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The Way VCs Think About Open Source: Mostly Wrong (infoworld.com)

Posted by timothy on from the broad-brush-paints-both-ways dept.

An anonymous reader writes: In an epic smack-down, Simon Phipps examines a recent article by some VCs with an apparently strong track record in open source startups and finds the way they see the world makes them plain wrong about Red Hat, OSI licenses, Apache and probably everything else they talk about.

7 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Ok, what's a VC? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Even reading the article I'm not sure what they are referring to.

    1. Re:Ok, what's a VC? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1, Insightful

      VC = Venture capitalist

      TLDR: It's quite possible to build a business selling services people don't need on top of open source codebases (e.g., the Red Hat model) because corporations will happily pay for "commercial support" of critical systems, even if no one actually ever uses it.

    2. Re:Ok, what's a VC? by Ravaldy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      because corporations will happily pay for "commercial support" of critical systems, even if no one actually ever uses it

      This critical system support you speak of is why people still buy MS and equivalent competitors. Large businesses that depend on their systems to operate require their suppliers to be accountable. Open source without a support plans = no accountability. For you at home installing OSs because it's fun, that's fine but critical business is exactly that. So the Redhat model is fine. Not all companies can afford to have a top notch Linux Kernel expert, a software developer and whatever else the company needs on staff.

    3. Re:Ok, what's a VC? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Thanks. There is plenty of room on the Internet to have them spell it out at least once in the article.

  2. VCs who miss the point of open source... by JoeMerchant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    VCs who miss the point of open source shouldn't fund it

    False, absolutely false. VCs view investing like a trip to the casino: bet on 20 longshots, hope to manage at least 1 of the 20 to a 100:1 win. Overall ROI: 500%

    Fundamental understanding of the technology behind the business is not required - estimating its chances in the marketplace is.

    Anybody who is seeking VC funding and also believes that the VCs will help them further some ideological agenda is either completely misguided, or attempting to further the ideological agenda that "greed is good."

  3. So ... what? by gstoddart · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Greedy VCs with no concept of open source fund open source so they can ignore principles of open source and make money? So, people who want to make money don't understand something set up to be given away for free?

    Don't get me wrong, the article is interesting in that it's refuting an article written by some VCs without a clue ... but that VCs don't have a clue about open source doesn't surprise me.

    I pretty much expect the VCs and MBAs to be clueless on this topic, because they can't reconcile "free" with the need to leverage synergies and monetize shit.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. Users vs developers by tricorn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The TechCrunch article referenced has a related article link to Where The Free Software Movement Went Wrong, which has the following nugget from a writer discussing the difference between Free Software and Open Source Software:

    Morozov writes that the difference between the two is that free software emphasizes users and that open source emphasizes developers. But I would submit that free software is also primarily interested in developers as well, in that the freedoms it emphasizes are ones that matter to developers, but very little to the rest of us. That’s where the movement went wrong.

    and then goes on to say

    try telling graphic designers that they should use GIMP instead of Photoshop because they can study the code, modify it and release their own version. Or try telling a data analyst why they should use Libre Office instead of Excel, or a musician why they should use Ardour instead of Logic. See how far you get.

    Where I think that goes wrong is one of educating the users, specifically that even if they can't code themselves, Free Software helps them by preventing lock-in. As an example, a friend has a bunch of stuff she worked on years ago, in Appleworks format. While there are still a few programs that can read that format (including Pages), they don't implement everything, fonts are different, pagination is different, etc. If Appleworks had been Free, and the fonts Free, it's much more likely that there would be programs and fonts that could perfectly reproduce what she originally had, and she wouldn't be relying on continuing support from any one source. Alternatively, if MacOS and the Mac ROM had been Free, she'd be able to LEGALLY fire up an emulator to run the original version of Appleworks. Even if she herself hadn't stashed away source code, it's almost certain that someone would have, and what she had wouldn't be locked away behind proprietary walls.

    It's bad enough we have hardware obsolescence, we shouldn't have unnecessary software obsolescence when it's so easy to prevent (the entire source code to the Mac ROM and OS and all the development tools would be a tiny blip on any current storage device, I can transfer the entire hard drive of my first computer (Lisa, 10MB) in a couple seconds to almost anywhere in the world; the cache files for this page are probably larger than a MacPlus ROM image plus an early Mac boot diskette).