How Nokia Learned To Love Openness

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Once Sebastian Nyström laid out the logic of moving to open source, there was very little resistance within Nokia to doing so. I think that's significant; it means that, just as the GNU GPL has been tested in various courts and found valid, so has the logic behind open source — the openness that allows software to spread further, and improve quicker, for the mutual benefit of all. That idea is also increasingly accepted by hard-headed business people: it's become self-evident that it's a better way."

Comments

Openess

[sopssa]

That idea is also increasingly accepted by hard-headed business people: it's become self-evident that it's a better way.

Of course this doesn't apply everywhere, but with things like Qt (cross-platform application and UI framework) it makes sense that everyone benefits from it. It's large things with thousands of users that do benefit from it, but if you're doing business with the the same product you cant really open it up and except still to get revenue - unless you go for the support route, but it also only works to certain types of products.

Re:Openess

[Interoperable]

Google is a great example of this. They have a good history of open-sourcing when it benefits them and closely guarding source when it doesn't. They manage to come across as a friendly, open organisation while maintaining a highly profitable business model.

Re:Openess

[DrgnDancer]

This. Open Source is self evidently a better way for certain areas of software development and certain companies. It doesn't necessarily follow that it is self evidently a better way in general. Open source libraries make sens in a lot of the same ways that open standards make sense. They're, in fact, the next obvious growth of open standards. If we can all agree on the inputs and the outputs of the blackbox, why don't we all just use the same transparent box instead?

Open source also makes a lot of sense when you look at "reinventing the wheel" type problems. I need an Operating System for my device. I don't really care about making money on the operating system, I want to make money on the device. Hey, look, here's this Open Source operating system that works on lots of devices, can be easily modified to work on my device, and saves me a ton of work. Open source makes sense. I can save a lot of work reinventing the wheel on a non-monetized product by using something someone else has already done and opened for me.

Open source makes less sense when your software is your product. Microsoft is understandably reluctant to release their source code. It is not self evident that Microsoft would benefit from opening up its products. In fact, most would agrue that the opposite is self evident.

Apple looked at the same problem that Nokia is looking at and decided that since they had an operating system in house already, it made more sense to just modify it then modifying someone else's open operating system. It's worked for them and it is not self evident that making a different choice would have worked out better.

It is self evident that using Open Source is superior in certain situations and under certain circumstances. It is self evident that NOT using Open Source is superior in certain situations and under circumstances. It is NOT self evident that using Open Source is inherently superior. At least not to me.

Re:Openess

[GMFTatsujin]

Great points. Here's my two cents.

I bought a N800 because it was the right hardware for what I wanted to do. I needed something I could write on, something I could instant message on occasionally, and something that was light enough and small enough to have on me all the time. Some phones are good for messaging, some notebooks are good for writing, but the N800 brought it together for me.

Having Maemo, the open source OS, come specially developed for the N800 was a super plus because it offered me a lot more flexibility. True, a lot of what's out there is the standard issue FOSS apps -- but that's the point. I've run SSH sessions from my N800 to diagnose headless server issues, for crying out loud.

The rest of the time, I write on it, do some twitter, and keep it comfortably out of the way but close at hand. It's a brilliant device, Nokia made some great hardware choices, but they're not in the software biz. FOSS only helps make it better, and was a solid development choice.

Re:Openess

[replicant108]

Apple looked at the same problem that Nokia is looking at and decided that since they had an operating system in house already, it made more sense to just modify it then modifying someone else's open operating system.

Except that Apple's operating system is based on modifying 'someone else's open operating system'.

Re:Openess

[TemporalBeing]

Apple looked at the same problem that Nokia is looking at and decided that since they had an operating system in house already, it made more sense to just modify it then modifying someone else's open operating system. It's worked for them and it is not self evident that making a different choice would have worked out better.

But remember, Apple didn't just use their own stuff - they took an open source project (FreeBSD) and built their stuff on top of it; in the process they created two more projects - Darwin and OpenDarwin - to encapsulate the open source nature of the underlying system.

Why did this work for Apple? B/c it let them build off a base system that worked pretty much everywhere, and focus on the quality and other aspects of the system their users care about instead of having to worry about all the nitty-gritty details of writing and supporting an entire operating system and all the utilities that come with it. They can instead let the community do that and focus on what they do best; providing back when they modify the underlying system.

Open source makes less sense when your software is your product. Microsoft is understandably reluctant to release their source code. It is not self evident that Microsoft would benefit from opening up its products. In fact, most would agrue that the opposite is self evident.

