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SAP — Open Source Friend Or Foe ?
pavithran writes "Does SAP, one of the largest business companies offering software solutions, support FOSS as a movement? Why is SAP looking at closed and open source in a similar way? This shows lot of ambiguity in SAP's attitude towards open source software. I found an interesting article in Linux Journal on whether SAP is an open source friend or foe, by Glyn Moody. Here's a quote from the article: 'For an outfit that calls itself "the world's largest business software company," the German software giant SAP is relatively little-known in the open source world. With 51,500 employees, a turnover of 11.5 billion euros ($16 billion) last year, and operating profits of 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion), SAP is clearly one of the heavyweights in the computer world. Given that huge clout, SAP's attitude to open source is important; and yet it is hard to tell whether it is really free software's friend or its foe. ... A company that wished open source well would back these ideas. One that really supported free software would also fight against software patents. So, while SAP's involvement in Eclipse and investment in open source companies is welcome — and pretty self-interested, it has to be said, given that it presumably hopes to make a profit on them — it's not really enough cancel out its unhelpful attitude and statements elsewhere. If it wants to be a serious, respected player in the world of open source, as befits its size, it must do better.'"
That is all.
You must be a friend or foe, you can't be neutral on the subject. I prefer to use Linux without the dogma attached it it.
It's non-starter.
Why can't a company use FOSS when it is appropriate and proprietary when it suits their customers best? Software should not be a religious issue.
If Open Source is a Movement, you should see a proctologist. SAP doesn't need to be a friend nor a foe to it. They can and should be indifferent, as should 99.9999999999% of the world.
The ideology is simply unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Only zealots feel a need to paint everyone in black and white.
To some people FOSS is just software to get work done. So they use it where they see fit. They contribute where they see benefit. But they don't sacrafice themselve to the holy crusade of FOSS.
Actually I would say this is how FOSS should work. If FOSS would have to rely on the altruism of companies it would be doomed. I don't think it is.
So SAP is either with the Open Source movement or against it? Reminds me of Bush. You know, we would do much better if we realized there ARE shades of grey between black and white.
diegoT
SAP support Open Source in any tool that allows them to develop and interact with their product.
The gnomes of SAP will never open SAP up.
If you have ever looked at SAP structure or code you don't want that box open~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What does SAP sell?
I checked their website, and it was filled to the brim with buzz words.
No actual product to buy.
Yet I bet they make billions selling it.
(Yes, I'm trolling)
.. a bowel movement of a constipated chiptard
"SAP -- Open Source Friend Or Foe?"
Neither. "Sap" is a slang word for "stupid person". Any company that calls itself that is too foolish to be either a friend or a foe.
I don't have a lot of exposure to the sales side of things. I'm an engineer and will work on support calls as needed. However, I can say that internally, I have not witnessed any sort of stigma against it. We've recommended open source solutions for customers as workarounds for issues and have used open source tools internally where appropriate. Everything I've seen suggests that it is viewed like anything else - a potential tool that our customers may or may not benefit from, if used correctly. We build many products on many variants of Linux (which can be viewed as supporting those customers who support and use open source software).
I admit that it sounds mighty idealistic, but at the same time, like many of the earlier posters, I wholly agree that it is quite possible to take a more neutral stance on the issue. It's not limited to only friends and enemies.
At the same time, I've been involved with discussions with legal ensuring that GPL'd code is not present in software products I am responsible for as a matter of protection of corporate interests.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
Every software company benefits from Open Source, whether they'd like to admit it or not. They can peek in the Open Source world and find implementation tricks or functional paradigms and apply them to their products. Maybe even embed some GPL applications into a larger proprietary suite.
I believe SAP will not give up its competitive advantage by fully embracing Open Source if this translates into reduced profits; it does not make economic sense. However, SAP can be supportive (at least non obtrusive) of Open Source to further leverage whatever advantages it may provide and, secondarily, keep the die-hard computer programmers marginally happy.
Aeroespacio.org
I use open source software extensively in my work. I have also contributed open source code (not all GPL, but a good fraction of it is). I like open source for many things.
However, I do not understand this expectation that software companies should help open source. Microsoft is a special case - it tried to work with hardware vendors to delay the rise of Linux, Openoffice, etc. However, when it comes to pure software competition, a company that makes its living off software (and is not interested in the pure free-software-pay-for-support model than open source encourages) cannot be expected to act against its own financial interests to earn brownie points from the open source crowd.
