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Alan Cox on The Risks of Closed Source Computing
cd-w writes "Alan Cox has written a column for osOpinion regarding the risks of using closed source computing.
A sample quote:
'No company now would commit to a closed hardware strategy. It would cost them more than using commodity components. Just as importantly, it would commit them to a single source for support and parts. Why then do they commit to a single software supplier? A closed source strategy exposes the company to serious business risk. As many telephony companies have discovered, your OS supplier might suddenly decide to be your competitor.'
" As always, Alan writes well and explains why the commodization of information has critical bearing on the success of the open source movement.
The biggest problem with OSS is that there are always people willing to fix your software for you or upgrade it for free. That's a hell of a big assumption. Right now, the economy is good, so there are lots of college kids and uber-geeks with enough free time to write code for free, great. What if the economy goes in the toilet? What if OSS isn't "cool" anymore (I don't happen to think that it is)? OSS relies on people's good nature to get software written. That's just plain crazy! No company, with any kind of clue, would base something as important as their computers' OS on people's good nature. Anybody who does, deserves to, and more than likely will get hit in the face for it. You simply don't get shit for free. You're kidding yourself if you think that you do.
You make an erroneous assumption. The affects of 'Good Will' on the OSS industry are secondary to the driving force of Self Interest. The people who hack on linux are people who want their OS to do more than the commercial alternatives. No one does work on OSS just out of the goodness of their heart, they do it because they want to see a certain feature develop for their own use. They don't care if anyone else uses it, as long as they get to use it. Good will is secondary.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
No company now would commit to a closed hardware strategy. It would cost them more than using commodity components. Just as importantly, it would commit them to a single source for support and parts. Why then do they commit to a single software supplier ?
:-)
This one statement is just so unbelievably wrong..
Now before you get all upset, I love open source as much as any of you. OSS is a great, good, noble thing.. So keep that in mind..
It's fairly obvious that Alan Cox really doesn't fully understand the business mind, which is understandable, since nobody but a business mind can grasp it.
Companies DO commit to closed hardware solutions. Companies WILL put pretty much their entire revenue in the hands of their suppliers. This happens often. Daily. Hourly.
Why? Companies are run by people in management who don't care about "the right way" to do something. Heck, most of the time they don't bother to analyse the long-term effects of their actions. A company wants to make money, and they want to make it NOW. Sure, they'd like to make it later too, but if we can make more NOW, that's the important thing. I have to deal with this mentality all the time.
Similarly, in a production environment, downtime is unacceptable. Companies need guaranteed, strong, support. But they need something else: they need multiple sources of support.
Of COURSE a company would rather buy a closed source software system, and trust them for support. Why? Shifting of blame. Remember that a company usually does not make the decision to have a software system designed for them. No, a person in management who works for the company makes that decision. If it doesn't work, he gets the blame. By going with a closed-source app custom made for them, they have someone to blame when it breaks. They have someone to push around to fix it. The guy who made the call to get this system probably will keep his job when it fails (and all systems will fail eventually).
However, let's say he's got brains. Let's say he knows that the open-source app is the better way to go. In terms of support, you can't beat it. Thousands of people working on it? GREAT! But, the downside is this: How do you push around people who work for essentially nothing in their spare time? Quick answer: you don't. You have no leverage. If your system breaks, and they can't fix it quickly, you're more or less screwed. Even if you KNOW this will never happen, you can't prove it to a board of directors, can you? The simple possiblity that it could happen is enough to make you reject the open source concept. Better for it to fail fairly often and have someone who you can blame than to have it fail rarely and have all the blame yourself.
Now I don't say this is right. But this is how the management in the companies I work for (read: program custom apps for) think... This is based on my limited experience, your mileage may vary, type of thing...
One more thing:
In many ways the motor car is a very good example of the fact that the open source model is not something revolutionary, as Bob Young is so keen to point out - it is the model we use in almost all serious grown up industry.
HAHAHAHAHAH! One of those things I program custom apps for is several motor companies. Many programs I have written are on the line at several plants now. I have to go to these places to install and maintain these apps I have written. This stuff is a closed-source as it gets, my friend. Automobile manufacturers are one of THE MOST custom application, closed-source, driven industries in the entire world. WHOLE SYSTEMS that exist on these production lines are not only custom software, but custom HARDWARE from ONE COMPANY. One company makes the hardware AND the software. If that system goes down in any large way, SO DOES THE LINE. Neat, huh? Get a tour sometime of your nearest car production plant. Watch the systems hanging from the line very very closely. None are open-source. Not one.
Just my $0.02...
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
However, he's addressing managers and techies at large here, and notice how he doesn't try to sell Open Source, but rather outlines flaws in the Closed Source model. That's the best way to go about it: point out a loss opportunity for profit, then propose an intelligent alternative.
Is it FUD? Well, no. FUD spreads ideas that are barely grounded in fact. This is advocacy: it is a clear argument with a definitive target audience, and it exposes a flaw of Closed Source quite simply.
