rebelutionary / 2.0

Open Source Whores and Bigots / 2005 Mar 16

Apparently according to Steven, I'm an Open Source whore.

Now, despite the fact that I find the term itself offensive, it's just plainly not true. Rather, it's a perfect example of Open Source religious bigotry.

Bigotry? Isn't that a strong word Mike?

You're damn straight it is. I don't like labels, so I use it very carefully. It's accurate.

If I'm being called a "whore" let me defend myself by explaining why my accuser is a "bigot".

Open Source Bigots

Bigot: A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.

In this case, an "Open Source bigot" (and the Java community sadly has lots of them) is someone who believes that Open Source is the "one true way", that Open Source will put all proprietary software companies out of business and that anyone who doesn't "make free" all their code is inherently evil.

Now I'm sorry if I offend anyone here - to my mind those opinions, as those of any bigot, are ridiculously narrow minded.

To all the Open Source bigots - let me break the bad news to you and say that all proprietary software vendors (both good and bad) aren't going to be put out of business by the Open Source movement.

Some of them will, certainly, but most will adapt and learn to live in an Open Source world. If they don't learn? Then they go out of business.

Whither Silverstream?

Let's take a look at the application server business as an example.

JBoss, Tomcat and to some extend Geronimo are strong competitors for BEA, IBM, Oracle, Ironflare, Trifork, Caucho and the other container vendors.

Are these vendors going out of business? I don't think so. Looking at BEA's latest financial results their revenue rose 7% last year to just over $1 billion. They have adapted to live in a world in which Open Source exists and competes.

Are they wary of JBoss? Of course - they'd be silly not to be. Are they afraid and going to lay down their app server because they'll be steamrolled anyway? No - because some people value quality software.

(Please - no arguments over the relative quality of BEA and JBoss servers)

Have other application server vendors died, or been sold ignominously into the bowels of large companies like Sun? Certainly - the Gemstones and Silverstreams of the world are no longer with us.

Does that mean Open Source put them out of business exclusively? No - competition put them out of business, both Open Source and proprietary.

There's a pseudo Aussie catch phrase if you're looking for one Steven:

Open Source isn't a knife, competition is a knife.

For a more lucid explanation of companies progressively adapting to Open Source, see my Open Source Company Generations thoughts.

If you're still sitting there asking yourself "Am I really a bigot?", try reading Josh Coates' well researched article Are you an Open Source bigot? - you just might become more broad minded.

If you've read all that and still think that anyone who sells a line of code should be sent directly to jail and not pass Go, then I'm afraid you might be beyond help.

Open Source Whores

Now Steven has given us a new term, that is the Open Source whore.

I must say, I really don't understand this term at all. Apparently by giving software away for free, I'm a whore. Or perhaps I'm whoring the whole Open Source movement somehow. I'm not quite sure.

As far as my very limited experience with the subject goes, a whore is a lady (or a man - let's not be politically incorrect) who shakes their thing on the street (advertising?) and then sells their body temporarily to others for money.

How is that an appropriate term for proprietary vendors who give away licenses? Plainly, it doesn't.

Ironically, in that light it seems to better fit a services-related Open Source vendor?

Apparently our Open Source contributions don't mean a lot to Steven, but I guarantee you that they mean a lot to the projects we've contributed to. From a quick scan of our Open Source dependencies, I think we've contributed some code to at least half, and significant amounts of code to a good handful.

We're proud of our open, community, shared, collaborative Source...

Possibly the only point that I agree with Steven on is his assertion that some companies try to "dupe" you into thinking that their products are in some way Open Source. This is definitely to be discouraged. We have never, nor do we intend to, pretended that our products are Open Source. You get the source with a commercial purchase, but we take great pains not to use the phrase "Open Source" anywhere near the license agreement or pricing pages.

Unfortunately other companies are not nearly as ethical (I'm not sure that's the correct word?) in their "source" labelling.

It's really quite simple, Open Source (capital O, capital S) means that the software has an OSI approved license. If it doesn't, don't use the term.

Conclusion

In conclusion, don't be an Open Source bigot. It simply makes you look narrow minded and damages your reputation.

It's a big world. There are more business models out there than "give away our code, make money on services". Deal with it.

Updates

Kevin has it exactly right in his post, Open Source + Service = Profit. His conclusion - it's all about ROI. I 100% agree. If an Open Source project is going to compete, it has to provide better overall ROI than a commercial one.

Products that need to "just work" make no sense at all. I'd rather spend $30 on Quicken than spend hours and hours trying to make GnuCash work.

Amen.

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