Sometimes those interests will mandate open source participation. Other times, they won't. Interested in getting them to support open source ? Change market conditions to make it their interest to participate in open source. Open source might be religion to some, but it is simply an instrument for most of us. Pretty good instrument in most cases, but nothing more.
Nice true open source alternative to SAP:
http://openerp.com/
The article complains that SAP does not support all the OSS community initiatives (as if nobody in OSS world ever has had any disagreement) and backs software patents.
As a software development company, SAP has no other choice than to hold on to their patent portfolio, even if for defense reasons. I am not saying that SAP will (or have) never sue anyone for patent infringement, but I have not heard of any widely publicized case of them doing so.
but I knew about Gnu.
... to treat a large company such as SAP as monolithic.
Some inside of SAP will be FOSS friends, some will be foes, some will be neither. It depends upon the individuals involved, their attitudes, roles and the incentives SAP gives them.
I was about to tag the story "kdawsonsucks" :-D
SAP is in the business of making money, not supporting or not supporting free software. I imagine they support some efforts when it suits their interests (like Eclipse), and oppose others, when it doesn't ("all software should be free".) Of course their participation in open-source is self-interested; they are a business, not a charity. I doubt SAP gives one flying *bleep* about being a "serious, respected player in the world of open source."
SirWired
I agree the question is stupid, but for a different reason. We're talking about SAP. Whether you are in the FOSS or Closed Source camp doesn't matter. If you are on the side of sanity, then SAP is your foe. It's that simple.
The enemies of Democracy are
> SAP's attitude to open source is important; and yet it is hard to tell whether it is really free software's friend The article publisher does not seem to know enough to tell open source and free software apart. There are very few comanies that endorse free software but many that endorse open source. So, what is the article about? Please call RMS to have the difference between open source and free software explained to you.
Tell Google to open their web search engine source code.
SAP is nobody's friend. They're the enemy of all mankind.
Y'know, this kind of article is exactly the reason why we're always having conversations about whether or not Linux (and other FOSS) is ready for general purpose use. Here you have all these open-source advocates, telling anyone who'll listen how great FOSS is, and how it's got this low TCO. That sounds great, but then it turns out there are strings attached. You're a bad FOSS citizen if you're not contributing some completely unquantified amount back to the project. Look, guys, you can't give something away for FREE! and then start laying a guilt trip on whoever took you up on the offer. If you expect X amount of contribution from the users of the software, then you need to move to a licensing model that supports that.
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This entire, whiny article sounds like the Chotchke's manager trying to get his employees to wear more than 15 pieces of flair. If you have some expectation, then make that expectation known. Don't lie about your expectation. If you expect your employees to wear 37 pieces of flair, then make that expectation clear. If you expect users of your software to contribute in some specific amount, then make that expectation clear. But if you lie about your expectations, don't bitch about it when they aren't met.
By "this" of course you mean the summary, because you (along with all the other posts I see on the same subject) obviously haven't RTFA.
The main thrust of the article is not that SAP is not "doing enough for open source", but rather that while trying to derive positive PR from their contributions to Open Source SAP is at the same time working AGAINST Open source's interests by arguing against mandating use of Open Source in government procuring and for strengthening software patentability.
Open source projects aren't sponsored because corporations want to support hobbyists or have any altruistic notions about supporting "software freedom". Corporations support open source out of self-interest. Even Sun, up until now what I believe to be the most vocal proponent of open source is only doing so because it suits their business model of bottom-up adoption of their products by developers. None of them contribute to open source so that people like us geeks can get stuff for free out of the kindness of their hearts.
Some companies like Sun are pretty extreme and straightforward about it. At the other extreme are companies that are traditionally downright hostile to open source, like Microsoft. In the mushy middle are companies that some would describe as hypocritical, like IBM and Red Hat, who contribute to the community strategically, but also take and refuse to give. It's in their strategic best interests to build a business model that gives just enough to open source but also withholds enough and take enough to ensure they make a profit. Hand-in-hand with this strategy is the use of patents to prevent open source forks from going too far, which even Sun is guilty of with the IP they have behind Java.
When anybody refers to the open source "community", much of that community is corporations (ex members of the Eclipse Foundation) and individual developers who work for those corporations. It's not a bunch of geeks coding in their basements.
