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Businesses Programming IT Technology

Corporations Getting Into The Open Source Spirit 181

Posted by timothy from the defuse-use-abuse-reuse-infuse dept.
Anonymous writes "Some bastions of capitalism are getting into the open-source spirit -- not only using the software, but contributing code fixes and other mods, according to an article in today's Computerworld."
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Corporations Getting Into The Open Source Spirit More

Corporations Getting Into The Open Source Spirit

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  • Getting the corporate word out (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skillet-thief ( 622320 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:04PM (#5680142) Homepage Journal

    The most surprising thing in an article like this is the fact that it is getting written at all. It used to be that only MS would get this kind of rah-rah journalism, but the tide seems to be turning.

    Now, stuff like this seems to be showing up all the time. I wonder what single thing tripped off this new trend.

    • Re:Getting the corporate word out (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kentyman ( 568826 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:09PM (#5680172)
      I wonder what single thing tripped off this new trend.

      What makes you think it was a single thing? In my opinion, it was a long time coming.

    • Re:Getting the corporate word out (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dtolton ( 162216 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:11PM (#5680178) Homepage
      It's really nice to see an introductory article written on Open Source. Particularly one written in a positive light, and without reference to Geeks or Zealots.

      I wonder how long it will take the M$ team to start churning out response articles alleging that Open Source is destroying capitalism.
      • Particularly one written in a positive light, and without reference to Geeks or Zealots.

        Refreshing isn't it.

        I wonder how long it will take the M$ team to start churning out response articles alleging that Open Source is destroying capitalism.

        Good thing it didn't last long. Real journalism doesn't need to mention zealots. Slashdot does it well enough.
        • hey, if there were no zealots, then the moderates would suck.

      • No question that this kind of piece represents a landmark in the progress of open source software.

        For me, the most significant landmark will be when the Linux kernel dev mailing list starts getting contributions from someone at microsoft.com.

        A few other things (involving pigs and snowballs) will probably transpire before that time comes, though, I'm sure.

    • Re:Getting the corporate word out (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jdray ( 645332 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:40PM (#5680338) Homepage Journal
      The most surprising thing in an article like this is the fact that it is getting written at all.

      Agreed. And it has been a long time coming. I work in the electric utility industry, and I've been trying to convince my management that embracing the open source model is the only thing we can do to make dramatic changes in our bottom line in these times. Unfortunately, they laid people off around here instead. Well, okay, that's a little unfair, but not too much.

      Our industry, as I suspect is the case with a lot of industries, is bursting with opportunities for community-built standards-based software. Instead, we'd rather pay vendors and consultants millions of dollars for niche market software that we don't understand. Bah!

      Sometimes it's hard to keep up the fight. It's a good thing I've got /. to keep my spirits high!

      JD

    • I wonder how long it will take the M$ team to start churning out response articles alleging that Open Source is destroying capitalism.

      Open Source helps capitalism. These companies that have implemented, and then contributed any changes back into the community have saved time and money. This saving from not re-inventing the wheel benefits employees (who can spend more time innovating), managers, shareholders etc. Microsoft have no argument against Open Source (in terms of the development model, rather tha

    • I dunno, but I'll bet Malcom Gladwell's [gladwell.com] book, The Tipping Point, might have some insights. "a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does."
    • I would guess that the industry rags are no longer getting the bulk of their ad revenue from Microsoft or any of its competitors. Instead the ads are selling web services, routers, CRM applications, and other things in which Microsoft is not a player.

      These publications can aford to be brutally honest with everyone except their one or two largest advertisers and I bet Microsoft is no longer in that club.

      Anchordesk continues to say glowing things about Microsoft products though, and almost every issue come

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by stanmann ( 602645 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:09PM (#5680160) Journal
    DARPA supports BSD, and now big business buying Open source. Either sanity is breaking out everywhere or the apocolypse is coming soon to a planet near you.
    • I think it will take a few more, and even more impressive, events, but perhaps we are looking at the end of the Crazy Years?

      -Rusty

  • yea, but how? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by matt4077 ( 581118 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:09PM (#5680164) Homepage
    I run a moderately-sized software company.

    We use a lot of open source software, so I'm always looking for good ways to contribute to the oss-movement, but the consequences are too difficult to judge.

    We actually thought about making our source open for the benefit of non-profit organisations (it's a project-management software).
    Has anybody made any experience with something like this? We are talking about enterprise-level software here, not your average free-for-students-ide.

    • Re:yea, but how? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by MAXOMENOS ( 9802 )
      You could try what Zimmerman did with PGP: license it for free for non-commercial and personal use, and offer a commercial version. It made PGP a de-facto standard until only very recently.

      The downside is, Zimmerman's employers didn't have much commercial success during the recession.

    • Re:yea, but how? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ogerman ( 136333 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:16PM (#5680557)
      We actually thought about making our source open for the benefit of non-profit organisations (it's a project-management software). Has anybody made any experience with something like this? We are talking about enterprise-level software here..