It could if they did it right. Apple did it right. Microsoft could follow suit. The likelihood of Microsoft doing so at least anytime in the near future is near zero. Windows built on a Unix/Linux platform could be done very well; and a lot of the little details that keep being problematic for Microsoft would likely go away - e.g. security, firewalls, etc. It would also allow Microsoft, like Apple, to focus on what they do best; though they have likely lost track of what that is.

If Microsoft focused on the right part of the stack (e.g. understanding business needs, custom software enhancements, adding support to open source projects, and providing support contracts), then they could very well be a strong distribution/competitor in the open source market. But they would have to drastically change their business model and self-perception - and that won't happen until at least Balmer leaves, if not a CEO or two after him.

Re:Openess

[DrgnDancer]

Yes and no. If we want to call the kernel the operating system, then yes. Beyond that it gets a lot more complicated. They are making use of parts of an open kernel, and many open tools, but the vast majority of what users see as "OS X" or "iPhone" OS is Apple code. If the the Free BSD project disappeared tomorrow, Apple would shrug, hire a couple more kernel developers and move on. If the Linux Kernel project disappeared tomorrow most of these "Linux Device" vendors would be up a creek without a paddle.

Put simply Apple develops OS X using some Open Source components. Linux device manufacturers use an Open Source OS.

Re:Openess

[DrgnDancer]

You're making the same point as the guy above you, but doing a much better job. I agree that Apple makes use of (and, quite fairly, contributes back too) Open Source software in many low level areas of OS X. However it is equally true that neither OS X itself, nor the iPhone OS can be called Open Source products. They are distinct from Darwin and OpenDarwin in ways that Linux device manufacturer's operating systems are not usually distinct from "Linux".

In a way Apple demonstrated my point very well. They are a company that has found Open Source to be very useful in some areas of the business model, and much less useful in others. It is self evident that Apple makes extensive use of Open Source. It is equally self evident that they make extensive use of closed source. Thus far this balance approach has served them very well. No Open Source projects have found real reason to complain about them as a citizen of the OS community, but they still manage to make extensive and profitable use of closed and proprietary technology.

Re:Openess

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

I think you missed the point. Apple switched to BSD because it gained them something in a reasonable term. From what I remember (I was very young at the time) OS 9 sucked. It didn't even have pre-emptive multitasking. So, Apple swapping things out for BSD on hardware they could control and even then it took a few iterations before OS X didn't suck. On the other hand, Microsoft has a huge, widely deployed ecosystem. Sure, they could realease Windows 11/BSD or something in a few years, but that would involve changing all of their drivers (which I'm sure the hw mfrs. would love after the joy that was Vista) as well as delivering a perfect emulation layer or nothing will work.
Apples move made sense, because, in effect, the had hit rock bottom and could only stand to gain from such a move. Microsoft has everything to lose, since if they don't do it perfectly, their competitors can point and say, "Incompatible! You might as well migrate to our platform instead."

Re:Openess

[TemporalBeing]

I think you missed the point. Apple switched to BSD because it gained them something in a reasonable term.

OS9 was good, but it wasn't going to take them to the future. Fortunately for Apple, Steve Jobs created NeXT and built NextStep after they booted him from Apple. When they brought him back (circa 1996), they did so through buying NeXT. Jobs then threw ought the next version of MacOS that was in the works (big failure project for Apple), and took NeXTStep and renamed it Mac OSX.

It had nothing to do with convenience for Apple at the time other than they needed a new OS. But it was Job's foresight that brought it to the table.

Apple also went out of their way to ensure their license (AAPL) was Open Source Compliant, and have done a fine job working with the Open Source Community, including maintaining CUPS and several other projects.

Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

If those business people are happy to only compete on hardware, then yes.

If those business people also want to compete on software, OR, they don't read the license ("who reads the license?") and accidentally infringe, and therefore have to try to reach some agreement with a bunch of people who want nothing but to destroy them and see them humiliated, they might become less happy.

Nokia has decided to only compete on hardware, so no problem for them. Others who want to compete on software might disagree.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[jedidiah]

If you take other people's work and build on it and call the end result your own without
bothering to consider the terms involved then you quite rightly deserve to be humiliated.

It's no more than what you would get for acting like a toddler in any other context.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Tellarin]

Nokia did not decide to only compete on hardware.

They decided that their improvements to the base software (open) plus their hardware, will sell more phones than competitors. And if other people help you maintain the base software, all the better.

