When open source moves from evangelism to implementation

Dogma is nice, but it doesn't pay the bills.

That's the lesson I've learned over the past few years, and one that my good friend--and Sun vice president of lifecycle management--Zack Urlocker illustrates on his Infoworld blog. The big turning point in my own open-source evolution--the one that made me happy to be a flip-flopper--was being handed a sales quota at Alfresco, which grew increasingly large while simultaneously difficult to achieve while giving everything away in the spirit of free love and free software.

I'm not alone in this. As it turns out, the entire industry has shifted as open source has become an integral part of enterprise IT and the vendors that serve it. Even companies like Sun, which went into its MySQL acquisition with an "everything must be free" mentality, have rightly shifted over time.

In other words, as open source has become a key driver of increased IT efficiency and a way to wring out unnecessary costs, it has become much more than free-source sloganeering. Critics have recognized this and suggest that opportunistic vendors are diluting the open-source ethic to drain the open-source cash cow. In some cases, they're right. In most, however, they're wrong.

Enterprise IT has demanded a more serious, business-like approach to open source from its vendors. Individual developers within Large Bank X may want to shake hands with Richard Stallman, founder of the free-software movement, but the CIO of that bank wants to sign a contract with Marten Mickos, former CEO of MySQL.

So do the venture capitalists that increasingly fund open source's commercial (and, hence, development) success. They demand a return, and downloads, while nice, don't pay the bills.

Before the purists wring their hands and cry "Foul," it's critical to keep in mind that the more cash is made in open source, the more open-source code will be written. It's not rocket science: someone must pay to have software written. Open-source vendors have figured out increasingly compelling ways to monetize open source without killing off the spirit and benefits of open source.

'Open Core' is one such model, and we've just opened a session at the Open Source Business Conference to identify its benefits for vendors and buyers, as well as the larger development community.

Ultimately, open source was always about pragmatism over politics. That was the whole point in breaking from the free-software community. Sometimes we have forgotten that point. It's time that we remembered it, and let open source flourish without stunting its growth with dogma.

Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.

[Sortova]

You know I disagree with you when you label commercial software business models "open source" and several statements you make in this post, such as "someone must pay to have software written" go so against my experience with open source as to make me wonder if there is just that much of a disconnect between North Carolina and Silicon Valley, but my goal with this comment is not to rehash something we'll never agree on.

I have a question regarding Alfresco.

In one blog post of mine I referred to Alfresco as "open core" but I'm not sure that is the case. It appears that 100% of the software code in your "enterprise" editions is also available under an open license. I'm not sure if this is the case since the enterprise trial license agreement has very non-open requirements, so I was hoping you would clear this up for me.

My question: Does Alfresco withhold some code from the "Labs" side of the project, or is 100% of the code available under an open license.

[BrucePerens]

It's not Silicon Valley. It's commercial Open Source companies - and to be fair, not all of them but a lot. They sort of live in their own world which isn't really connected with the rest of Open Source, and they think their part is the whole thing. The Open Source community outside of their customers has relatively little contact with their applications, and other Open Source projects lead in their markets. For example, how often do you hear about Alfresco in contrast with Drupal, etc. This despite the fact that Alfresco is judged to be technically superior by some. What is Drupal getting from the community that Alfresco is missing?

[imacat_tw]

I read your every article ever since February. You did provide me a lot of new thoughts, new points of view and fact updates about this open source industry I'm in. Thank you. However, I feel you are more and more like the kind of dogma you are against: Hold a belief, and despise the rest that do not agree with you. You spent more and more time just talking about how stupid the free software believers are. I doubt that could be regarded as "openness". I think keeping a business prospective is great, but be nice to the idealists is also important.
Besides, I feel you are talking more and more about business, fair amount about open source, and less to none about politics. I'm not against it, but maybe you would consider changing your subtitle "The Business and Politics of Open Source" to "The Business of Open Source"?

[dhavleak]

Totally agree.

Besides I would disagree with Matt's opening line -- "Dogma is nice, but it doesn't pay the bills."

Dogma is never nice -- by definition dogma is inflexible and not grounded in facts -- how can there be anything nice about that?

[eadeguzman]

Just to be clear, by definition "dogma" is something that is "believed" to be true.