      I think it depends on how much your revenue stream relies on this software. It also depends on how similar your software is to existing free solutions (there are dozens of OSS project management packages, for example..) I firmly believe that there is plenty of money in providing free software, but you can't just jump right into it blindly without first thinking about how you're actually going to make money. (assuming the software *itself* is currently a significant source of revenue.. if not, there's no excuse for it to be closed) In my experience, customers have two criteria when choosing software: 1.) a solution that works perfectly for their needs and 2.) software that is reliably supported in case something goes wrong or the sysadmin quits or whatever. Neither of those require proprietary licensing to find a market. It's all about TCO. If you don't charge money for licensing, you can afford to charge *more* for support / customization services as long as what you offer is still overall cheaper / better than your competitors' solutions.

      It is true that some potential customers will choose to free-ride on the software if it is openly licensed. However, those who do this also tend to be the ones with enough technical experience to contribute back.. to fix your bugs, offer valuable suggestions, or even add features that paying customers will then enjoy. And if not, there's no reason to feel like you must support them in any way. They're using the software as-is and if they need help, they must pay for a support contract.

      Choice of open source licenses is also important. Using the BSD license potentially helps your proprietary competitors and should be avoided. (it allows them to take your code, modify it, and then *sell* it as a different and closed-source product.) GPL and many others force modifications to be re-released to the community. So even if a competitor was to decide to base their business on software you originally developed, they can't claim any rights to modifications and improvements. All they can do is offer competing support services. In practice, this is unlikely because they will lack credibility, product image, and your own intimate knowledge of the code. There are, of course, other licensing choices. You can, for example, forbid forks of the code into new projects or require that the certain trademarks, product names, and credits remain intact. Technically, this makes the software less than free, but it's still better than closed source from a purist perspective.

      And remember, you can always experiment.. try opening up some software and see how it goes. Good luck! (:
    • We use a lot of open source software, so I'm always looking for good ways to contribute to the oss-movement, but the consequences are too difficult to judge.

      Perhaps you're looking in the wrong spot. I think the article is pointing out that if you use OSS, then contribute back to that project, not necessarily open source your own project.

      For example, where I work we do a lot of Java Enterprise Development. Most of it is in house stuff and it's closed source. But we use A LOT of open source project

    • Carefully consider this, it could make or break your business if you do not proceed carefully.

      Take some time out to read:

      The Magic Cauldron [catb.org]
      Open Source: A Case for Business [opensource.org]
      Zope: How we reached the decision [zope.org]
      Open Source as a Business Strategy [oreilly.com]

      There is a lot more information on the topic, feel free to email me if you need a hand with anything

    • We actually thought about making our source open for the benefit of non-profit organisations (it's a project-management software). Has anybody made any experience with something like this? We are talking about enterprise-level software here.

      You can always find a bunch of open source zealots who will claim that any software should be open sourced. Typically they are not the people responsible for making payroll each month.

      I think determining the suitability of a given system for open source can be based

  • This corporate angle... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:09PM (#5680171)
    ...has spawned a whole magazine [yahoo.com] already. That does certainly suggest Linux is ready for prime time.

  • Security Risk? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BarryJacobsen ( 526926 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:11PM (#5680179) Homepage
    We're now trying to set up [an online] repository of which state agencies are using open source and for what projects

    So you're going to create a database telling people exactly what software government agencies use and give them the code. Does anyone else see this as a security risk?

    • Re:Security Risk? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Daniel_Staal ( 609844 ) <DStaal@usa.net> on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:24PM (#5680260)

      No. An attacker can already find out, (It is not hard usually.) and this way people can directly contribute to those projects in use in their area.

      And they can also check to see if it would be making errors that would affect them. And fix them. This is an advantage.

    • Re:Security Risk? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:31PM (#5680288) Homepage Journal
      So businesses and govornments are going to use software that anyone can see the source code for. Does anyone else see this as a security risk?

      Of course knowing exactly what software a government agency uses poses a potential security risk. At the same time this gives people who are monitoring security risks a list of the contacts that it makes a lot of sense to notify when a vulnerability in that code comes up.

      As a comparison point, when code red, nimda, and slammer came out, was there any kind of list of agencies or businesses that should be notified of that fact? I suspect that well over 90% of the agencies and businesses were made aware of the existence of the problem by their own systems responding unusually.

      -Rusty
      • So businesses and govornments are going to use software that anyone can see the source code for. Does anyone else see this as a security risk?

        Businesses and "govornments" are using hardware, electricity and even a sort of carbon-based lifeforms as employees we all know the exact specs of (well almost in the latter case). How is that for a security risk?

        If only government employees were closed source mutants that can't get infected with anthrax and run off of 431.8 Volts!

    • That's why I argue strongly for the status quo.


      Sure, it's a safe bet that your favorite govt. agency is currently using a Microsoft enterprise application to exchange email and calendaring information. But WHICH ONE! Ha! Which is why the so-called "email virus" remains a mythical notion.

  • Not exactly news ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:11PM (#5680180) Homepage Journal
    Back in the 70's, IBM came out with their VM meta-OS. Its origins were in academia, not in IBM's shops, and in all the installations that I saw, it always came with full source. They actively encouraged customers to submit not just bug reports, but fixes, which were then sent out to other customers.