They don't need to open whatever software modules they feel should remain closed for now. Also, if it's your platform, you know it better than outsiders (at least for a while) and can also take advantage of that.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're confusing price and value.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Hatta]

accidentally infringe, and therefore have to try to reach some agreement with a bunch of people who want nothing but to destroy them and see them humiliated

Who said anything about the BSA?

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[DrgnDancer]

Yeah, Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, Blizzard, Bungie... All those guys are the verge of bankruptcy. No one is willing to pay for software.

Solutions to many problems are available for free, but those solutions are not always very good. Even when they are good, they don't usually dominate the market. Linux, Apache, and Firefox are all great examples of successful Open Source products, and even they are still fighting tooth and nail for market share against very viable closed source competition. In most markets the competition isn't even close. Closed source software rules the market with some Open Source competitors of varying quality holding a distant second or third position.

In some cases it's a real shame, because the Open Source alternative is on par with or better than its closed alternative, but even then the open version rarely dominates the market.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[bertoelcon]

Linux, Apache, and Firefox are all great examples of successful Open Source products, and even they are still fighting tooth and nail for market share against very viable closed source competition

Of your examples Apache is the market leader on Web Server Software. If I remember the last time I looked it was over half.

Re:Narrowsighted executives is nothing new.

[Eil]

They decided that their improvements to the base software (open) plus their hardware, will sell more phones than competitors.

Exactly. They get more hobbyists to hack on their code, more community interest, applications, code contributions, testing, bug fixes, and visibility.

Most companies are afraid to open source their code because there's this fear that competitors will either use it and sell it in their product, or will "steal" ideas from it. The reality is that NIH (not invented here) syndrome almost always assures this is not likely to happen. Nokia's major competitors are not going to replace their software stack with Symbian or Qt, for the same reasons you'll never see Microsoft building their next OS upon Darwin or Linux.

In this case

[kdawgud]

Well, in this case it may have made sense for Nokia. They are a hardware company, so giving away the software for free would not directly harm their income. Other industries won't be convinced so easily (i.e. companies that make money off of selling software to the masses).

Re:In this case

[Ksempac]

Mod this up. It's been known for years that IBM and others hardware companies need software to sell their machines and therefore it makes sense for them to be involved in Open Source. By reducing the cost of software to zero, they manage to get more hardware sales.
Software companies on the other hand don't have such incentive to go Open Source, since that reduce the dollar value of their product. And therefore you see MS opposing Open Source.
The odd one is/was...Sun, a company that never decided whether it was a hardware (servers) or software company (Java, Solaris, ...).

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Shikaku]

Apache, Firefox, 7-zip.

Oops, I shouldn't feed the troll.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[kurt555gs]

M$ office vs OpenOffice.org
Parallels vs VirtualBox

(Yes I used the epithet "M$"), now watch my theory that the "M$" folks have automated bots or paid shills to mod down any post containing said derogatory term.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Nadaka]

I'm not so sure that Visual Studio is better than the open source alternatives. Eclipse is quite good, and the latest versions of Visual Studio have hidden their keyboard shortcuts, making learning efficient use of the system more difficult.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Tellarin]

"Most closed source is better" is really relative.

Specifically if you consider money. If you don't have money to buy the "best" or if you don't need the features in the "best", than it is not so good, right?

I agree that in more specialized fields (such as image processing) the closed source versions are usually technically better. But, especially in more basic software (OS, deamons, compilers, ...), open source software tends to be better in the long term. UI apart, of course. The usability area is something that definitively the community should focus more.

And regarding one of your examples, I prefer using Eclipse than VS. Although not perfect, it's been improving quickly. Both for Java and C++ development.

Playing to Apple's weakness

[tick-tock-atona]

Nokia's "open" strategy will pay off big time in the long run. At the moment, their major threat is the iPhone, which inherits all of apple's strengths (RDF, UI design) as well as it's weaknesses (software/hardware lockdown).

The next-gen Nokia phone on the other hand (successor to the N900) will get all the hardware features of the iPhone, but with the openness of a linux software stack. Want to make an app that downloads podcasts? Fine! Want to use your phone as a modem? No problem! In fact, no corporation enforcing their moral or business rules on how you use your phone, or alienation of talented developers!

Maemo and Qt being open source will ensure that the software features of the Maemo platform quickly eclipse those of the artificially limited iPhone platform. Maemo's based on Debian - so Nokia automatically gets just about every open-source software package in existence available on their platform.

I think this is the most serious threat that the turtleneck sweater brigade have yet seen.

