Open Source Musings
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I got quite a bit of feedback from my Open Source editorial yesterday, some of which I managed to get down in the forums before I deleted it. If anyone sent me some and I didn't post it, apologies. It hadn't occurred to me to setup a forum until I saw the suggestion from a few of our longtime members. So, I burned a little development time last night getting the newsletter to automatically generate a forum when I flip a switch. Hopefully I'll remember to do that moving forward.
But on to the Open Source issues. Is Open Source a good way to build software? Well it certainly works, witness Apache, Linux, and more. These are high quality products that are arguable more secure and robust and quicker maturing than Windows.
But they also have some advantages. The have models to copy. If Windows and Unix didn't exist, would Linux be as advanced as it is? Apache grew out of the original World Wide Web project, so perhaps it would be, but it's hard to know. Apple certainly has done wonders with OS X by blending open source and their own engineers. MySQL seems to be still working to catch up with the big three database platforms, and I admit that I'm very curious to see where it is in 5 or 10 years when I'm certain it will have implemented all the same features as those platforms. Will they be able to innovate from there?
Perhaps, as Mike Stonebreaker, one of the people who worked on PostgreSQL and other platforms has moved into streaming database systems. However since most of the large, successful projects seem to have a very small core of people that determine the direction of the software, I wonder if they'll have the vision to innovate or the egos to allow someone else's vision to drive the software. I think Linus has it, but I'm not sold on all of them. If the fabled and brilliant RMS had obtained complete control of Linux early on, I doubt it would have grown as it has. But that's just my opinion.
As someone pointed out, the issues with Open Source v Closed Source software are varied and complex, and a 300 or so word editorial doesn't do them justice. In my mind, I agree with the commentator who pointed out that most of the debate and FUD being circulated around this debate has to do with economic implications. I firmly believe that a great, vast, overwhelming majority of the commerce decisions made today, in companies of any size, say > US$1Billion in revenue, are completely based on economics. Will I sell more widgets?
And that's bad. Business is about business, but business includes ethics, respect, and should drive the economy forward for the greatest good. Capitalism, as practiced today by most companies isn't business. It's managing an investment, squeezing every last dollar from something regardless of the impact to the overall society.
And it's sad.
Steve Jones
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Steve,
I've been working in IT since 1958 one way or another, on all types of systems.
I find the entire "open" OR "closed" discussion quite silly. Both models have their place. Depends on what you are trying to achieve.
For my clients and my purposes I would far rather work on SQL Server 2000 with the knowledge that is has service packs, updates, enhancements, and all the other features and provides a robust, predictable base. I have run several types of businesses in this industry and you can't make a lot of money from open source software per se and that's a bit of a bummer for a software company - most who make money from open source make it from other services in my experience. Furthermore, I don't want to make clients dependent on me - I believe in the upskilling model (ethical, customer in control as they learn, in-house skills development, etc) not the let's suck the customer in and make them dependent forever - which is what happens on a lot of Linux and other open source sites that don't have their own resident Linux guru.
The open source model can in fact be extraordinarily expensive for clients - in one classic case here in Australia one state education department went down that path and after a year found it had cost them FAR more in support, down time and other issues, than going with Windows XP Pro, which is in fact what they went "back" to and similarly with open source office like products and Microsoft Office. They had a very unhappy and very expensive experience, which isn't all that cool when education budgets are already tight. The advice to go down that path was, like a lot of open source advocates, well intended but neither commercially sound nor in the **client's** best interests. People do need to be clear where they are coming from.
Horses for courses, cards on the table as to agendas, and all those other truisms apply. I find many who push open source never had to earn a living with either the software or their services so "gave it away". But I know there are those who disagree. My other pet peeve are academics (I'm ex academic) who push open source religiously but never had to earn a buck with it in their life! Hardly a great recommendation for a serious IT professional.
Cheers!
Russell K Darroch -
I've been interested to read the musings, as I always wondered what it was about open source that got people so excited. Little of value is ever really given away, and it does seem to spawn a myriad of different flavours. At least in the closed source world we have a controlled number of jellies to nail to the wall.
But I must take issue with Steve's suggestion that most commercial decisions in large companies are based on economics. My experience is that most of them are taken through fear. What will my boss think? What will the shareholders think? What will the auditors think? Does it fit with the buzzword I read in that management book I bought at the airport?
The sad thing is that most of the decisions that really drive value are smaller ones taken daily by the cube dwellers. Can I be bothered testing a little longer? Do I need to rethink this algorithm? Should I challenge that practice? And then most of these can be wiped out by management ignorance or destructiveness, or simply by management fear that breeds employee apathy: "I can't be bothered doing that one more test because I'd have to fill in a form and anyway I got no pay rise and they want to move all our jobs to this week's off-shore location."
And today's Dilbert email hasn't even arrived yet.
Bill.
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Bill,
Excellent comment.
A good read is
"Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies"
by James C. Collins, Jerry I. Porras
Still true but forgotten by many companies who are busy cutting costs, scr*wing customers, cutting services, grovelling to shareholders (most of whom have no thought about long term survival, just greed and "my" profit "right now"). I think to a degree Steve is right that they are seen as (so called) economic decisions but I think you've characterized them rather more accurately. There is a lot of bonehead thinking out there in CEO land - usually by people on large contracts with short term, no consequences if it goes bad, bonus packages.