    In one place that I worked around 1980, there was a big IMB mainframe, and one day we brought in some Amdahl people to demo their unix that ran on VM. One question was whether source was available. Their answer was "The source isn't an option; you get it whether you want it or not." Within a couple of weeks, I'd made a small fix to the kernel's clock routine (needed because the turkeys who ran our VM had screwed up their clock in a way that Amdahl's people hadn't conceived of ;-). I emailed the fix to the Amdahl support people, they thanked me, and it was in their next set of patches.

    Closed source was to a great extent an invention of Microsoft. Before them, it was obvious to even the stupidest manager that it was a good idea to make source available to any programmers who could understand it. That way, you got bug fixes rather than bug reports.

    It's actually a bit strange that we now have management that doesn't understand this. What are they teaching them in business schools these days?

    • The business schools that are being funded by Microsoft, or the business schools that are being funded by the Open Source community?

    • Re:Not exactly news ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sheldon ( 2322 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:35PM (#5680724)
      "Closed source was to a great extent an invention of Microsoft."

      Microsoft has created many inventions, but closed source is not one of them, neither are ridiculous licensing practices and so on and so forth.

      That being said, I'd like to understand how you're going to solve the problem of receiving payment for software? Pretend for a moment that we aren't living in the world of proprietary hardware like Sun, IBM, etc and you therefore don't receive revenues from such...

      I think the idea of Open Source, being that the source code is available with the product has great value.

      However people who create software still need to be paid for their work, and the only way to do that is to control dissemination of the software.

      The problem with most open source advocatacy is that they don't address the second issue.

      • Re:Not exactly news ... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by runderwo ( 609077 ) <runderwo@mail.win.OPENBSDorg minus bsd> on Monday April 07, 2003 @04:23PM (#5681505)
        That being said, I'd like to understand how you're going to solve the problem of receiving payment for software?
        You don't receive payment for the software. It's that simple. It becomes a commodity.

        How do you make money as a software company? Two ways. 1) Dual license GPL and sell a proprietary-friendly license. The GPL gets you the community, the proprietary-friendly license gets you the money. 2) Develop new features under contract. There are many ways to structure this, use your imagination. For example, customer wants a new database feature in MySQL. MySQL AB says "place a bid on it and we'll tell you if it's do-able or not". Customer says "$xx,xxx" and MySQL AB says yes or no based on that number and their development resources.

        No, you don't maintain control over when and where your software gets distributed. That's the tradeoff you make to receive community effort and goodwill in return, towards building a better product and giving customers what they want.

        • No, you don't maintain control over when and where your software gets distributed. That's the tradeoff you make to receive community effort and goodwill in return

          And all you have to do is browse /. and sourceforge to get a pretty clear idea, respectively, of how little that "community and goodwill" is actually worth. Hint: It won't make up for giving away the product of your labor.

          OSS is great for hobbyist level projects (which can be very complete, very useful applications), but real world examples of

          • And all you have to do is browse /. and sourceforge to get a pretty clear idea, respectively, of how little that "community and goodwill" is actually worth. Hint: It won't make up for giving away the product of your labor.

            Many companies who live by the "give away the razor, sell the blades" model would disagree with you. In addition, people hacking on a piece of software because they love it and demanding no pay in return is all the more value added to the product at no cost to the company.

            As far as the s

            • Last time I checked, a reloadable razor was often far more expensive than it cost to produce, usually has the razor attachment/release mechanism patented, and if you copied the design (the appearance) you'd find yourself in court pretty fast. They aren't giving away the razor by any stretch of the imagination. That example would be more like buying IBM's DB2 (a big-dollar razor) and then hiring IBM's consulting services (the blades) to help you implement it.

              Besides, the comment I replied to took the very

      • However people who create software still need to be paid for their work, and the only way to do that is to control dissemination of the software.

        You haven't read Eric S. Raymonds' essay "The Magic Cauldron", have you? He lists seven case studies in profitable open source with the names of companies that make money utilizing (or in his opinion could make more money moving to) a an open source method. I'll let you find his essay to read all seven--I'm presenting here just the two most compelling success stor

        • "You haven't read Eric S. Raymonds' essay "The Magic Cauldron", have you?"

          Eric S. Raymond's way to profit is to be a loud mouth, get himself hooked up with a company about to do an IPO during the dot-com bubble, and get himself a bunch of free stock.

          He's yet to actually do anything successful with his life that created value.

          "I generally don't adress profitability myself in my advocacy -- I refer people to (what I consider to be) the definitive research on the topic."

          Which there is, of course, no defini

          • It's somewhat funny that your list of software companies would miss software giants like IBM, HP, Sun, and Oracle, all of which are now actively selling Free Software based systems. HP and IBM have both tossed out the word "billion" when talking about Linux revenues.

            Besides which, for every Adobe or Symantec, there are hundreds of commercial software companies that have gone bankrupt. So pretending that commercial software is some sort of Yellow Brick Road to software fortune is more than a little misle

            • HP and IBM have both tossed out the word "billion" when talking about Linux revenues.

              I'm not going to contest this statement, but I'd like to point out two things:

              1. The $billion figures most people are familiar with with IBM & such is their investment figures; I avoid mentioning such cases first in case the other person misunderstands what I am saying.
              2. IBM and (to a lesser extent) HP are hardware behemoths that can afford a large loss leader product. (Just look at Microsoft, where the OS and Applicatio

              • Money is money, it doesn't really matter who is making it. In fact, the article I was responding to derided the success of "Mom and Pop" software houses.