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[kbrannen]

... Give me hardware/software uncoupled from carriers, and your statement holds more weight. Sadly, that's a fantasy world at present.

I don't know where you live, but in the US, you'll be able to buy the N900 directly from Nokia (so no operator subsidies AND no operator removing stuff they dont' like), and assuming you have a working SIM card for ATT or TMobile (whichever works best in your area), you can slap that in and use it. (This is termed "open channel" in the industry.)

Disclaimer: I work for Nokia and I have an N900. It's got a lot of positives and if you're so inclined plus have the skills, you can do development for it.

Re:Playing to Apple's weakness

[jilles]

You might make the case that the N900 already has the better hardware when you compare it to the iphone. And for all people dismissing Nokia as just a hardware company, there's tons of non trivial Nokia IPR in the software stack as well (not all OSS admittedly), that provides lots of advantages in the performance or energy efficiency domain; excellent multimedia support (something a lot of smart phones are really bad at), hardware acceleration, etc. Essentially most vendors ship different combinations of chips coming from a very small range of companies so from that point of view it doesn't really matter what you buy. The software on top makes all the difference and the immaturity of newer platforms such as Android can be a real deal breaker when it comes to e.g. battery life, multimedia support, support for peripherals, etc. There's a difference between running linux on a phone and running it well. Nokia has invested heavily in the latter and employs masses of people specialized in tweaking hardware and software to get the most out of the hardware.

But the real beauty of the N900 for the slashdot crowd is simply the fact that it doesn't require hacks or cracks: Nokia actively supports & encourages hackers with features, open source developer tools, websites, documentation, sponsoring, etc. Google does that to some extent with Android but the OS is off limits for normal users. Apple actively tries to stop people from bypassing the appstore and is pretty hostile to attempts to modify the OS in ways they don't like. Forget about other platforms. Palm technically uses linux but they are still keeping even the javascript + html API they have away from users. It might as well be completely closed source. You wouldn't know the difference.

On the other hand, the OS on the N900 is Debian. Like on Debian, the package manager is configured in /etc/sources.list which is used by dpkg and apt-get, which work just as you would expect on any decent Debian distribution. You have root access, therefore you can modify any file, including sources.list. Much of Ubuntu actually compiles with little or no modification and most of the problems you are likely to encounter relate to the small screen size. All it takes to get to that software is pointing your phone at the appropriate repositories. There was at some point a Nokia sponsored Ubuntu port to ARM even, so there is no lack of stuff that you can install. Including stuff that is pretty pointless on a smart phone (like large parts of KDE). But hey, you can do it! Games, productivity tools, you name it and there probably is some geek out there who managed to get it to build for Maemo. If you can write software and package it as a Debian package and can cross compile it to ARM (using the excellent OSS tooling of course), there's a good chance it will just work.

So, you can modify the device to your liking at a level no other mainstream vendor allows. Having a modifiable Debian linux system with free access to all of the OS on top of what is essentially a very compact touch screen device complete with multiple radios (bluetooth, 3G, wlan), sensors (GPS, motion, light, sound), graphics, dsp, should be enough to make any self respecting geek drool.

Now with the N900 you get all of that, shipped as a fully functional smart phone with all of the features Nokia phones are popular for such as excellent voice quality and phone features, decent battery life (of course with all the radios turned on and video & audio playing none stop, your mileage may vary), great build quality and form factor, good support for bluetooth and other accessories, etc. It doesn't get more open in the current phone market currently and this is still the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world.

In other words, Nokia is sticking out its neck for you by developing and launching this device & platform while proclaiming it to be the future of Nokia smart phones. It's risking a lot here because there are lots of parties in the market that are in the business o

Re:Now they get it.

[the ReviveR]

Too little, too late. Now with Android showing the way, they realize how closed development put them behind. I enjoyed my Nokia phones, but I got frustrated with the lack of development.

Too little? Too late?

You mean full linux platform where you can simply type "sudo gainroot" to get root access?
Platform to which it will be almost trivial to port a huge library of current linux apps?

Personally I really don't like Androids "open". The under the hood it's a closed platform that gives you a Java interface that you can use for most things. No easy porting, not even full Java libraries and carriers can prevent tethering etc. While Android is "open", it's not the same thing as real linux platform in your pocket. Maemo in my mind is something completely different. Something the other manufacturers will have to start catching up.

Nokias hardware has always been great quality, the software has just been dragging behind because Symbian platform just plain sucks. Buying QT and going linux seems like a real killer move to me. Now they just need to dump Symbian and really start spending time and money on Maemo. Hopefully rest of the linux community will gain something from Nokias enormous resources too.