The fact that dogma is not something that can be scientifically proven does not mean that it's not "grounded" or based on facts -- and besides, it has nothing to do with Matt's assertion. He was just saying something like "the theory is nice, but it doesn't pay the bills." He just strengthen it a little bit since open source is like a religion to some.

Another way or reading it is that what Matt refers to as "dogma" seems to be the idea of open source itself. And there *is* something nice about that.

I really can't see anything in *this* article that "despise" anybody. He was just making a point.

Also, idea of Open Source or "Free" Software has nothing to do with money. I know you guys already know about it, but just to remind those who might get confused -- it's about the freedom to use the software into whatever use it suits you -- you can't do that if the software is in a binary form.

He's just stressing in this article that the *big* open source initiatives needs to be funded -- somehow.

While the community are contributing to the software without cash incentive (but mostly not on a full-time capacity), big code base/projects require people to be there round-the-clock to make sure that everything is operational. So full-time employees and other resources are needed to support the community. And many companies like IBM or Google (even to some extent, Microsoft, believe it or not) are helping to fund open source projects and even have some of their employees dedicate their time to it.

Can you imagine yourself contributing 100% of your time to open source and not getting paid directly or indirectly for it? I'm sure that a number of people who are well-of enough can actually do this -- but in doing so the "dad" of this guy would be considered funding it.

By the way, "by definition": "politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions". Politics is appropriate for the subtitle.

[FewClues]

Matt, I too have appreciated your blog articles. However like the above poster I find you leaning more and more toward business and less and less toward open source. And like others I find your position increasingly adversarial toward FOSS.

[kast5089]

I don't think Matt has become adversarial to open source, he is just discussing what many of us have known for a long time: the "free" software zealots have shackled the growth of open source software. Open source isn't a fight for freedom, a move to socialism, or a pure expression of market principles. It's simply a more efficient, more affordable development model that is mutually beneficial for vendors and customers. This, in turn, gives us all more freedom. If we want open source to succeed, it's in our best interest for vendors and customers to turn a profit with it.

[ZUrlocker]

Matt, good posting. Reminds me of the old addage "there are no atheists in foxholes" only maybe it's there are no purists with quotas.

--Zack

[wickenby]

To both Matt & Zack,
I'd like to understand your perceptions of Red Hat's & Alfrescoe's business models. Throw in one or two others if you wish to illustrate the different models. Matt seems to suggest that it's not possible to be purist & succeed financially. Specifically what is Red Hat doing in business model terms the is not Open Source purist ? I remember you said in the past that RHN & satellite were proprietary, but isn't Spacewalk now an answer for that ? I have the impression that Red Hat's attitude is to Open Source everything & gain the maximum from communities but still serve the enterprise customer and make money.

[eadeguzman]

wickenby -- good point. I was confused about that myself since the idea of open source has nothing to do with money. The "purists" that Matt seems to imply are those that champion the idea that you shouldn't get paid writing or getting involved in the open source community?

I hope Matt responds.

[pentest]

"The "purists" that Matt seems to imply are those that champion the idea that you shouldn't get paid writing or getting involved in the open source community?"

Who would that be, you couldn't count Stallman in that list.

[PerryIsmangil]

So how to explain Bruce Perens, credited with coining and furthering the open source cause in the first place, now admits that open source must be a gateway to free software, not a complete separate path as advocated by Matt above.

If we're going to use the ideology paradigm: If you want to use open source without free software ideology, it would be like wanting the benefits of religion but without faith. How could that work?

[jkunz001]

We are starting to the see the next gen of open source unfold. OSS 2.0 will see the separation of church and state. While there will always be the ideologs, zealots, and "purists" the rest of the world will move beyond this noise and focus on leveraging the intrinsic value that open source has always offered: collaborative development, frictionless distribution, and true innovation, to name just a few. The business models are starting to mature as well. Will there ever be an open source software company on the scale of Microsoft? Personal I don't really care. I think the better question is can you successfully build and scale a profitable open source based business. The answer is yes, but how large remains to be seen. One could argue that as the size of the company increases, the net positive effect of being open source decreases, or put another way, as the size of the company increases, the more it is compelled to start to behave/become proprietary/traditional in its practices. I think this is what Matt is seeing at Alfresco. The one thing open source has not been able to do is change the sales paradigm. There is no substitute for a sales force be it a channel/partner or direct play or combinations thereof. This is where the 1.0 business models fail in their ability to scale. I am confident that the 2.0 versions will solve this with great success.