Google: The open-source savior we deserve
For years, open-source advocates have been praying for someone to free us from Microsoft's proprietary grasp. We've prayed in vain as Linux, OpenOffice, and other open-source software programs have failed to dent Microsoft's dominance.
Until now.
Google, not Red Hat or Sun, appears to be the long-awaited redeemer of both personal computers and servers, and has even staked a credible claim in the mobile world, as well. Google achieves this, in part, by writing copious lines of open-source code, but pays for this "generosity" with insanely profitable proprietary services, services that have long appealed to consumers but increasingly appeal to enterprises, too.
Google, in other words, is arguably not the open-source savior we were expecting, but it's probably the one we deserve.
(Credit:
Matt Asay)
Despite more than a decade of trying to make "pure" open-source software businesses work, it's telling that only one company--Red Hat--has managed to pull together more than $100 million per year in revenues for its troubles. For its part, Red Hat is quick to downplay the relevance of its revenue model for just about any other business.
Hardly a rallying cry to the still-growing open-source ecosystem.
Yes, MySQL got to $94 million before Sun gobbled it up, and yes, other start-ups (my own, included) are getting closer to the mark, but none, including MySQL, is wholly dependent on selling open-source software subscriptions to achieve this goal.
We also include proprietary add-on value. Like Google.
So we're left with Google, which is, perhaps, the world's largest open-source company, contributing more open-source software and resources than any other, in my estimation. (Sun likely wins on sheer volume of code, but being an "open-source company" involves more than simply code.)
How does Google do it? Well, for one thing, it learned long ago that monetizing open-source software directly is tough. So it simply uses open source to shepherd prospective customers to its other services, like Search or Google Apps.
Indeed, it is the success of these proprietary products that enables it to be such a generous open-source benefactor, much like IBM, Intel, or, for that matter, Sun (which sells a lot of proprietary hardware). Take away these companies proprietary product lines, and overnight we'd see dramatic decreases in their investments in Linux, Apache Software projects, etc.
And we'd all be the poorer for that.
In an ideal world, open-source software companies would thrive by simply giving away lots of code, and having enterprises and government organizations serve their long-term interests by paying for support.
We don't live in that world. Some organizations do buy support for open-source software, of course, though many others do not, and some only pay long enough to become self-sufficient whereupon they dump their support contracts, as former CTO of NBC iVillage Jon Williams once declared.
Until we cross the border into Utopia, we're going to continue to see the biggest investments in open-source innovation come from Google and its peers: companies with wallets fat with proprietary profits.
As I said, this may not be the open-source world for which we've hoped, but it's the one we deserve, because it's reflective of what we value and, hence, what we pay for.
See also Mark Hinkle's response to this post.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Bad news for those running Snow Leopard on their netbooks - Apple is reportedly pulling another Palm Pre, cutting off the operating system's support for the Intel Atom processor.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355090,00.asp
Mac OSX exists for only one reason: to sell Apple hardware. It was in Apple's interest to create the best OS there is. The problem is that Apple's OS competition sux, otherwise you would not be so desperate to steal Apple's software.
Apple doesn't like being stolen from, so they are finally getting around to curbing that practice.
Do you like being stolen from? Oh! Yes, that would assume that you have anything worth stealing.
Do you know even the meaning of the word steal?
You might run afoul of their EULA but if you bought a legal copy of Mac OS10, you stole nothing.
Stop being a fanboi and get yourself a dictionnary. Or ask mommy to show you what it looks like.
Microsoft's IE8 passes older IE7 for the first time, says Net Applications
Chrome is spyware. Though it is light years ahead of IE.
What percentage of companies do $100 million in business? I know a lot of proprietary software companies that would kill for $50 million, much less $100.
Everyday I say to myself that Matt has dropped as low as he can go, he proves me wrong the next day.
I call it the "poisoning the well" strategy and it's rapidly becoming a global phenomenon given Google's presence in almost every part of the world. To get Google you have to hit them where they live, namely their advertising revenues.
- by AjitJaokar November 7, 2009 1:46 AM PST
- I was critical of your previous post on Open (and mobile). However, I think this one is more to the mark. This vision is more pragmatic kind rgds Ajit
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