What you say about the cube dwellers is all too true and in turn the apathy leads either to bad products or to departing employees who try to find a better company.
I won't get into the outsourcing and off-shoring topic - would be here for weeks! Can't believe how many CEOs and boards are getting this wrong time and time again. And they even complain because the Chinese workers are stealing their IP ... I mean, DUHHHH. It has been part of Chinese work culture (both Taiwan and Mainland) for a very long time - time honored tradition even!
We have a lot to learn!
Cheers
Russell K Darroch -
Steve said "Capitalism, as practiced today by most companies isn't business." Well, it isn't capitalism either. Read the first part of this article (more if you want to), the part in italics: http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/John's%20Book/Chapters/Chapter3.htm.
As Russell said, Open Source is more of a service model (there are actually several sound business models) but it does not result in dependance on a particular vendor any more than closed source products, probably less. There are some vendors of proprietary systems that require you to bring in their consultants to tell you every little detail about how the system installation is going to work and won't support the system if you don't do it exactly their way. We're talking multi-million-dollar systems here and they want to squeeze every nickel out of the client. At least with most popular open source packages, you can switch vendors if you are unhappy with one.
When it comes to open source vs. closed source, I am pretty much on the fence like Steve. "The best tool for the job" is my philosophy.
Thanks for adding the editorial feature to the forum Steve!!
[font="Tahoma"]Bryant E. Byrd, BSSE MCDBA MCAD[/font]
Business Intelligence Administrator
MSBI Administration Blog -
Bryant,
Good points. I certainly wouldn't argue that some of the IBM and SAP (and many others) types of forced dependence are a good thing. They aren't. But I don't see too many open source solutions challenging SAP. In fact the only challenge to SAP may eventually come from Microsoft's Business Solutions...maybe.
However, in 25 years of consulting in the database and data integration arena I don't see many cases where the client (small to very large) could seriously implement an open source solution without spending way more than they spent on products like SQL Server or Oracle at the high end and it is pretty hard to beat Access (and Paradox in its day) for "value for money" at the small to medium end. The value and stability in all those products is because of a ton of R&D $$$$ and all the other things that go with serious professional, commercial!!!! software development, never mind all the built in integration with all the other (Office and related) products - try doing that with any open source software set - such a "set" doesn't exist. And it didn't happen overnight as you know, it has been evolving (not always smoothly) since 1982 from the early versions of Word and then Excel.
Pesonally I'm never on the fence about open source. I lay out the pros and cons but I state clearly what I believe, in my experience, is in the client's best interests.
Cheers
Russell
MCDBA etc.
Russell K Darroch -
I beleve the "can Open Source innovate?" question is off-the-mark. Open Source will innovate by the same mechanism that Microsoft innovates: from user feedback. One would equally ask "Would Windows be where it is today without Xeroc PARC and the Mach microkernel?". I could argue that Open Source would be more innovative (and I believe it is, perhaps by not being driven by the Lowest Common Denominator approach used by Microsoft), but again, that is not relevant.
The question for a company is "Will Open Source work for me? Do I use a software product that has broad appeal (i.e. lots of interest by enough folks in the Open Source community) and will the direction I take the software be of general use?". If your company needs a very industry- or company- specific vertical market type of tool, then Open Source would not be the way to go, you'd want to bank on a development company dedicated to your specific needs. On the other hand, if your company has a more generic need, and the enhancements and development direction your company needs has broad appeal in the community, then Open Source could be a real possibility. Innovation is largely identifying the need, as in "Gee, it sure would be great if this could do x", and making the need known, whether in a closed or open source environment.
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Great follow up, Steve, thanks! And good work on the forum.
For an awesome article on open source and Brazil, check out this Wired article (it's free!
.I pretty much said everying yesterday (thanks for posting it), but I have to comment on what rkd993 has to say.
No, Open source does not provide more opportunities for vendor lock-in than proprietary systems. By it's very nature it's more open and easier to switch from one vendor to another, or to customize an app if it's not quite working for you.
However, Open Standards have done more to alleviate this lock-in than open source. And standards is something everyone can get behind. Ideologically, the same reason everyone loves open standards should be the same reason everyone loves open source.
There are practical issues to using Open Source software, and there are definite growing pains. Nobody denies this (except maybe Red Hat). However, the FUD Microsoft has been spreading is way off base. The Open Source model IS valid, and it is a threat to the current proprietary software model (hence the FUD), especially internationally.
It will be interesting where this goes. I predict an increase in selling services and a decrease in selling software. I predict open source becoming more proprietary and proprietary becoming more open. I predict 1 billion Chinese people using Linux and not Windows.
In the long run we'll all win with more openness and cooperation. The Internet is making the world more open and connected. We're seeing ProAm's coming together like never before to do useful things (like Linux). We're seeing wikis, blogs, flickr, bittorrent, and other forms of collaborative software and sites.
Anybody who thinks this is a bad thing needs to re-evaluate their worldview. Anybody who thinks we're going to walz into an open future without a fight needs to put down the joint and email their congressman. Better bet businesses/governments are not going to change unless we make them change.
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