                The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of businesses that are making money from Free Software. Free Software allows smaller development houses to offer their customers custom software at a pre-packaged price. In many ways the real benchmark isn't who is making money, but who is saving money. There are many more businesses that are saving money

            • "HP and IBM have both tossed out the word "billion" when talking about Linux revenues. "

              HP and IBM are hardware companies. Most people I know of do not wish to go back to the days of being beholden to proprietary hardware. If you do, why don't you just go buy a Macintosh and leave us alone.

              "Besides which, for every Adobe or Symantec, there are hundreds of commercial software companies that have gone bankrupt."

              But for every Adobe and Symantec there are thousands of commercial software companies that are

              • HP and IBM are hardware companies. Most people I know of do not wish to go back to the days of being beholden to proprietary hardware. If you do, why don't you just go buy a Macintosh and leave us alone.

                What does it matter that HP and IBM are hardware companies if both support Linux? Migrating from one architecture to another is as easy as typing "make." I personally like being able to choose between Intel-based hardware, an IBM mainframe, or SGI's Altix and be able to drag my software along with me.

                I

      • However people who create software still need to be paid for their work, and the only way to do that is to control dissemination of the software.

        That's simply not true. There are other ways to make money off of software; it's just that restricting dissemination and use of the software has been the laziest route to do so.

        The development team typically has a thorough understanding of the software, and can offer customization and training for a price. There are always going to be people or organizations who
        • "That's simply not true. There are other ways to make money off of software; it's just that restricting dissemination and use of the software has been the laziest route to do so."

          I see... Perhaps you could go into detail?

          "The development team typically has a thorough understanding of the software, and can offer customization and training for a price."

          Which now creates an incentive to write shitty software which requires customization and training.

          This is not beneficial to the consumer.

          "Open-source pro
      • I'd like to understand how you're going to solve the problem of receiving payment for software?

        I'd like to understand you you're going to solve the problem of carpenters receiveing payment for building houses?

        Or of Archetects receiving payment for designing them?

        Or of doctors receiving payment for treating the sick?

        Hint: Software is really a service industry. Even Microsoft is beginning to catch on to this.
        • "I'd like to understand you you're going to solve the problem of carpenters receiveing payment for building houses?"

          There doesn't seem to be a problem. Carpenters only work for people paying them, and very few people receive free houses.

          "Or of Archetects receiving payment for designing them?"

          Architects are very protective of their work. They will and have sued people for using their designs without payment.

          "Or of doctors receiving payment for treating the sick?"

          Again, not a problem.

          "Hint: Software i
      • However people who create software still need to be paid for their work, and the only way to do that is to control dissemination of the software.

        Bull. Lots of people get paid to write software which doesn't have controled dissemination. RedHat pays them, IBM pays them, SuSE pays them, Sun pays them, a bunch of companies pay them. How far it will extend, and in what ways, is a good question, but it's clear that selling shinkwrapped boxes and support is one solution, as is selling customizations to the cust
    • What are they teaching them in business schools these days?

      Maybe it's "don't give away the thing you sell"...

    • "Closed source was to a great extent an invention of Microsoft."

      Well, I guess when you add the phrase "to a great extent" just about anything could be true. The fact is that MS was not the first company to keep it's source code private and consequently did not invent closed source. Perhaps you work for the US patent office and therefore have no sense of prior art.
    • There is a rather major difference between the situation you describe in the 70's and the situation now - in those days the source code was still controlled by the hardware manufacturer (IBM, Amdahl etc), and any patches you submitted became part of their 'intellectual property' (to use that corporate-mindset word).

      Now major software such as GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, Samba, MySQL etc are under licenses that effectively keep access to the codebase open and free from any ultimate control by one single enti

  • Clause... (Score:2, Funny)

    by st0rmcold ( 614019 )

    Surely they missed the "no sex" clause in the EULA to join the linux community, how else would it be possible?

  • Goodwill as an asset? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fritz Benwalla ( 539483 ) <randomregs@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:17PM (#5680222)

    This got me wondering.

    Bug fixes and other contributions to open source software are in and of themselves valuable, but creating them will always be an expense to companies. With the exception of major enhancements or improvements very few will be marketable, or generate any other revenue stream for the company.

    "Goodwill" however, is a recognized asset for companies. An asset that can be appraised, and entered on the balance sheet raising the company's value.

    I wonder whether the open source movement could benefit from this aspect of contribution to the community, encouraging companies to create a verifyable and appraisable track record of contributions, and supporting their efforts to create genuine bankable value based on goodwill.

    Just a thought.

    ------

    • Re:Goodwill as an asset? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by derF024 ( 36585 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:28PM (#5680285) Homepage Journal
      Bug fixes and other contributions to open source software are in and of themselves valuable, but creating them will always be an expense to companies.

      actually, the article talks about exactly this.

      What's the payoff? It makes for better software. "If we find a bug or a problem, we're interested in fixing that problem. We're also interested in not fixing it again in the next version," explains Robert M. Lefkowitz, director of open-source strategy at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York.

      contributing to open source projects ends up costing these companies less, because they don't need to maintain an internal version of the software.
    • I think you may be taking "goodwill" too literally. It doesn't mean "people think warm thoughts towards you" as much as it does brand names and things like that, that are worth money but intangible.