Apple contributes a ton to open source.

[SuperKendall]

Even they are not CONTRIBUTING to open source, more USING open source..

That is totally false.

They are a major contributor to webkit (the engine of Safari). They are a major contributor to GCC in the past, and now the LLVM project.

They also contribute back for all the other technologies you mentioned, and many more like launchd and now blocks/Grand Central.

Apple is one of the few companies to grasp the benefits of open source early, but the benefits are as much in contribution as they are in use - if you keep improvement's to yourself others cannot improve on them.

Re:Now they get it.

[EvilNTUser]

Maemo version 1 was released in 2005 on the Nokia 770. Before Android, before the iPhone. Just because Nokia's roadmap was a bit longer doesn't mean they weren't showing the way.

In six months we'll have all our lightweight desktop apps running on our phones and people will finally realize just how far ahead of everyone else Nokia really is.

Re:Now they get it.

[Krneki]

I hope you are right, I really do.

A bad comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Huge majority of Google's profits come from Internet advertising, which has very little or nothing to do with Open Source. In fact, Google's whole business model largely depends on it closely guarding the search engine's algorithms.

Google has a lot of Open Source projects certainly and I'm not denying that but any such are - in the end - pretty much a sidetrack. "If we have a thousand nice, small projects some of them will hopefully eventually be profitable enough to justify the rest and perhaps even add a whole new sector to our income and others just manage to keep us in the headlines..." Then they opensource some of those projects and that's great.

But Open Source certainly has nothing at all to do with their core business (searching and advertising), quite the opposite.

Re:A bad comparison

[Chandon Seldon]

In fact, Google's whole business model largely depends on it closely guarding the search engine's algorithms.

Not really. What do you think would happen if they published their algorithms? Hint: Nothing. It's not 1999 where Google's results are drastically better than Webcrawler's or whatever. Everyone uses Google. Everyone would keep using Google if someone else popped up and said they had Google's algorithms and a much worse database of sites.

Hell, for all we know Cuil or Bing has the greatest algorithm ever. No one will ever know because they don't go there.

Re:A bad comparison

[WiseWeasel]

The reason Google can't publish their algorithms is due to the huge SEO market, and people continuously reverse-engineering and exploiting it, leading to Google throwing in a new twist, lather, rinse, repeat. Google's results would quickly become irrelevant if their algorithms were known. Competing search engines barely even register as a concern in this case.

Re:"Openness" is a strategy for failure

[Schmorgluck]

UI apart, of course. The usability area is something that definitively the community should focus more.

UI is one thing, but I think the main usability issue of the overwhelming majority of open source projects is the user documentation. Even though nowadays software engineers are often taught about documentation, and even though the community has broadened enough to have some skilled redactors that could contribute that way (if the devs did give a shit), many projects have no documentation worth mentioning.

And I think it's a more important concern than the UI, in most case. New users can be a bit confused by an UI that isn't like what they are used to, it won't be a big concern (at least not for long) if the application, and its UI, is properly documented

!offtopic

[Hatta]

I usually don't complain about moderation, but come on. The parent was claiming that those who used open source software and didn't follow the license would be confronted by people who want to destroy them. I was merely pointing out that using proprietary software and failing to follow the license would get you a visit from the BSA and be much more likely to destroy your business.

Sorry if that was too subtle for you, but in an article about the suitability of open source software for business use a comparison to proprietary software is definitely on topic.

Re:Now they get it.

[CortoMaltese]

In six months we'll have all our lightweight desktop apps running on our phones and people will finally realize just how far ahead of everyone else Nokia really is.

Some heavyweight as well.

Re:Now they get it.

[mdwh2]

Thanks for the info - this is the kind of thing I'd really be interested in seeing. A geek site giving us cutting edge news - instead it's just "Apple Apple Apple now you can get Iphone 3G, and look at a website!", telling us news about the Iphone, 3 years or so after almost every phone on the market has adopted it.

In six months we'll have all our lightweight desktop apps running on our phones and people will finally realize just how far ahead of everyone else Nokia really is.

I hope so. Although I fear it will continue that the media, Slashdot, and many Slashdot readers, will still have this distorted view that the mobile market consists of Apple being number 1, with only Android and maybe Blackberry as some minor competiton. That way some people are talking, it would surprise me if in a few years people claim the mobile phone as an "Apple first" (already I've heard people claim that Apple "popularised" the smartphones - despite the fact that at least two billion non-Apple smartphones are around).