So when SAP is described as perhaps a friend or foe of open source, it means the company is large and complex enough that elements of it view open source as a means of benefiting from inter-corporation cooperation, and others view it as unfair competition for their proprietary products. It also means that they don't have the strategic clarity with regard to open source that Sun, IBM and Red Hat have.
No business involves themselves with open source out of idealism or philanthropy. It's all about self-interest.
Here's the continuum of corporations and their open-source philosophies:
1) Sun: Open-source almost all their products, gain developer adoption, get bottom-up adoption in corporations, and then charge for support.
2) IBM/Red Hat: Contribute to the open source community in a large way, but maintain other products that are completely proprietary. Talk up how "pro open source" you are in a massively exaggerated way, unlike Sun that quietly walks the walk.
3) Apple: Open source some stuff, close source most others. Definitely take more from the community that you give.
4) Microsoft: Open source nothing. Publicly slam open source: Proprietary development all the way.
SAP hasn't figured out where it is on the continuum. It's that simple.
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I can't speak about SAP and what they do or do not support. But here is my guess... Open source has its place and time- not every project should be OS, however, for those of us who love programing on our free time, or have ideas about making sotware that would be far more enhanced by contributions by the public, it is great. That's not to say their isnt a money making business solution for OS products as well (various linux flavors for example). From a software corp. standpoint, just giving a 'well wish' might be the proper grounds to play. Sometimes being a little vague or contradictory on your standing is the best choice in the long term (politicians do great at this). In short, I have no doubt these guys are looking at a lot of open source, and maybe waiting to watch the industry evolve and see what other software giants do (aside from trying to squeltch it) But mum is the word.
I read a lot of complaining about IT being treated and paid like a utility to be used at the lowest possible price, a simple raw material to be imported from wherever it is at the lowest price. Here is a company, SAP, that instead tells its customer to consider its software like an investment, that is, you will pay for it a percentage of the profits it is helping the customer make. They have managed to be payed like management instead of being paid like labor like the majority of IT is. We should take a page from SAPs book.
I had hoped this thread would elicit some intelligent comments about SAP MaxDB (which they open sourced some time ago), but here we are with the perennial boring anti-GPL trolling.
If you don't like the GPL, don't license your code with it! The rest of us who do, do it because we want to.
you had me at #!
That's not quite the right perspective: it actually started out from a cross-platform position. When R/3 came out, it supported 15 platforms (e.g. most Unices), and only later did it become more and more Windows-dependent. Part of this was the desire to integrate SAP's R/3 GUI more closely with Microsoft Office.
I was with the SAP basis technology group at the time.
The debate is still open wether SAP is even it's own customers Friend or Foe!! I work at a ~20k employee company that went SAP this year. I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING good to say about SAP. So I'll just shut up and keep my integrity, what little I have left heh
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
They sold MaxDB to MySQL, who open sourced it. After MySQL and various contributors improved MaxDB to the point where it was useful, they bought it back and immediately closed the source. Those are pretty clearly the actions of a ardent foe of open source.
Is there a large company SAP's adoption *didn't* sink with it's huge cost overruns? Airgas is being courted by them, now; we're hearing lots of promises, but seeing no "sucess" cases of any size.
What's the attraction?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
I actually think ideology is important.
For example, I put my money in a so-called "ethical" bank, which avoids investing in "bad" enterprises. Likewise, I'll rather buy a product from a bio farmer or from a free-software friendly company *just for political reasons*, and take a higher cost (say, up to ten percent).
Viewed from this "neutral" economical standpoint (which really ain't neutral, it's ideology too!), to me that's just a "product feature": in my eyes it makes the world I live in better.
Same for a customer -- if SAP is "friend", I'd tend to recommend it, if it's "foe" I won't: I just make sure I disclose my thinking. More customers than you think take those considerations into account.
The limitless greed of the economy out there is not a sort of physical law. *We* do it. And *each one of us* carries some responsibility for it.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2145809/sap-dismisses-open-source
Open source will fail to deliver innovation and is more likely to break applications, according to Shai Agassi, president of the product and technology group at SAP.
"We all talk about how great Linux is," he said at a speaking engagement at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.
Advertisement"But if you look at the most innovative desktop today, Microsoft's Vista is not copying Linux, it is copying Apple."
"Intellectual property [IP] socialism is the worst that can happen to any IP-based society," he said. "And we are an IP-based society. If there is no way to protect IP, there is no reason to invest in IP."
screw SAP.