      Maybe scoring brownie points with some open-source developers would constitute genuinely valuable goodwill, but it would have to be justified on a case by case basis.

    • Not really. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mckwant ( 65143 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:36PM (#5680315)
      You're misinterpreting goodwill, which, IIRC, is defined as the difference between the book value of a company's assets and the price paid for it in an acquisition. It's often interpreted (at least by me) as a function of the value of the brand associated with the acquired company.

      i.e. Amazon's actual assets are probably miniscule compared to its stock price, but the value of the marketable name is substantial.

      Also note that you'd have to be able to associate a value for the contribution in question, which, since the code is released to the world for free, is pretty close to nil. As such, it's a stone cold expense.

      Unless, of course, you're trying to build positive karma within the OSS community, which is certianly possible, but probably shouldn't show up on a balance sheet.

    • Re:Goodwill as an asset? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Beatbyte ( 163694 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:49PM (#5680384) Homepage
      goodwill creates a REPEAT customerbase.

      I would tend to trust and appreciate a company more that has spent its money to better the world of OSS and the world of computing with the interest in making a better product for everyone and not just its customers...

  • In related news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rooked_One ( 591287 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:19PM (#5680238) Journal
    the value of a MCSE drops another 20 G's a year.
    • I was going to say, "The value can drop 20g's and not be a negative integer?" and then I smiled and remembered the difference between intrinsic and market value.

      I wish intrinsic and market value were always the same.

  • What's so revolutionary about this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gorbachev ( 512743 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:19PM (#5680243) Homepage
    I've been working with a lot of vendors on projects, IBM, BEA, ATG, TIBCO, etc.

    You always find bugs in the products you use. Most of the time you have to develop a fix yourself, because the vendor's release schedule will not enable you to wait for the official fix. It's just good vendor relations to send the fix to the vendor.

    I did that exactly for the same reason Merrill Lynch does that, to get better software.

    Proletariat of the world, unite to kill bugs

  • willful ignorance? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:24PM (#5680256)
    whether those who really think it is, or those that make parody of them I think there is a sad number of people who really believe that OpenSource and free software are contrary to the free market and capitalism. I won't go into a lesson on why but suffice to say that "free" as in beer is a price, "free" as in choice is also a price and one that the free market will give if you ensure that it is indeed a free market (eliminate authoritarian mandaded monopolies and other artificial restrictions). Basically nothing is totally free. You are free to choose whatever software you want. You then give up certain features or interoperability abilities but that is something you factor in. Same goes with price, sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

    Perhaps the problem with this particular form of ignorance is that many really care nothing about freedom and choice and thus promoting the things that provide them. Instead they are the vandals that break just to break. Yes comrade, let us take up arms and uhh... why are we doing this? *BANG* Never question mindless violence my comrade, who is next with these "questions?"

    Please take the politics and personal agendas out of everything you do, especially software. Many are tired of seeing everything laced with your crap.


    • You are free to choose whatever software you want. You then give up certain features or interoperability abilities but that is something you factor in. Same goes with price, sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

      Indeed. And sometimes you GAIN interoperability and features. Sometimes price is rather arbitrarily set according to "what the market will bare" rather than a barometer of quality. It pays to be an informed consumer and do one's own research rather than relying on someone's sales fo

  • The Architecture of Participation (Score:4, Informative)

    by GerardM ( 535367 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:24PM (#5680264)
    Tim O'Reilly had an interesting discussion with Adam Turoff on why Open Source communities do work so well.

    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3017

    Thanks,
    Gerard

  • Holy freaking crap! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by qwijibrumm ( 559350 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:27PM (#5680274)
    You're trying to tell me that buisnessmen, with their buisness management degrees, in charge of big buisnesses, finally are figuring out the buisness model that is the opensource concept.

    Seriously I'm acctually shocked to see this in the press presented in such a clear and logical manner. Usually when the press refers to any Free/Opensource project they place a little blurb about how anyone can make contributions to the code. Almost never do they drop names of companies/governments who do. I guess this just goes to show after a while people can unlearn the proprietary method of software development.

    Phase 2- get them to realise the idea of Free Software. Let them know it should be their right to change, develop, and distribute code.

    • Re:Holy freaking crap! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by perky ( 106880 )
      Which "business model that is the open source concept"? ML make money out of investment banking, not from writing software. The fact that they are contributing their fixes probably has more to do with an enlightened mangler who realised that their developers were submitting their patches anyway, so they ought to have an official policy on the matter. This is just good sense, so that ML don't release things that the various groups mentioned in the article would rather stay closed. It in no way represents a b
      • The buisness model is that a big company is paying someone to develop a piece of Free/OpenSource Software even though it is not one they own. It is one they use and thus have a vested interest of it. This helps debunk the weak but widely popular argument that if all companies used and created Free/OpenSouce Software, the poor bluecollar programmers would be without a job. This is not true. Other companies who do not directly hire developers will fund the project if they find it useful i.e. DARPA funding [slashdot.org]
    • You forgot step three - profit! Oh wait...

      On the other hand, you do have a step 2.

