Still care what constitutes an 'open-source vendor'?

I opened my RSS reader today and was swept back to 2007, when I and others fussed about what constitutes an open-source vendor.

Matt Aslett of The 451 Group and Savio Rodrigues of IBM have thoughts of their own, which mostly make sense. I'd go so far as to say they're right.

But do we care anymore?

No one wasted more digital ink on the topic than I did, but even I don't care anymore. Open source is bleeding into the way everyone does software, including Microsoft. It remains critically important, but I suspect that it won't even be able to support a marketing campaign in the near future.

Today we talk about Pentaho and Jaspersoft as "open-source business intelligence vendors," for example, but three years from now, I doubt that we'll call out the open-source aspect. It won't matter--or, at least, it won't matter nearly as much. Their competitors, from IBM's Cognos to SAP's Business Objects, will also incorporate aspects of open source into their businesses. They'll have to.

The open-source debate is over. We won. Now it's just a question of building (or continuing to build) superior products and ensuring that we get paid for doing so.

Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.

[jencloer]

Couldn't agree more, Matt.

[leutzingerdave]

hmm, Microsoft shill

[Matt Asay]

Huh? Have you ever read anything else I've written? And how would that post above qualify as shilling for Microsoft?

[lwalter71]

You're absolutely right, Matt. The proprietary vendors across many markets are incorporating more and more open source technology and processes, blurring the distinction. In many ways, this is a good thing for open source vendors and customers. It's more important that "open source vendors" are demonstrating the customer value *delivered* via their model, rather than their particular status/label as an "open source vendor."

The "open source" distinction remains as important as ever for the *software it describes*. It's just decreasing in importance as a vendor label.

-Lance
Pentaho

[Matt Asay]

That's an excellent distinction: software vs. the vendor. I'm going to steal that idea and pretend it's mine! :-)

[Savio.Rodrigues]

>The open-source debate is over. We won.

Just who is "we" ;-)

[mattaslett]

It's interesting that you say "we won" and yet in the post you link to in 2007 you were maintaining that companies that provide proprietary extensions to open source code should not be considered open source.

I'm not criticising you for changing your mind - everyone is entitled to do that - but you can see how people with similar views to those you held in 2007 do not believe the debate is over. In fact as the lines between open source and proprietary continues to blur it is more important than ever for these 100% open source vendors to define who they are and what they stand for.

My interest in the debate is purely professional (if I'm going to write a report about open source vendors I need to define who those vendors are).

I agree that the definition should be flexible and change over time, and also that it should include companies that provide proprietary extensions. Others disagree with me, which is what started the current discussion.

[Red1Daniel]

So what happened to "(becoming a force) to disrupt the market" you spoke about at the end of your previous article?

By putting on the wolf skin, you are allowing the true sheep to emerge and disrupt the world again. No one can beat a new project that has 10 whiz kids behind it and says "We are never about the money".