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On Open Source Going Mainstream
Some good, critical feedback on my questions about open source/business models and such. I wanted to pass along a couple of them here. Drop me a note with your thoughts as well if you have a chance.
From TCH: "I’ve been reading your editorials for a while and appreciate the majority of them, but I think you are missing the point of Open Source or trying to spin it so people will adopt a Microsoft solution over an Open Source solution.
The replacement of the "License Fees" versus "Support Fees" is partially true but it promotes competition which will keep the prices lower for the end user. Open Source has some issues:
1. Quality of code.
2. Cost of Ownership
3. ROI
But any software has the above issues. MS SQL Server is based on a type of "Open Source" in that Microsoft did not develop it, it purchased it just like Sun purchased MySQL, and then attempted to improve on it. The problem is that the people working on the source did not really understand it at first and this caused problems with Microsoft’s first few versions. There was no expertise out there that Microsoft could hire and hiring people from Sybase, Inc. would have been illegal.
Sun has no such problem. There are plenty of people out there that are familiar with the source code that they can hire or they probably have other people already employed that know it. MySQL is further along than the Sybase code was so Sun has a leg up. Also it can be deployed on multiple server platforms and operating systems. Is it worth one billion dollars? Only time will tell. Other companies spend hundreds of millions just to kill the competition, especially Microsoft.
All in all the jury is still out on Open Source but it’s looking like the verdict will not go to Microsoft."
Mark writes: "I don’t normally respond to these sort of newsletters, however open source and free software are a subject of personal interest to me, even though professionally my employer is a more traditional closed software shop. Plus, you are basically asking "what’s the point" because it seems nobody has provided much insight since your Friday article. So, I thought I’d give my personal perspective and observations.
Your two editorials on the subject seemed to almost solely focus on the monetary aspect of the Sun/MySQL deal and on the open-source business model in general. Furthermore, your use of the term "public domain" suggests that you do know there is a difference between that and open source, but you don’t fully understand the differences. I know of not one single business that has been based around the development, distribution and support of public domain software. By releasing a work into the public domain the creator gives up copyright. Even code licensed under the very permissive BSD license is a copyrighted work; you must abide by the attribution requirements in BSD even if you incorporate the source into a closed project. Copyright is very important to open source/free software creators (at least as important as it is to the big studios and Microsoft and the like).
The "free" in free software is most importantly about "freedom", not zero monetary cost. Also, "free software" is a type of open source, but not all open source is actually "free software". Open source merely means widespread availability of source code for examination. Microsoft has a lot of open source code, but only a minority of it could be considered truly free software, since you must abide by too many restrictions (on redistribution, modification, etc) in order to see or use the code.
It is the freedom aspect of free software, not the freedom from licensing costs, that is the selling point here. I’ve always questioned the business model used by MySQL, Sun and others, which seems to basically involve grafting a closed software product business model onto a free software project, because it complicates and compromises the freedom aspect of the community project. However, there are good examples of the "service provider" model that, all other things (cost included) being equal, make the free software/commercial services alternative rather more superior than the closed software/product-centric model that is the heritage of Microsoft.
Early in my career (as a student, over 10 years ago now), I was at a job where my employer was an enthusiastic adopter of Linux at a time when Linux was a couple of years away from being fashionable (it made a great low cost replacement for big old AT&T SysV Unix iron, and it ran on commodity PC hardware). I was doing a pilot using PostgreSQL 6.0.x as the backend and was running into a problem with a specific feature crashing the "postmaster" service and suspected a bug. I emailed one of the developers one morning and before the day was out, he confirmed it was a bug, asking for more info. By the next day he had a patch for me to apply, including the command line stuff required to apply it. I appreciated the fast and monetarily-free support and he appreciated the help in locating and solving a code problem. If this kind of support, which far surpasses the level of support I’ve ever gotten from Microsoft, is free of charge, imagine what could be offered when a free software project has commercial backing and a wide audience of supported and non-supported users!
I’ve observed in my current job (where we run a Windows shop and sell closed software with license fees and activation) that when dealing with customers there is a common theme: The up-front license fees and activation are always among the top complaints about our software products. Putting out a large amount of capital money just to get hold of boxes with little plastic discs and a key to turn on the software, even before the system is put in place, is a "pet peeve" of businesses. Dealing with activations and licensing compliance and whatnot adds to the cost and provides exactly ZERO value to the customer.
Conversely, the biggest praise we get from my employer’s customers is that we offer the best SERVICE AND SUPPORT in the industry. Our customers buy support contracts on top of paying for licenses because that is where they see the most value and in most cases where they spend the most money. We answer questions relatively promptly, and the help they get is from competent people. It isn’t uncommon to have critical issues escalated to the point that the developers themselves play a direct role. The hardware product we sell get the same kind of support from top-notch distributor partners who will sometimes bend over backwards to get replacement parts. It is that aspect of my employer that I like most and am proud of when I do go out to a customer site as a representative of my employer.
Anyways, I’d have to say that when you talk to these open-source startups and they trumpet that their product is "free", don’t assume they are just trying to mislead you on the cost; they might just be talking about "freedom" from activation schemes, complicated compliance requirements, DRM and the like that seem to be getting worse every year in the closed source arena. I do agree with you on the point of honesty though. To be successful in running a business based around supporting a free software product (or any business in fact), being honest and up-front about cost (and everything else) is vitally important. Even at $15000 a year for support can be "cheap" and a justifiable claim. You cannot dismiss it out of hand simply because the licensing costs of the closed alternative are lower. Reserve judgment until you’ve heard what they’ve got to back up the claim in terms of TCO. Sometimes the inferior quality of support, vendor lock-in and license-enforcement schemes associated with closed software are in fact significant costs that are well worth examining."
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