I think all OS advocates should take note. Selling advantages of OS may not be the way to do it, because managers believe they already have a system that fulfills all their needs, and will be wont to change for the simple promise of more features. Managers won't switch from NT to Linux for the same reason they take forever to upgrade, say, from Solaris 2.6 to 7: they want to play it safe, and new features won't come into play unless they know they have a definite disadvantage.
However, when you present an OS advantage as a shortcoming in CS, you're speaking their language. You're showing them where they're not making money, and to a manager or CEO, not making money is worst than losing money.
The problem is that we geeks and them managers speak a different language. Contrast the following statements:
"Linux offers greater stability than NT."
"NT suffers from outages that cost money to the enterprise. One solution is to use a more stable platform, such as Linux."
Sure, we'd love to sell OS's merit on its own. Someday, when OS has gained mainstream recognition, we'll be able to. But for now, I think Cox's strategy is very sound.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
I know there are some people with a deep seated and sometimes inexplicable opposition to the GPL (Brett Glass mysteriously leaps to mind) but I'm sure there are those who don't actually realize that you *can* sell your stuff under the GPL - in fact, I had this discussion only yesterday with a guy on a private news server. He was genuinely under the impression that the GPL forbade you from making commercial gain from your code. He had no objection to giving away the source to his product but he wanted to sell it and services based on it. And why not?
Maybe the OSS community needs to make some education type noises, as well as pointing out the benefits of the development model.
--
Peter
But strange things are afoot.
I work in an extreemly beurocratic pro-Microsoft environment. When it comes to IT, decisions are made here that can match any PHB anywhere else. But there are strange undercurrents.
The other day I was happily doing my own thing. From the office behind me comes "Damn this Windows - damn Microsoft". Another admin. doing some trendy Microsoft-bashing? Nope. This was uttered from a decisively non-tech-oriented budget analyst. A year ago, it probably would have been "damn computers". Now Microsoft is getting the blame for her system crashing. The claim is made that the "masses" accept buggy software and computers crashing... that they don't understand the problem. I think this is an example of a change in understanding. The backlash towards Microsoft is coming.
Our organization has had an interesting history. One IT director kicked a hornets nest when he tried to route out Apple from the environment. The Mac fans faught back. It was messy. In the end, the Apple contingent took some hits... but apples are still on site. With this kind of history, what hope does Linux have? One organizations has built their own "standard load" consisting of a dual-boot site-standard Windows and Linux (not sure which distro). Meanwhile, the contractor for the majority of our IT resources has gotten requests to design a linux-based "standard load".
This doesn't mean that life here has dramatically changed for the IT worker. Its still tightly controlled by PHBs with Microsoft sales brochures firmly grasped in their fists. But even here... small cracks are evident. One can't help but muse whether these are signs that the damn is about to burst. Maybe the industry is ready to change how it does business.
Notice : pushed by a vendor. They want to lock you
into their higher ram prices, their higher scsi
disk prices.
Who is getting annoyed - you the customer. Its up
to you (or more likely your boss) to spot the problem.
Alan
Totally correct. Thats why they go to Red Hat,
to Linuxcare and want contracts. But they can go
to multiple people for that support.
A large closed source vendor can do what it likes,
so if you think about it they are offering 'good will' support - for a fee.
The Microsoft's, the IBMs, the Novells of this world have a lot to lose, in terms of customers who are no longer tied to their existing products
The number one reason for a large company like this to go Open Source is customer demand (I'm guessing IBM took on Apache because they realised that Apache was what the customer wanted).
Moral? -- keep evangelising. We have advertising budgets up against us.
--
The best thing about this article is that first posters can mention Beowulf clusters and actually be on topic. Thanks, Alan!
It's an interesting sound bite piece, but I think he fails to address the main area of resistance to Open Source, the loss of intellectual property. If a software company has a long R&D before receiving any income on a product, then they immediately release that product as Open Source, competitors can use the source code at no charge.
Of course, the competitors could not possibly understand the product as well as the inventors, so no PHB in his right mind would choose a cheaper solution over a better solution, right?
A middle-ground solution could be providing the source code to the company with the provision that it can't be disclosed to a competitor. That is, use a very limited source code liscense rather than Open Source.
This doesn't apply to the use of the Linux operating system in the workplace, which is, of course, a win-win solution. The initial investment has been recouped by the inventor(s) and only goodness can follow in the wake of this ship of code. (insert birds chirping happily)
I've put a copy (not as nicely formatted tho) on
http://www.linux.org.uk/FEATURE/risk.html to help
spread the load a bit.
Alan
I'm writing because, while Alan's analogy above makes sense (by comparing close hardware to closed software), it's inherently flawed.
Companies DO commit to closed hardware solutions. And for the same reason they commit to closed hardware solutions, I believe they'll continue (in some cases) to commit to closed software solutions. It's sad, but true. On the other hand, it's not a lost battle, and it's not an omnipotent problem. It doesn't have to be this way everywhere....but it will continue to be this way in some places.