  • Motivated Self Interest (Score:5, Interesting)

    by defaulthtm ( 464486 ) <defaulthtm&hotmail,com> on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:27PM (#5680281)
    The most interesting part of this is the reason Merril Lynch gave as to why they posted patches back. They wanted to have a seat at the development table and did not want to have to maintain a fork of the product forever. Certainly not a RMS view of OSS, but one that makes more sense (and dollars) in the long run.
    • The RMS view of Free Software is in opposition to the idea that users use unmodified software only in ways the vendor expects. Users are going to want to do things somewhat differently, and software isn't very useful unless the providers support this. It's clearly beneficial for the users if the providers get the feedback.

      This is really a very RMS-like reason for OSS; it gives the users the ability to use the software effectively, and there is a relatively small role for pure developers compared to that of
    • > The most interesting part of this is the reason Merril Lynch gave
      > as to why they posted patches back. They wanted to have a seat at
      > the development table and did not want to have to maintain a fork
      > of the product forever. Certainly not a RMS view of OSS, but one
      > that makes more sense (and dollars) in the long run.

      RMS, notwitstanding the undebatably significant contributions he
      has made, is full of bologna in regard to this issue. Here's why...

      It's called bitrot, and it's been a known

  • Editors? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by veldmon ( 595009 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:41PM (#5680342)
    Some bastions of capitalism are getting into the open-source spirit

    What is this supposed to mean? Open source is more compatible with communism? That sounds like a subtle insult to me.

    There is absolutely nothing spectacular about corporations dealing with open source software.

    • Some bastions of capitalism are getting into the open-source spirit

      What is this supposed to mean? Open source is more compatible with communism? That sounds like a subtle insult to me.

      First off, you assume anything not capitalist must be communist. Anyway, the very foundation of capitalism is that you price goods and services to maximize their value. Anything with no price tag, much hence be worthless. So GPL'd code doesn't really compute in a purely capitalist world, because noone would write it to begi
    • What is this supposed to mean? Open source is more compatible with communism? That sounds like a subtle insult to me.
      Well, it's been frequently insinuated in the past here on Slashdot even (check sheldon's posts, for instance), by Microsoft, and by various pundits and members of the media.

      I think the quoted sentence was more of a "Hey, look here you closed-minded fools. Nyah!" way to open the story than an actual surprise to anyone. :)

  • More evidence of the 'growing wave of Open Source" (Score:4, Informative)

    by kevinbedell ( 664449 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:46PM (#5680364)
    I recently posted a short article on this subject on SYS-CON's SYS-CON's Linux Business and Technology [sys-con.com] (the publishers of Java Developer's Journal). I think an even better article on Corporate open source adoption is the one in the March 15th issue of CIO magazine [cio.com].

  • Looks like a snowball (Score:4, Insightful)

    by revividus ( 643168 ) <phil@crissman.gmail@com> on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:49PM (#5680377) Homepage
    ...that just keeps gaining momentum. Linux/open source gets some press, some "hip" factor, PHBs start to look at the hip new thing (I can just hear some manager asking his newly minted MSCE, "Say, what would it take to switch to this Linux thing I read about in businessweek?"), the more the PHBs look at it, the more press it gets...

    It's cool, but at the same time, a lot of the people writing about it clearly don't understand it -- the mutilated description of the GPL in the recent Businessweek article bears witness to that. Then at the same time (in that article, and elsewhere) there's the continued use of phrases like "a ragtag band of software geeks", which I don't consider pejorative or anything, but it begins to get a little old.

    I think this will be a Good Thing. As long as the "trend" lasts long enough for people to figure out how to use it(Linux, etc); if they just abandon it the first time they're prompted to fsck their filesystem, it could stop rolling. But hopefully by that time the this-could-be-more-user-friendly-dept. will have worked some more magic...

  • free markets at work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:49PM (#5680378)
    Yes, this makes a lot of sense. Contrary to the picture critics of open source try to paint, that it is some kind of communist conspiracy undermining good ol' American entrepreneurship, the success of open source and free software is actually simply free markets at work.

    Companies like Microsoft are greatly overcharging for their products, perhaps not for the initial sale, but for the upgrades and on-going development. Or do you really think that the incremental improvements in your Office XP upgrade are really worth several hundred dollars to you compared to the version of Office you already paid for? And why would you want to pay for improvements that often are largely based on user feedback anyway, rather than representing actual R&D work by the software company?

    Those are market inefficiencies with the commercial software model that open source software corrects. Sure, the open source model isn't perfect either, in that not everybody who benefits pays exactly for what they are getting, but it seems to all average out statistically well enough for open source software to be competitive.

  • Corporate Image.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bush_man10 ( 461952 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @01:50PM (#5680385) Homepage
    One thing I notice is that participating with the Open Source community changes the way I look at corporations. It's another benifit I was surprised that wasn't mentioned in the article. Some people, myself included, see corporations in a much better light when I notice they are contribuiting to Linux development or any open source project.

  • A Common Bias in the Submission (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:07PM (#5680504)

    Some bastions of capitalism...


    This casual reference by the Submitter can be used to illustrate a fundamental bias within the community of Open Source users. (I'd argue that most Open Source contributors wouldn't take this view.)

    How is it that Open Source and Capitalism are commonly viewed as being diametrically opposed?

    Two Points:

    Companies that utilize Open Source in order to more rapidly or cheaply deliver whatever service or product they sell on the market will win out in a competition against peers that develop a product with purely in-house tools. This is because an enormous expenditure of resources would be required to exceed the quality and speed of an active open source community project. --Doing away with that cost will help a company to cut prices below what a competitor can sustain.-- A fine strategy therefore, would be for a Company to promote those Open Source groups with whom they share a common interest. If a company depends on computing power to achieve success, it could benefit from helping the Mosix group deliver exceptional clustering software, for instance.

    Open Source uses a reward system that is very similar to Capitalism. The strength of capitalism is in the nearly 1:1 ratio of talent to reward, as well as the constant feedback-loop the market presents to new products. Open Source rewards contributors with status; the best programmers are richly compensated in this regard. In many ways status is better than money. (Arguably, a primary attribute of money is the proxy action it has on status.) Additionally, Open Source has it's own feedback-loop in that a single programmer searching for available status, has an incentive to review other people's code in the hopes of improving it. This action multiplied thousands of times over the life of a project is an efficient and dependable machine for improvement.

    The "bastion of capitalism" fits very nicely with Open Source, which is why Linux is winning the war in IT departments all over the world. The Open Source yin-and-yang of Status and Peer-Review is a close approximation of Capitalism's Money and Markets.

    As a contributor, I can tell you that just as Companies need things to cost less, Programmers need things to make better. Open Source and Capitalism are becoming the best buds, and only an Open Source parasite or a Corporate nobody would fail to see the natural symbioses of the two.

  • Bastions of capitalism... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by megazoid81 ( 573094 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:07PM (#5680506)
    Some bastions of capitalism are getting into the open-source spirit -- not only using the software, but contributing code fixes and other mods, according to an article in today's Computerworld.

    Anyone who has used the code licensed under 'viral' (read GPL) open-source licenses cannot close their source code. If they can't close it and it is useful to them, they might as well distribute it and contribute to the open-source movement. By posting a story like this, and putting it in such a newsworthy fashion as indicated above seems to imply that open-source is the domain of pinko-Commie bastards, into which bastions of capitalism are finally entering. Don't forget, capitalism and open-source are independent concepts. Business models of software companies can be plotted on a two-dimensional plane with 'code freedom' and 'price' as the two axes.

    • Re:Bastions of capitalism... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dan Ost ( 415913 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:33PM (#5680703)
      Anyone who has used the code licensed under
      'viral' (read GPL) open-source licenses cannot
      close their source code.

      This is blatantly false. The GPL only requires
      you to GPL your code if you distribute it. This
      means that company X is allowed to take GPL'd
      code, modify it for their own use and use it
      internally for as long as they like without
      ever releasing their changes to their competitors.

      While it's true that they can't sell their
      software without GPLing it, 99.9% of software
      written isn't written to be sold as a product,
      it's written to meet internal needs of an
      organization. That's what "in-house" development
      is.

  • Doesn't this seem totally obvious. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dr_Marvin_Monroe ( 550052 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:10PM (#5680528)
    After I read ESR's C&B, this seemed totally obvious to me...not on a philisophical basis, but on a business basis.

    The fact that companies are finding it in their "mutual best interest" to contribute code changes and whatnot to OSS should come as no suprise to anyone, they all stand to gain without having to invest huge sums against the "barrier to entry" that MS has created.

    MS and closed source companies are the ONLY one's who benefit by NOT to distributing changes/making public.....for all others, it follows the rules set out in "Magic Cauldron" chapter....do a few hours work to fix a bug for yourself and pass that on to all others!......In the end, you can have everything you want for just a few hours of work. Unlike typical "products", sharing software has NO cost to the giver and does not remove ANY functionality from the giver....AND increases the value of the product through widespread adoption.

    OSS is a superior business model, UNLESS you are MS.

    What goes around, comes around.....
    • OSS is a superior business model, UNLESS you are MS.

      That's really oversimplified. There are many applications that don't lend well to open source development.

      For example, much of the value of Apple computers is in OS X and the core iApps. If Apple opened the sources to the iApps, Microsoft can bundle the same iApps with Windows. So why "switch"? On the other hand, Windows is not likely to "steal" the Darwin kernel (and if they really wanted to they can get BSD themselves), so it's not a problem for A

      • Sure I would....I'll address it company by company...

        In Apple's case, they make money off both hardware and software. By opening their platform to all comers, they might end up with some shaggy stuff, but they would be further along for it. They could have the benifit of outside testing and also collect the additions to their stuff. Who's to say exactly what other developers might turn the core iApps into?...I suspect that they would only be good for Apple. What's the problem if MS appropriated some of

  • Alot of this is free advertisement (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:14PM (#5680546) Journal
    IBM was shunned for many years by both the Unix and opensource communities.

    However they are now looked upon as the good guys and their bussiness skyrocketed as a result. IBM is what most hackers have on their minds if their employer needs support and consulting for huge projects. They are not free or cheap but you get what you pay for.

    I use to live in NewYork and the NYLUG is one of the best in the country. IBM for years has been generious in donating their rooms for the meetings and group gatherings. Alot of the locals in the meetings have consulting contracts with IBM as a result.

