(Credit:
Amazon.com)
Open-source software may have a lot in common with the global soccer (football) business: while it generates a tremendous amount of value for users, very little of that value can be converted into cash. At least, not directly.
That's the thought that struck me while reading the exceptional "Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport." Among other things, the book tackles the economics of soccer, and yields some counterintuitive insights:
...[I]f Deloitte ranked [soccer] clubs by their profits, the results would be embarrassing. Not only do most clubs make losses and fail to pay any dividends to their shareholders, but many of the "bigger" clubs [like Real Madrid and Manchester United] would rank near the bottom of the list....[Note: my Arsenal is one of the few profitable football clubs on the planet.]
Whichever way you measure it, no soccer club is big business....This feels like a contradiction. We all know that soccer is huge. Some of the most famous people on earth are soccer players, and the most watched television program in history is generally the most recent World Cup final.
Nonetheless, soccer clubs are puny businesses. This is partly a problem of what economists call appropriability: soccer clubs can't make money out of (can't appropriate) more than a tiny share of our love of soccer....[T]he world earns more from soccer than the soccer industry itself does.
It's the world's biggest game...with some of the world's worst financial returns. We buy the replica shirts. (Um, I buy many.) We pay to attend games. (Er, I pay to watch many.) We try to give the game our money. But it generates very little top-line revenue, and almost never any bottom-line profits for soccer clubs.
Like football, there's no question that open source is exceedingly popular these days. Virtually every company--indeed, every person--on the planet uses it in some way, whether it's the free Firefox browser with which someone reads this blog post or the Linux operating system serving up a wireless carrier's phone system, open source is everywhere and highly useful.
It's just not big business.
Yes, Red Hat is nearing $1 billion in annual sales, but it's the exception. And that's OK.
Open source, like soccer, doesn't have to directly generate mountains of cash to be immensely valuable to the companies in its ecosystem. For every Real Madrid squeezing annual revenues of $475 million out of soccer there are scores of broadcasters, sports apparel companies, etc. making billions on the back of the sport.
In similar manner, Google, IBM, and others like them make billions with the help of open-source software, but they make very little directly from open-source software.
Like the soccer economy, the open-source software economy is best measured by the total value it creates, which will have very little to do with the direct sales the Red Hats of the world report. Open source saves enterprises billions of dollars in license fees, and arguably has the potential to collectively add trillions of dollars in productivity gains.
That's big value, even if it's not big money. Not in the pockets of software entrepreneurs like myself, anyway.
I wake up at 5:30 AM to write this blog, then spend the rest of the day (and sometimes evening) working my day job at Alfresco, an open-source applications company.
Meanwhile, my brother-in-law, Josh Robbins, taunts me by sending pictures of him chumming around with Thierry Henry (FC Barcelona), Ryan Babel (Liverpool FC), Alessandro del Piero (Juventus), Mathieu Flamini (AC Milan), Steve Nash (Phoenix Suns), Tony Parker (San Antonio Spurs), and others at a Steve Nash Foundation event. His job? He's director of finance at Calle, a cool street soccer sporting goods manufacturer that he helped found.
Yes, I did get to meet Cesc Fabregas on a trip to London a few years back, but I'm still wishing that I got to dress up sports stars in cool sports gear rather than shelling out $100 to $600 to watch these same stars kick balls around whenever I go to London.
I believe in divine retribution, and I'm earnestly praying for Josh to get some. Soon.
Or maybe I should simply stop writing about low-cost, open-source software and focus on the bling? Microsoft has an executive box at the Emirates Stadium where Arsenal plays. I got to sit in it once for the opening match of the 2007/08 season. Perhaps if I agree to say something nice about Microsoft once every few weeks, they'll invite me back.
Or not.
Josh Robbins dresses Thierry Henry in Calle gear
(Credit: Josh Robbins)Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Kaltura is an open-source video application server that competes with the likes of Brightcove. In a nutshell, it helps companies put video on their Web sites.
Kaltura recently released an integration of its product for Drupal, which was a great way to quickly enable its technology for broad distribution. Of more interest to me, however, is that Kaltura was recently selected to power the video on Footbo, a dedicated social network for soccer (football).