Nice true open source alternative to SAP:
http://openerp.com/
OpenERP looks like it might be a re-branding of TinyERP. However there's no obvious link from the TinyERP page on SourceForge nor on OpenERP's Launchpad page.
Probably a better one is Pupesoft, though the documentation is not quite as accessible to some as one might wish...
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Why would it be known in the open source world? Smelly hackers who live in basements have no connection with business; most of them have never even had a job. Plus things like accounting are boring. PHBs and MBAs do them. Much more fun to write your own web server, or invent your own programming language.
I'm getting very tired of hearing the usual cry of, "If you're not with us, you're against us!" where FOSS is concerned, coming from the usual suspects. I think a certain quote about only a Sith dealing in absolutes, is appropriate here.
The paranoia possibly wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't so completely baseless. People still using proprietary stuff from Microsoft or whoever hasn't killed open source up to this point, and it isn't going to kill it in the future.
There are a lot of genuinely terrible things being done by corporations at the present time; I would agree with anyone who suggests that. However, the death of Free Software is not, nor is it going to be, one of them.
People keep seeing an endless array of supposedly lethal threats; binary device drivers, DRM, even apparently the use of non-GPL FOSS licenses. Yet all of these things exist, and continue to exist, and FOSS itself co-exists with them just fine.
So for those of you who continue to insist on being hysterically terrified of how the evil corporations are going to kill FOSS entirely, please, I'm begging you, get over yourselves.
Also, stop listening to Stallman. He is wrong, he has been wrong, and he continues to be wrong, over and over and over again; and I know that he is the main source, ultimately, of most of your fear and paranoia. I've gone over the countless ways in which he is catastrophically misguided many times before, but if you feel like replying and asking for citations, I'm more than happy to do it again, in the hope of potentially educating someone.
Try it; purely as an experiment. For a single month, stop listening to the FSF's (and its' fanboys) paranoid ranting and foaming at the mouth about the corporate wolves at the gate, and see if, at the end of said month, FOSS as a whole is still here. I suspect the outcome will cause you to be very surprised; although it won't surprise me much at all.
Myopic, paranoid, condescending, dismissive, ad hominem laced, pro-FSF reply incoming, I'm sure. Also, once again, for those of you with mod points who don't have the brains or capacity for independent thought to refute me logically, please feel free to down-mod this post into oblivion; my karma on this site is sufficiently good that it can withstand a significant amount of your cowardice.
There should be no debate on this issue. Is SAP releasing its software under a Free and open source license? If not, then it is NOT a friend of open source. It really could not get any simpler than that. Companies which produce proprietary software do not understand or agree with OSS philosophies and are certainly not friends...
Seems to be an RMS religious rant to me. SAP is a for profit company. They write proprietary software. They have interests to protect. I can fully understand why they don't want the government coming along and forcing their applications to either become open source or allow open source clones of their proprietary application. It is also reasonable that SAP likes Linux, open source development tools, and consortium's that produce open source software that extend and interact with their proprietary software. Presumably this allows them access to additional market share, cheaper development costs, etc. There is no friend or foe. Get over it.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
The article states that "If it wants to be a serious, respected player in the world of open source, as befits its size, it must do better."; -
What makes anyone think that SAP would care about being respected in the open source world? They are a large business and the stakeholders that they are rightfully interested in (like every other large business) are
SAP uses Open Source where appropriate (as they should) to enhance shareholder value or customer value or for that matter employee value.
The real question should be "If the open source world wants to be a serious, respected entity in the world of business (the real world) then IT MUST DO BETTER. The Open Source World needs to demonstrate and evangelize models and mechanisms for monetizing the investment that business's make into Open Source. While this exists today, the focus on this is very limited with greater emphasis on "Open Source Purity" verses "Business Value through Open Source"
If you want to sell your product and the product is to be used on a computer, don't take a stand.
Let the client decide how he/she wants to implement your product.
I'd rather make 11+ billion Euros having not chosen for one (OSS) or the other (proprietary) than make a few euros being an idiot and shutting out part of my market because I don't support their setup.
Thankfully not everybody cares about this Holy War of Licensing, but just wants to do business.
The fact that SAP doesn't publicly take a stand on license must creep out the 'FLOSS'-crowd because now for all purposes their opinion is ignored, they have no say and their ego can't handle that.
I prefer open source, but the client is always right...