My example: Just a few weeks ago, the call went out that we needed some new workstations. Not TONS of them, just 2. The matter was discussed and I said almost exactly what Alan said: "Buy commodity parts for the computers, and they'll last you longer. Total cost of ownership will be less. We'll all be happy." They all looked at me and said "You're right, but we want cheaper machines and we can get these barebones systems for $300." SO in the end, I lost, and we bought systems where everything was hardwired to the motherboard...which is pretty damn closed.
This attitude, namely the "It's cheaper, and we don't have to worry about it once we've bought it" really attracts companies to closed solutions. They're wrong and they will have to worry about it once they've bought it....but they still, in many places, equate "closed" to mean "finished" and/or "solid". Yuck.
Werd.
I put a copy of the text of the article here
http://ubasics.com/adam/commodity.shtml
Enjoy!
-Adam
Generally, I agree with Alan Cox. The advantages of proprietary, closed-source software (e.g., having a corporate entity to call or sue) are dubious at best, and the advantages of open-source software (e.g. community and multi-vendor support) are typically not understood by corporations.
However, I can't agree with his conclusion. He argues that running a proprietary OS is untenable. This isn't really realistic. At my last company, we had problems when we had to bounce important machines because they had been up so long (~2 years), that no-one had been around or could remember what to do when they came down (this was a problem of poor planning). The point is that, despite the fact that we were running a proprietary, closed-source OS (Solaris) on proprietary hardware (from the same company as the OS, no less!) we had as much stability as anyone has the right to expect.
The advantages of open-source are both obvious and important. There is a great support mechanism (the community itself). However, that mechanism, while typically very responsive, isn't truly "responsible", in that no-one is required to support anything. The formalized, "responsible" support mechanism for open-source software, of which Alan writes, is new, and I have yet to see a comprehensive review of the OSS support companies. When these companies reach a level of maturity (both experience + time) comparable to that of very good proprietary software company, they will be able to add much more to the community than simply saying, "Hey, we exist."
The best thing we can do is, of course, OSS advocacy. I selected my most recent job in part because it leans to OSS instead of the proprietary. But closed-source is, for now, the way some organizations and individuals will go, and I have trouble saying to them, "You're wrong."
I know many will disagree with me, so if you must, flame on.
-Josh
I liked the article. It uses (and acknowledges) lots of the ideas expressed by Bob Young.
I've used the analogy of the automobile with Open Source as well. But I wonder, with today's new techno cars, are we going back to "closed sourced" vendors? If, let's say, Ford comes with some new high tech fuel injection, or even a new engine design all together, and patents it. Will the normal mechanic be able to fix it? Dealers make a lot of money off of maintenance, does Ford get some of that too? If not, then Ford doesn't have a problem with sharing the "innards" of the design. Just licensing it. Food for thought.
Second, I like to mention another aspect of Open Source. Several years ago, a buzz word called "COTS" (Commercial Off The Shelf) was used by management. I was one to suffer under this. I had to make closed sourced tools do things that they were not designed to because it was a COTS product, and was considered "cheaper". Well, in the long run it was not. I wrote about the same amount of "glue" code to get it working that the time and effort was almost the same as doing the desired tool from scratch. But now we have licensing fees and we don't have a product nearly as good.
I've shared a term before called Modifiable COTS. This is what Open Source is. The whole COTS idea was not to reinvent the wheel. To let someone else do it and use a commodity tool that would be less expensive than a customized one. But this failed because commodity tools where always general. Good for the basic purpose, but not good for all specific needs. But with Open Sourced tools, you have a tool that is "off the shelf" and good for the basic purpose. But where Open Source leaves COTS is that you can tweak it to your needs. Thus the term "Modifiable COTS".
Third point.
A competitor of ours has a board that runs Linux. We use another "closed" source OS for our board. The few of use that realize the benefits of Linux has brought this to the attention of our Upper management. But they still don't understand the technical details. But we were able to (after lots of complaints to the management) get a unfunded OK to do a work study on porting to Linux. If this does well, then it will be a BIG boost for the Linux community. This article may have helped in the effort! Thanks Alan.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Just yesterday I experienced a good examples of the kind of craziness Alan Cox is describing. A colleague asked me a question about LaTeX, which he said he was using on one of our Suns. My boss, listening in, said he should quit using LaTeX and start using a "real" document format. "In this country," he said (we're in Germany), "there is a de facto document format, and it's called .doc!"
Now my boss is not your everyday PHB -- he's pretty clueful on technical matters, in fact, and didn't mean that this is a good situation, but just a fact of life, albeit an unfortunate one. I can see what he means, but nevertheless I've been muttering to myself with anger ever since that conversation. This so-called document standard (he's talking about MS Word, in case you didn't get it), is a secret! And not only that, the secret gets changed, secretly, at least once a year, so you have to shell out hundreds year after year, just to keep using the "standard"!
I think this exemplifies just what Alan is saying. It's simply crazy that businesses put up with such a situation. In any traditional manufacturing business, no vendor could ever get away with it, and yet millions of businesses tolerate this kind of treatment with their office software, paying billions for nothing and all the while insisting that they're being economically rational.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind