The Open Road

This post was updated at 2:30 p.m. PST in light of Microsoft's apology, which confirmed the anti-Drupal ads.

Microsoft has launched an advertising campaign against Drupal, an open-source Web publishing system, to promote its WebsiteSpark program. Some will see this as a devious plot on Microsoft's part to crush open source beneath its monopolistic feet.

But here's a more rational explanation: Microsoft competes with Drupal. This is what competitors do: compete.

Here's what Microsoft is accused of doing:

The other day I was checking Listology.com for the Drupal website list. But what attracted me more on the page was the small Google adsense block with the title "Forget Drupal and get:"...

Oops, here is an advertisement against drupal on a very page that lists all drupal websites. But the biggest surprise was that the advertisement was from none other than Microsoft. Clicking the advertisement takes you directly to the page of Microsoft's new product - Webspark, on Microsoft.com.

The horror! The horror!

Microsoft's WebsiteSpark program is designed to make it easy for Web developers to work with Microsoft technologies like .Net. It's hard to find anything nefarious in this, but some see Microsoft's alleged attempts to steer Drupal developers to WebsiteSpark as evidence that Microsoft is more worried about Drupal than it is Google, since it's using Google AdWords to place the ads.

As for Microsoft, no sooner had the community reared its incensed head than Microsoft's Mark Brown dashed out an apology:

I want to offer my sincerest apology for this. I have contacted Google and we are working on having this ad pulled as soon as possible. In addition we are working internally to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Really? For what? Having a business? For competing in the same way the Drupal community does?

This is silly. Microsoft is simply using the advertising channel open to it on the Listology Web site, trying to nudge developers its way. Acquia, the company set up by Drupal's founder to commercialize Drupal adoption, is doing the same thing.

Both are simply advertising where they hope to have a significant return on advertising dollars spent. It's called business. It's not personal.

It's the very same reason that Acquia advertises on Joomla.org, a competing open-source Web publishing system, as Joomla leader Elin Waring notes.

Take off the hair shirt, Microsoft. It doesn't become you.

After all, Microsoft is also promoting Drupal in Google searches:

A Jekyll and Hyde moment for Microsoft? Not really. The Web Platform team, of which Mark Brown is part, undoubtedly wants Drupal developers building on Windows.

But guess what? The WebsiteSpark team wants such developers building on Microsoft's Web technologies. It's a big company with different teams and different priorities.

In other words, it's nothing about which to be concerned. In fact, I'd worry more if Microsoft were doing the kumbaya thing with every open-source project, forgetting its fiduciary duty to compete vigorously...including against open-source competitors.

There is no free lunch with open source and there is no free pass for open source. We're grown-up boys and girls. We can compete. As for you, Microsoft, stop pandering to the hurt feelings of open-source developers who should know better.

The mobile-computing world is increasingly a two-horse race between Google and Apple, with Apple clearly in the lead but Google Android making up ground quickly. Microsoft and Symbian are also still in the game, but the ultimate winner will be the one that best appeals to consumers or developers.

Or both.

This struck home while reading Mark Sigal's analysis of the "inevitability" of Google Android. On his way to dismantling the idea that Google's victory is assured, Sigal stumbles into apparently divergent interest groups:

[U]nlike the PC, where "good enough" was the bar required to seize the market,...for most consumers, their mobile device of choice is a lifestyle decision, a personal, ever-present extension of themselves that is resident in a way that never existed before with the PC--a value proposition that Apple has completely run with on iPhone (and iPod before that).

Fundamentally, though, mobile is a platform play, a game that is largely won by securing the hearts and minds of developers, and for them, the expectation bar is now set pretty high, owing to the success of iPhone across so many domains....

If you're Google (or Microsoft or Symbian), then, who do you target? Developers or consumers?

It's a real question, as while both parties' interests ultimately converge (consumers want developers to make great applications so that those same consumers can pay the developers lots of money), the short-term interests of consumers (sexy product) and developers (ease and richness of development platform) don't necessarily go together.

Motorola RAZR? Sexy product, lame development platform. Windows Mobile? Arguably a solid development platform...with almost zero sex appeal for consumers.

This is why John Carroll is probably right to argue that Microsoft should reinvigorate its mobile strategy with an emphasis on .Net as a powerful way for developers to write powerful mobile applications, it's not going to be enough. Microsoft can port all the business applications it wants for Windows Mobile. It won't matter.

Consumers don't buy business applications. Not until after they've chosen a phone that meets their personal needs, first.

Yes, enterprises do try to dictate corporate standards with Blackberrys and dull Dell PCs heading the list. But in the fast-changing mobile market, you can't hope that consumers will be forced to use your software. You want them to want to do so.

This is why I believe Google has a good chance of taking a serious bite out of Apple, and Symbian and Microsoft do not. Symbian is too difficult an application development platform, as Gartner notes, and Microsoft...is boring.

Not that it needs to be. XBox certainly isn't, and actually helped Microsoft surpass Apple in a recent consumer survey focused on product innovation.

But not in mobile, or even in computers. Apple understands how to create wicked cool products that consumers want, which is why its Mac sales are projected to grow by 26 percent in 2010, right through the recession, and why its iPhone continues to thrive.

But Apple's Achilles heel could well be developers, which are reportedly tiring of Apple's apparently arbitrary application approval and updating process. If Google can continue to help handset manufacturers to achieve the "Wow factor," while simultaneously creating a more open, robust development platform, it just might be able to beat Apple at the game it started.

In other words, the winning mobile vendor will be the one that marries sex appeal for consumers with platform appeal for developers. Google is on course to deliver, but it probably needs to win big with consumers before it makes waves with developers.

Some open-source software may not be open enough. While "open source" refers to software's underlying license and its adherence to the Open Source Definition, there are numerous examples of open-source projects that offer an open license but a relatively closed development process.

It's been called "fauxpen source" and worse, but we may have to get used to it. It seems to be the new normal in open-source development. Only open source foundations like Eclipse, Apache Software Foundation, and Mozilla appear to be able to escape it completely.

Java is one example people cite of "fauxpen-ness." SAP CTO Vishal Sikka on Monday called for a more open process for Java development, arguing that Sun too tightly controls Java's development. It's a complaint that has plagued the Java community for years.

Not that Java is alone. While Google gets plaudits for its open-source investments, some are quick to allege that Google maintains a closed Android community. The same sort of complaints have arisen over Google's management of Chrome and Chrome OS.

Even Red Hat, the quintessential open-source company, is primarily known for what it distributes, not what it develops. Red Hat, of course, works alongside IBM and other corporate and unaffiliated developers to write the Linux kernel, and scrupulously releases its software under open-source licenses.

But when it comes to development of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution or development of its JBoss middleware or other technologies (e.g., KVM), good luck finding many significant external contributors.

MySQL? It's largely the same. The company (now Sun Microsystems) does virtually all of its own development, which is true of every commercial open-source company of which I'm aware. This is one reason Richard Stallman can unblushingly worry about MySQL's openness despite the fact that it uses his preferred GPL license.

Open source, but not necessarily open process.

There are very good reasons that Google, Red Hat, MySQL, and others keep a tight grip on their open-source development efforts. They are responsible--fiscally and legally--to their customers, and have to be able to guarantee quality and security. Understandably, they exercise some control to ensure the products they ship protect the integrity of their brands.

But such corporate open source indicates a real divide between "open source" as a license and "open source" as a wholly transparent way of developing and distributing software. The former is now common and relatively easy. The latter, quite simply, is not.

The companies that seem to do it best are those that don't rely on direct monetization of open-source software. In other words, if you aren't selling open source, it's easier to be open. Doc Searls captures this brilliantly by arguing "you make money because of [open source], not with it."

Examples abound. IBM is a good example. So is Google, though I agree with its critics that it can do better. Facebook, Oracle, and others also provide examples.

