen, and constant hints from management about outsourcing their jobs anyway, well where's the motivation to keep your intellect in programming?
This is why smart people are turning to other fields, and there will be a shortage of US programmers whether you are MicroSoft or anyone else.
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"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
The much-predicted talent shortage arising from the retirement of the baby boomers may, paradoxically, swell the ranks of open-source coders. Open-source folks work for coin of the spirit (which is that same thing wage-slaves work for, ultimately, as they turn their coin of the realm into stuff they like). Anyway, retired folks get itchy for something to do, and no longer need to earn a living. A lot of them will still have viable coding skills, and I expect we'll see a groundswell in open-source development of geezers looking for a rewarding part-time hobbby that will help them keep sharp.
In July I'll graduate with a 2.1 (or better!) masters degree in Computing from Imperial College London (which, in case you don't know, is ranked very highly for computer science). I'm currently looking for jobs based in Europe, preferably in a very large city, preferably London; free software would be excellent! :-D
:-). (Or email my University! rsi at doc.ic.ac.uk is the careers person. Not enough interesting companies do this, but all the investment banks etc do -- I get at least one email a day from "rsi" about banks, and about one a week for something interesting)
Email me
>This must be the first time I have heard somebody call the MS business model unsustainable. Sure, it isn't very nice, but unsustainable? How exactly did they end up in that dominant market position for close to the last 2 deceades, then?
Illegally.
(Remember? Convicted Monopolist.)
If Linus was still the only developer for the kernel, how much less popular would it be? Your Mythical Man Month answer is not always appropriate.
But that is why books like this exist. You'll need to buy two. I've never found a topic where a single book covers everything I needed to know about that topic. Buying three will usually put you past the point of diminishing returns.
FreeSpeech.org
I rather trust my dog than these people, because they haven't got the slightest clue of how to do it. Yes, they try, and it works, most of the time, but really don't count on it. And these are name-brand systems, costing a lot of money, that probably controls some of the infra-structure you're using right now. (yes, I'm being vague on purpose)
Of course I try to fix it, but I gave up a long time ago. ASP/IIS glitch? It may bring downtime, but you can tell shareholders (and the auditors) that it was someone else's fault. I'd rather use stuff that works (either open or closed), not expensive crap that doesn't work but gives me someone to blame for my incompetence (of using the BS product in the first place).
how long until
ok, now back to the article. Companies are only embracing OSS and not the Free part. This has been around for a long time since the UNIX-mainstream days. The problem I see is that end users will not have the free-version of the software available anymore as the industry goes both feet into SAAS mode--that was a nice aspect of the business that were involved in F/OSS efforts today, but with the big 3 coming in will likely disappear.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Just because there are 25 programmers tied to the project doesn't mean that they are the only ones who make contributions to the project via bug reports, patches, providing documentation, and it doesn't even include those who work on the modules, does it? Maybe the core of Apache doesn't need to change so quickly because it's pretty stable feature-wise, and modules incorporate most new features? Did you see how long it took to go from Apache 1.x to 2.x? I'm not talking about how long it took to release, although that was long, but even adoption of Apache 2.x took a long time because 1.x was considered stable and secure, and hardly any development was still ongoing besides bugfixes. The additional development was a *deterrant* to adoption of the new version. There are quite a few factors to consider here and the article barely glosses over them, but aside from some rhetoric on Tomcat, the article doesn't really have any actual information to back up the point they're trying to make.
Twinstiq, game news
It's developers who slobber all over tomcat. If they actually had to look after the abomination that is tomcat every day, they might shoot themselves for subjecting their customers to such madness.
As soon as you put tomcat under any significant load, the wheels start to fall off and the tweaking sessions start. I spent a frikin month trying to figure out why the tomcat app was not releasing threads and subsequently dying after a week or so of operating. It turned out it was a tomcat bug. Since java outputs the most useless error logs in the history of computing (unless you're a java programmer!), trying to figure out what was happening was virtually impossible. The vendor in this case was equally clueless and didn';t ever realize that the version of tomcat they shipped was causing the problem.
I recently noticed that in one of the tomcat error logs on one of our servers was logging 50MB worth of errors every day. It was the same error over and over. I put in a support ticket to the vendor asking them what the error meant. They said it was "normal" and to ignore it. Translation: Since your application seems to be working, and we don't know offhand what it means, we're going to lie to you and say that it's normal. Great! So I get to sift through 20,000 lines of nothing to find actual errors, and as a bonus I get to archive 50MB of the same nothing every day.
Another tomcat app we have pukes all over itself any time the connection to the database server gets interrupted. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's annoying. Other client/server based apps don't do this. Why does tomcat? Maybe it's just the app in this case.
Tomcat sucks.
- A Sysadmin
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
So, some guy is predicting the future of the whole open source by reading 25 devs in tomcat as a bad sign. This is failing to impress me, sorry.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
My business is doing well.
Fact: Customer-centered businesses succeed.
Fact: Customers need things and will pay.
All that is really required is to find the arrangement where both sides win.
[sarcasm] Wow. That is so hard.... [/sarcasm]
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Companies spend about double your salary on you if you're an employee (after taxes, benefits, building rent, etc), so they're willing to give you more money as a freelancer. Consequently you can also charge for each and every hour you work - if they want 80 hours a week from you by God they'll pay you for 80 hours.
Top it off with the fact that you can work from home or whatever random cafe you want.
Programming doesn't have to be a sucky job.
But as a Sr. Admin Iget a little tired of the assumption by so many that "If you don't write the code you are talentless" Has any one cosidered the idea that there comes a time when adding code no longer improves the product much. Some of these products really are about as big as they can get without imploding, there may only be 25 contribs, but how many does something as mature as Tomcat need?
A lot of the new talent will be of a different kind. In the 70's Computer Engineering was 80% theory/math and 10% language and protocols. Now it's exactly the opposite. Are they less talented, no just differently enabled.
The talent shortage, or rather the knowledge shortage is in HR It's time to learn what is really needed and stop boiler plating your job adverts. You're losing a lot of talent because of inaccurate or often inane job adds (Wanted: entry level linux admin to manage 30 windows desktops.) .
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Actually living in cities as opposed to way out in suburbia is becoming more popular again than it was in the 80s, and it never really went out of style in most of the world (in Europe and Asia in particular).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's true: no method applies in all cases.
Where F/OSS does well is in finding a software need of most computer users, and making a product to match. Although not all of these are open source, I'd consider the following great successes: PuTTy, EditPad, Opera, WinDiff, ActivePerl, WireShark, AirSnort, shttpd, Nero, Apache.
Where it does not work is in areas where centralization, and its proportionate reduction in expense per square foot of research and development and customer feedback integration, is beneficial. The aforementioned large DBs and projects like Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange come to mind.
However, it's fair to say that several things define the success of any project (sorry about the Wiki-formatting):
* Leadership
* Personnel
* Funding
* Clear mission statement
A F/OSS project without those, or a closed-source commercial project without those, is bound for failure. Every single time. Without variation.
There are some notable open source failures: Firefox, OpenOffice, CDBurner XP, PHP. They're popular so no one knows they're failures yet, but from a pure geek view of engineering quality and ability to do things well, they suck. (If you don't know that OpenOffice sucks yet, it's because you haven't tackled a larger or more complex writing project in it. Try AbiWord!)
I find Opera an inspiring example. Firefox, open source, sucks. IE, closed source, also sucks. Opera rules. If you aren't using Opera, you are being very foolish.
technical writing / development