With more than 1 billion soccer fans on the planet, Kaltura couldn't do much better than to tap into this passion, starting with Footbo. From the press release:
Footbo has integrated Kaltura's video management platform, allowing Footbo admins to manage and moderate video content, create playlists based on tags, ratings and other criteria, track video statistics and usage, and more. Kaltura's platform also enables users to upload videos and photos and import them from leading social networks and content sites. Kaltura's platform enables Footbo to easily add over time more advanced interactive functionalities such as content discovery, subtitles, remixing and editing tools.
It sounds awesome. It also sounds like a copyright train wreck waiting to happen. I should know. I was booted off YouTube for posting some video I took at an Arsenal match.
But that's not Kaltura's problem to solve, and I was excited to give the Footbo service a try, starting with that most divine of teams, Arsenal. Watching the video of Arsenal's last good season (2003-2004), I nearly broke into tears, all enabled by Kaltura.
My Arsenal fetish satisfied, at least for the moment, I'm back, and I'm impressed by the Kaltura technology. As an end user, it makes for seamless video integration into an existing site. As a publisher, it promises to be much the same. This is an open-source project worth watching.
I recently helped my son take third-to-last place in the Pinewood Derby. Reading this, I clearly should have powered his car with Fedora.
Fedora is the operating system of choice for AllemaniACs' winning robot in the RoboCup, a soccer tournament played between robots. Fedora has fueled AllemaniACs' victories in 2006 and 2007, and appears to be poised to raise the cup again in 2008.
The RoboCup sounds fascinating. There is no human intervention in the games beyond coaches yelling instructions to the robots, and the robots responding in kind. Hopefully they respond better than my five-year old does on her mob ball team....
AllemaniACs' robot is mostly powered by off-the-shelf Fedora, with some modifications that have been contributed back to the Fedora core. Importantly, these modifications and the work done for Fedora's RoboCup success aren't limited to the electronic dreams of RoboCup's Ronaldos:
... Read moreThe African Cup of Nations is in full swing, taking over Ghana, where it is being hosted. I should know - two of Arsenal's best players are out of action for six weeks while they play for their country, the Ivory Coast.
What is beautiful in this tournament - besides the fact that it's the divinely inspired sport, soccer/football - is how the African nations treat nationalism. As the Christian Science Monitor writes:
...Ghanaians exude gratitude rather than arrogance. They all want God to shine upon the team, naturally, but there's no suggestion that He ought to do so. I even heard one television reporter urge viewers to pray for all of the African nations, lest anyone get left out....
... Read more
Who has the best soccer team on the planet? At least, at the national level (since we all know Arsenal is the best club on this planet). Argentina.
Here are the rankings (last year's ranking in parentheses):
1. (1) Argentina
2. (2) Brazil
3. (3) Italy
4. (4) Spain
5. (5) Germany
6. (6) Czech Republic
7. (7) France
8. (8) Portugal
9. (9) Netherlands
10. (10) Croatia
Arsenal? They've got players on all of those national teams except for Italy (Sorry, Fabrizio, but Arsenal can't afford to put its fans to sleep with Italian football!) and Portugal.
As for the US? Well, it barely scraped #20.
I paid for my sins tonight. Like Buzz Lightyear, I'm always sure, even when I'm occasionally wrong. In my defense, I have learned to repent...very quickly.
Well, if you've been waiting for me to get my due, I got it tonight. The referees didn't show up for my 10-year old daughter's game, so I was asked to ref. (Hint: If anyone ever asks you to do this, run. Screaming. Far away.)
It was a terrible experience. I had parents from both teams yelling at me. The opposing (assistant) coach questioned me on every call. I just wanted to roll up into a fetal position and have someone bring me my blankie.
... Read moreI am a rabid football (soccer) fan, with Arsenal my passion. I think when we die we are handed soccer balls and we spend eternity passing, shooting, dribbling...
And tackling.
The software industry has its own form of tackle, and open source has offered new ways to do them (Oracle's Unbreakable Linux, potentially Microsoft's application for Open Source Initiative certification, Microsoft and Novell's patent deal, etc.). But no matter how rough we think we may play, football players/thugs are worse. From Materazzi to Joey Barton, some footballers belong in a boxing ring, not on the pitch.
So, on this sunny Friday morning, I give you the worst moments of football series.
My favorite? Perhaps this kung fu kick from one of my favorite players, ever: Eric Cantona. It looks like it comes from The Matrix:
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