Open source: world domination or world liberation?
The Cheshire Cat
Linus Torvalds used to talk about "world domination" as his goal for Linux. These days, though, while we seem to be making progress toward this end, we also appear to be increasingly complacent. We downplay the ideology that underlies open source in favor of "safe" rhetoric about lower sales and marketing costs and such.
I wonder, however, if in so doing we emasculate open source's power to truly change our industry. Does it make it that much harder for us to find a new way to serve customers?
It reminds me of Alice's interaction with the Cheshire Cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
"Cheshire Puss," [Alice] began,..."Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
For me, the end game should be "world liberation," not domination. We've already suffered through decades of Microsoft's take on the "world domination" theme. I didn't like it much.
By "liberation" I mean freeing emerging markets to grow on their own terms, not as vassal states to US and European software vendors. By "liberation" I mean freeing customers to innovate with their vendors on customers' own terms, not vendors'.
By "liberation" I also mean that software vendors free themselves to innovate with their customers, competitors, and community.
Open source makes software something more than "just software." It makes software meaningful outside the few big vendors determined to dominate it. Open source, in short, gives software back to the community.
Total world liberation. That's the goal. With that goal in mind, the answer to the "How do we get there?" question becomes much clearer. We don't take shortcuts. We choose our license models based on what will maximize customer value. We aggressively compete with tired proprietary vendors.
And then we win.
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.
Just finished Nick Carr's "The Big Switch". Would have been even better if the history was better - it was Digital that coined "The Network is the System" when Julius Marcus was VP of Networking And Communcations there back in 1977 or so. They even ran ads on that theme. Sun came a few years later - "The Network is the Computer" never had the same quality of ring to it.
Ian W.
(one bitter and twisted ex-Deccie)
I am so sick of the Linux bigots. Yes, Linux is a great platform. I started my career on Slackware. But you know what? I can get to the "Hello World" on either with the same security and efficiency.
Bottom line is that everyone wants something for free. How about free gasoline, free food, free cable tv, how about free airline tickets? This model will not work in a business enterprise.
the LAMP stack is uncoordinated and uncotrolled in terms of development. One cannot plan and coordinate between the different elements of the many contributors. What's more, there are so many flavors of the Kernel that the market is confused.
Until Linux can address the needs of business, you will continue to see Linux briefly implemented, then removed.
It addresses the needs of end-user businesses, just not the Tech businesses that want to use it for their own closed-source apps to make money with it. Too bad. The hammed doesn't make a lot of money either -- its what is *done* with that hammer, which has value.
@robvme: Matt isn't a linux hippie, he's an apple fanboy [absolutely no offense intended].
The thing about opensource and software in general is that it is infinitely copy-able [not sure if that's a word]. That makes it impossible for old principles of business to be applied. Afterall, there's if there's an unlimited supply, the only thing they can do is control the demand [or create the illusion of a limited supply]
@lefty.crupps: By you're reasoning, all business would have to provide services instead of just the software. That means that if you make any product, you'd have to support it and why should the company hire you to support it if they can hire their own inhouse people to support it? If they don't want you to support it, and its open source so they don't even need you to give it to them, they what do the developers do? Nothing. Hence, no development
Personally, I'm interested to see how[or if] the open versus closed source argument will be resolved.
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by russ danner
March 17, 2008 8:58 AM PDT
- The point is that we don't need to create demand around the bits. The bits serve to seed the field. The business then shifts directly to serving customers. Everyone benefits from innovation around the bits. Customers finally have an angle and a voice -- and the opportunity to be treated better than just a simple contract.
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(6 Comments)Open source looks at the ecosystem as a network not a hierarchy; it has both re-enforcing and limiting feedback loops that maintain balance on the "network" where the net effect is positive for all parties -- except for those clinging to the old model.