In the future, I think we'll see this "fauxpen-ness" fade as companies clearly separate their open-source efforts from their revenue models. Open source can provide a platform for monetization, but it isn't the best way to actually generate cash. Not for most companies, anyway.

President Obama gets a lot of credit for his pro-open source policies, but the United States has been funding open source well before he took office.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which describes itself as the principal federal agency for extending "assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms," has been in the habit of funding open source abroad since at least 2007.

As but one example, USAID kicked off its Open Source Development 2.0 challenge last fall.

The contest and other USAID activities led to a wide roll-out of Joomla, an open-source content management system, throughout the Mongolian government, including 200 of its Web sites, as Elin Waring, president of Open Source Matters, a company that advocates Joomla adoption, told me.

But Joomla is just one part of USAID's global investment in open source. The agency has also created the Global Development Commons, which promotes U.S. interests by encouraging open development abroad. Apparently, the idea is that U.S. interests are served as local economies sustain and grow on their own, rather than requiring ongoing foreign investment.

Microsoft recently funded an IDC study, which finds that "software is a significant contributor that drives productivity and innovation in almost every sector of the economy." This may be true, but as I've argued before, governments would do better to expand local economies by building upon open-source software rather than shipping rubles/pesos/etc. abroad to import software from vendors like SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft.

In the case of open source, the software may come from elsewhere but it quickly becomes a domestic good as local firms tailor and improve it. With proprietary software, local firms can provide implementation services but they, as well as the end-customers, are always dependent on a foreign vendor for the core value.

The U.S. continues to buy plenty of proprietary software, but it's encouraging that when it comes to international development, the federal government recognizes that open source pays better long-term dividends than subsidies for the export of proprietary software. Even more encouraging, this practice appears to be neither Democratic nor Republican in origin.

Perhaps there's hope for bridging America's partisan divide, after all.

For years, Red Hat has happily sold Linux to Unix shops anxious to save money at equivalent or better performance. During this time, the company largely avoided Microsoft, which has tended to compete much higher up the stack. No longer. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer argues that one of Microsoft's biggest opportunities lies in enterprise infrastructure and associated application development.

Red Hat, meet Redmond.

Red Hat wants to own the infrastructure market. The company is nearing its initial $1 billion goal, but has a far more audacious ambition: own half the associated middleware market.

This is a direct challenge to Microsoft, especially the manner in which Red Hat aims to go about it. As Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst noted in the company's earnings call earlier this year, Red Hat is "laser-like focused on that mission of commoditizing these key (infrastructure) layers" through open source.

It's not a strategy that will endear the open-source agitator to Microsoft.

After all, Microsoft is also focused on these opportunities, as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told TechCrunch:

Biggest opportunity that we never talked about is enterprise infrastructure. Most of that goes to the database and mainframe vendors today who are in the business. We've got four billion in revenue and yet we're a small market share player.

Servers, there are going to be more new applications written in the next five years than any five-year period of time.

The two companies can't help but run into each other. Will they also be able to collaborate? They must. No customer is going to exclusively run either Microsoft or Red Hat technologies. The two have showed an ability to get along, if only a little bit. Can the two come together even as they seek to beat each other to bloody pulps?

Time will tell. But the market is about to get very interesting again. To achieve its goals, Red Hat must increase its investment in JBoss to make it an even better application platform that can effectively compete with Microsoft and its comprehensive infrastructure/middleware/tools suite.

As it does so, it's going to bump into Microsoft SharePoint, which is increasingly used as a platform for building applications, much like Red Hat's JBoss application server. SharePoint has come under threat from Google recently, but this is a battle Red Hat will have to fight, too.

As for Microsoft, I can't see how it can hope to compete with Red Hat's open-source strategy without including a healthy dose of open source, itself. Figuring out how to maintain its profit margins and sales potential, while simultaneously encouraging the growth of its developer ecosystem, is going to be difficult without open source.