    The more they help free software advocates the more advertising they get as well as improved software they can sell for their clients. We all win.

    I believe JBoss is also an advertisement for a consulting firm who produces it. There bussiness has taken off thanks to free advertising from their product.

    Opensource does work well in getting your name out. Alot of PHB do not trust salesmen because they do not know if their products are any good. With opensource software they can test them out.

  • Capitalism.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ogerman ( 136333 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:29PM (#5680667)
    "Some bastions of capitalism are getting into the open-source spirit"

    This really isn't unexpected seeing as how Open-Source itself is a natural bastion of democracy and capitalism.. unlike certain very socialist-style "intellectual property" regimes of broad government-issued monopoly powers.

    Software development and support should be a service! (:

  • Uselessness of comparing Capitalism & Open Sou (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @02:50PM (#5680832)
    The main crux of this comparison, as far as I can tell, should be made in reference to other aspects of business. Consider a manufacturing plant of some kind. In this plant they have equipment that they built, equipment they bought on contract and have serviced, and equipment that they bought but maintain themselves. The equipment they build or maintain is directly related to their business, and the operators/engineers are sufficiently trained and experienced to cover the majority of their needs. Over the years they have filled each equipment need they've had with the solution that was best at the time, and presumably address their solutions over time when difficulties or cost concerns come up.

    This is roughly analogous to in-house software, proprietary software, and open source software. A company is free to pick and choose which solutions work best to remain in business. The main difference is very few companies naturally have Software Engineers/Designers/What Have You in the course of their normal business developments. Whereas a small manufacturing company is likely to have been founded by people making the product by hand, rarely are office environments founded by programmers (Exception: software companies which by this analogy are manufacturers of software and would fit with them).

    The important thing to remember is that software isn't the only third party products these offices, or even manufacturers, use. There aren't many advocates for Open Source Copiers, or Open Source Pens, or Open Source Coffee Makers, all calling for GPL'd blueprints. The significant difference with software is that the only real resources required are the source code (or blue prints) and the person capable of understanding and modifying them. Virtually everything else would require a parts supply chain which, if not part of the main business, usually isn't an economical path to follow.

    In conclusion, the cost of maintaining anything utilized by an organization that isn't directly related to the organization should be compared with the costs of outside solutions, whether talking about software or coffee makers, and whether talking about businesses, governments, or even your own house.

  • Open yes, but free of charge ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by master_p ( 608214 ) on Monday April 07, 2003 @03:00PM (#5680912)
    I still don't understand how a software-only company can make a decent profit if its main software products are free of charge. I understand the advantages of open software (better documentation for development/bug fixing), but if I have a small software company, how am I gonna benefit from the products that I (don't) sell ? how the bills are gonna paid, how the developers are gonna paid ?

    Please don't see this as a troll, but there is a limit to what should be free of charge and what should not. Don't forget that the economic benefit is one of the strongest motives for research. And if I have a revolutionary idea, why shouldn't I get something for it ?

    • I still don't understand how a software-only company can make a decent profit if its main software products are free of charge.

      Support and consultation, which is where most of the money is anyways. Also keep in mind that most software is written in-house for private use. This is a prime example where collaboration can help reduce costs and improve quality.

      • Support and consultation, which is where most of the money is anyways.

        This business model gives vendors a disincentive to make their software bug-free, easy-to-configure, or self-healing. You don't want to put a company in a position where doing a really good job can be suicidal. Aligned interests (good code in exchange for good money) can be a much better model in the long run.

        • >> Aligned interests (good code in exchange for good money) can be a much better model in the long run.

          Hogwash. I'm sorry, but good money almost *never* gives good software. I've read where something like 80% of software projects fail... fail to meet deadlines, fail to meet price schedules, and fail to meet user requirements.

          Personally, I have been witness to several software projects that were paid for with good dollars... Nothing good came from them.

          Also, I have seen almost every proprietary, c
    • We use open source applications to do our day-to-day run of the mill work (Linux, Mozilla, OpenOffice etc).

      My employer has no problems with us fixing a bug in a product we use everyday and resubmitting a patch back to the maintainer. We do this during lunch, after work, etc.

      Our core software business remains separate.

      The benefit is knowing that a peice of software you take advantage of will be correct in the next release (you don't have to maintain your own tree of fixes). There are probably several othe

  • Merrill Lynch (Score:2, Informative)

    by BrianB ( 7440 )
    There's a guy from ML on one of my projects who has submitted a wealth of code. kinda cool to see that this isn't an isolated thing but instead a culture within the company.

    Unfortunately their firewall still prevents him from direct CVS checkins so everything has to be funneled through other committers.

  • Capitalism?! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GabrielPM ( 633823 )
    There's nothing wrong with capitalism. And anyways, open source makes A LOT of sense from a business point of view for MANY companies.
    It seems very ironic that people insist on putting down capitalism, the only system fostering the kind of freedoms required for such open exchange of ideas and freedom of association.
  • Why is OSS seen as conflicting with Capitalism? Capitalism is about competition, and leveraging strengths to best advantage.

    This article should be posted whenever Communist and Linux comes up in the same sentence.

    Good software = good biz...

    --Joey

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