It's a battle for the heart and soul of the enterprise, and it's going to get a little messy. It's about time.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Arguably Microsoft's biggest threat is its irrelevance to Web developers. Though the company dominates personal computing and is a major force in enterprise computing, it remains a distant also-ran to LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) development for the growing Web ecosystem. On Thursday Microsoft announced its WebsiteSpark program to build inroads with the Web crowd, but the program is unlikely to make a serious dent on LAMP's dominance.

The reason? There are some big strings attached.

Microsoft has gone after Web developers before, but products like Expressions haven't made much headway with Web developers, as The Seattle Times reports.

WebsiteSpark, following on the heels of successful student (DreamSpark) and start-up (BizSpark) technology seeding programs, will likely make more of a dent. Free, high-quality tools to Web developers, as TechCrunch suggests, are going to be a big win.

But it's not going to be enough.

The problem isn't one of cost. At least, not primarily. WebsiteSpark has that nailed. The program gives thousands of dollars of technology away for just $100 at the end of three years, and then two options ($999 per year for everything or a scaled down $199 per year option) that aren't much more expensive.

But this overlooks the larger issue: Microsoft constrains who can join the program (start-ups with fewer than 10 employees) and meters their growth after the three years. Open-source alternatives do neither.

The first constraint isn't a big deal. Many aspiring Googles have fewer than 10 employees, and will continue to be small through their first few years.

The second, however, is the killer. At the end of the three years, Microsoft doesn't require WebsiteSpark participants to buy anything, but if the start-up is successful, it faces big bills as it scales out its Microsoft technology. This wouldn't be a big problem if there were no free alternatives that offer equal or better performance. But there are.

Microsoft tries to spin the open-source LAMP alternative as disjointed, and further argues it is a more expensive development path, and even that Microsoft offers better Web performance than LAMP-based development.

But this isn't the way the Facebooks of the world see it. They view the open-source LAMP stack as the proven, scalable winner in Web development. Microsoft can't match that with a price tag.

LAMP gives Web developers control over their destiny, both in terms of source code (they can finely tune LAMP to fit their needs) and in terms of cost (they need not pay anyone to scale out). They may choose to pay someone like Red Hat or MySQL for a support subscription, but at scale, companies like Google simply don't. They have the expertise in-house to support themselves.

But that's at scale. The problem remains, however, for Microsoft, that many of those sub-10-employee shops are dreaming of being Google, not being a mom-and-pop shop forever. So, if they're seeing thousands of servers in their future, tying themselves to the Microsoft stack, with all the license fees associated with it, is going to look like a poor decision.

Most companies will fail. Most of the rest will remain small. Rationally, most of these small start-ups, then, should be content to get Microsoft's technology for a song, assuming they don't care about the flexibility that comes from LAMP.

The other side is that with open source--which many of these Web developers will have picked up while at school or just on their own--there are no barriers to how the developer wants to use the software. Ultimately, Microsoft's WebsiteSpark requires Web developers to color within the lines that Microsoft dictates. That may be well and good for a big population of developers, but it's not the path that Digg, Google, Facebook, etc., have taken.

Microsoft is huge in enterprise computing, in part because it lowers the cost and complexity of development for enterprises of any size. But the Web is built on open source. Microsoft is playing catch-up in this market, and it's simply not going to be enough to wave great tools in front of developers for a low fee.

Microsoft isn't alone in making such a pitch. Oracle, for its part, is touting the development of OraTweet, a Twitter clone built with Oracle Application Express Web development platform. But the reality is that enterprise ISVs like Oracle and Microsoft are largely invisible in Web development.

This is one reason Oracle is interested in picking up MySQL, the leading Web database. MySQL is almost entirely complementary, not competitive, to Oracle's enterprise-focused database.

Microsoft, however, has no such plans to buy its way into the open-source development community, which means it must rely on programs like WebsiteSpark to catch up. It's a start-up, but it's not enough.

Open source offers a fantastic way to reach developers and users of one's technology. Ironically, however, the very group most inclined to adopt open source is the least likely to pay for it.

Therefore, to make an open-source business thrive in enterprise software, vendors must learn to distinguish between developer-users and IT operations-buyers. As I'll explain, however, open-source companies may need to guard against becoming too successful in order to preserve their exit opportunities.

It is, of course, quite possible to make money in open source. Lots of it. Red Hat, for example, is approaching $1 billion in annual revenue. MySQL had generated more than $90 million in sales the year it was acquired by Sun Microsystems for $1 billion.

That's real money.

It doesn't, however, come from the developers that download open-source code. Developers, in former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos' words, "spend time to save money."

Hardly the ideal customer.

Developers download software, which a great way to initial a buying conversation but a terrible way to finish it. Open-source companies talk about selling support, but this is a losing proposition. Developers, after all, are highly likely to support themselves through online forums or other means. They don't pay for software, and they don't buy support. Not most of them, anyway.

This is one reason that pure-play support models simply don't scale in open source. They focus on the exact wrong audience.

Sure, there's a honeymoon period for new open-source companies that launch support offerings around established community-led projects. Some developers buy support, either through personal need or corporate requirements. After that initial rush for support, however, it's a tough slog selling support to developers. It's like selling ice to Eskimos.

This brings us back to a real dilemma in open-source companies: how to monetize popularity (i.e., downloads).

Developers are the most efficient way to spread adoption of one's product but perhaps the least efficient way to monetize it. To get paid, vendors must learn to separate IT developers from IT operations, and build offerings for both.

Red Hat is a classic example. People think that Red Hat sells support. It doesn't. Not really.

The primary reason enterprises buy a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) subscription isn't for Linux support, and certainly isn't for the bits: you can get the bits free from CentOS, and support comes heavily discounted from Oracle.

No, the reason companies purchase a RHEL subscription comes down to certification that RHEL works with a wide variety of hardware and software, as well as with the Red Hat Network, which delivers updates to an enterprise's RHEL servers.

In other words, IT operations pay Red Hat to help manage their Linux servers in production. The money is in operations.

Red Hat isn't alone. Look at JBoss. The company started minting money, once it licensed Hyperic's software to build the JBoss Operations Network.

SpringSource took it one step further and actually bought Hyperic, the company, as the foundation for its Build-Run-Manage message, a message founded in selling to IT operations, not developers. (Rob Bearden, chief operating officer at SpringSource, was deeply involved in both decisions and remains one of the smartest people in the industry on building open-source businesses. If there's any wisdom in this post, it is his.)

For new open-source companies grappling with how to supercharge sales, the answer is operations. It may not be a systems-monitoring tool like Hyperic or Zenoss, but it likely is about systems management, as operations need and pays for it.

There you have it: the secret to your billion-dollar open-source opportunity. Except for one niggling fact: despite the value of IT operations to make sales, it's really developers who create the most company value, from an asset perspective. SpringSource's sales didn't justify its $420 million valuation. Its developer base did. Developers have strategic value, in terms of IT operations and creating tactical value.

In fact, SpringSource's valuation might well have gone down, had it been making more money, just as TechCrunch's Michael Arrington astutely argues could happen with Twitter. Sales provide a measurable, tangible valuation. Developer traction creates an amorphous, strategic value.

Hence, while IT operations is the crux of making sales in open source, it might well be that open-source companies should focus on community development and avoid making too much money so that they can maintain a healthy valuation. But not too healthy: there isn't an incredible amount of IT vendors that can swallow $1 billion acquisitions, the IPO era seems to be over.

Is this the new open-source entrepreneur's dilemma?

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Linux may not represent the future of all computing, but it sure provides a compelling example of what a dedicated community can accomplish.

With over 1,000 developers actively working on the Linux kernel, representing some 200 different corporations, Linux is an exceptional example of the power of open-source communities, and also speaks to the value of groups like the Linux Foundation that help to shepherd it.

Jonathan Corbet, in conjunction with the Linux Foundation, has co-authored a report focused on who writes Linux code (PDF). I reported last month on a piece of the report's data.

As a reminder, Red Hat remains the top contributor to the Linux kernel, writing 12.3 percent of the kernel, though Intel (6.9 percent) is making a concerted effort to catch up.

Beyond these headline numbers, however, the Linux Foundation's report offers some intriguing data:

• Since 2008, the number of individual developers has increased by 10 percent, "reflecting the ubiquity of Linux across industries," according to the report.
• More than 70 percent of total contributions to the kernel come from "sponsored developers" (i.e., those paid to do Linux development by Red Hat, IBM, Novell, Intel, Oracle, and others).
• 2.7 million lines of net-new lines of code have been added since April 2008, with an average of 10,923 lines of code added each day (nearly triple the rate in 2008). According to the Linux Foundation, this represents a "rate of change larger than any other public software project of any size."
• Equally important as adding to the kernel's size, however, is the fact that an average of 5,547 lines are removed every day, keeping the code lean and relevant.

Clearly, the Linux kernel process is doing something right, given the amount of developers it is able to accommodate, without losing its quality advantages (or its customers). Importantly, expertise in Linux translates into a fatter paycheck, too: up to 50 percent bigger.

Small wonder, then, that Microsoft continues to fret about competition from Linux: competing with Linux effectively represents competing with the entire software and hardware industries...all at once.

Not even Redmond in its prime would want that fight.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

In 2007 Red Hat stood on top of the Linux kernel contributor list with room to spare. At 12.7 percent of the Linux kernel contributed by Red Hat (measured in terms of lines changed), IBM was the runner-up at a comparatively distant 5.9 percent. In 2008, Red Hat slipped a little but maintained the top spot (11.2 percent), with Novell making a burst into second place at 8.9 percent.

In 2009, things get more interesting, with Intel making a serious challenge to claim the top spot in Linux kernel contributions.

Red Hat, Novell, and IBM all have substantial software businesses, with heavy investments in Linux, so it makes sense that they'd contribute heavily to the Linux kernel. But according to new data Jonathan Corbet of LWN.net announced at the Ottawa Linux Symposium on Wednesday, Intel has surged from 2.3 percent in 2007 to 4.1 percent in 2008 to 6.9 percent in 2009.

Red Hat still sits atop the corporate pile of contributors with 12.3 percent, but within the next two years it's possible that we'll see Intel top it. Since Corbet last compiled his kernel data in 2008, 2,559 developers added 4.8 million lines of code. Among the 339 employers found in Corbet's data, Intel ranks second.

This really is remarkable. Why is a hardware company, albeit one with significant software assets, making such an earnest effort to contribute to open-source software?

Intel's commitment, as Dirk Hohndel, Intel's chief Linux and open-source technologist, told me, signals Linux's critical importance to a broad community:

It's a sign of the strength of the Linux community that contributors come from all sorts of places. This shows how important Linux is.

Yes, but why Intel? Suffice it to say, Intel doesn't account for its Linux development as "charitable giving."

Indeed, John Treadway suggests that "at the very least [Intel's kernel development] means Intel-based platforms will continue to have the advantage," because presumably Intel chips inside servers, Netbooks, desktops, mobile phones, and more will run Linux as well or better than they do Windows.

Intel's Linux commitment, in short, could be a hedge on its longstanding partnership with Microsoft.

Or maybe it's more. For years Intel made a fortune buddying up with Microsoft in the so-called Wintel duopoly. The problem with this pairing is that Microsoft's portion of the pie cuts into Intel's to an ever-widening degree. And it's not just Microsoft: the more an original equipment manufacturer spends on software the less is left over for Intel's hardware.

So, as SAP's Dirk Riehle remarks, Intel's Linux strategy frees up more money to spend on its chips, a theme Riehle has touched on before with reference to IBM's commitment to Linux.

Watch for Intel to further increase its commitment to Linux, paying more and more developers like Jeff Dike to give lots of software away.

This makes the developers happy, but it also makes Intel happy. The more great open-source software out there, the more money is available to buy Intel hardware. Microsoft is the casualty, but that's business. One company's complement is another company's core. That's the way open-source capitalism works.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.