Slashdot Log In
A Cynic Rips Open Source
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon May 21, 2007 11:45 AM
from the everybodys-a-critic dept.
from the everybodys-a-critic dept.
AlexGr writes to tell us that Howard Anderson chaired an interesting meeting the other day with senior executives from Cisco, Agilent Technologies and Novell. The discussion took a look at whether or not enterprise users really want open source. "Naturally, I disagreed -- partially because I am a naturally disagreeable person. Any idiot can make friends -- but can you make some really serious enemies? I disagreed, however, because allegiance to open source depends on who you are. Let me give you an example. If you are No. 1 or No. 2 in your industry, you hate open source. You make your money by selling proprietary solutions: Microsoft and Cisco. If you are No. 3 to No. 10, you look at open source as a way to get back to those serious RSEUs, because they are where you make money."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Most important point at end of article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:4, Insightful)
As free software tends to replace instances where duplication of effort is the norm rather than the exception, I'd say the adjustment period would be going from doing the same thing over and over and over again to writing actual new things.
Instead of writing a new menu button on the word processor and changing the file format to be incompatible, getting paid, rinse, repeat ad nauseum, we might actually be writing better systems to accomplish other things.
Somehow I think programmers in general could live with that. And, really, I have yet to experience any situation where the real need for programmers was less than the availability.
Parent
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:4, Insightful)
If your employer sells pants then removing the cost of Operating systems Accounting software and Fabric CAD software (yes, I made that up) would lower your cost of operation without undermining your employer's business model at all.
Parent
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:4, Insightful)
Commercial Application FabricCAD = $2,000 per seat, for 10 users. $20,000. Yearly maintenance, say 20%. So $4k/year. 5 year costs: $40,000. IT Support Technician; including initial deployment, patching, and maintenance: 10% of admin time; say $50,000/annual, $80,000 w/ bennies. 10% of his time for FabriCAD: ($8,000*5)=$40,000. Total FabriCAM investment: $80,000 for 10 users over 5 years, or $1,600/user.
Programmer to recreate all of the features of FabricCAD via Open Source: $75,000/yearly salary, plus bennies, perks: Say $100k for a round number. 5 year costs: $500,000.
Sure, you can create OpenFabricCAD in say
Let's say you spend 30% of your time per year maintaining and improving OpenFabricCAD - $33,000/year. Again, give 10% of the above admin for supporting your application.
So in 5 years, OpenFabriCAD has cost the company ($100,000+($33,000*5)+($8,000*5))=$305,000 for 10 users for 5 years, OR - $6,100 per user. You've also got a product that very few people understand, and your userbase is a handful of people that use it.
Where's the value proposition, again?
Parent
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise, in a large enough economy, this becomes probable.
Parent
Mod it down yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a direct hand-to-cash deal but there IS a return on open source/free software. If you can't see that, this late in the game, then you MUST be brainwashed.
ps. Nearly all "significant" OSS/GPL/Linux software is developed by paid programmers. If you're a programmer, you will have a job even if OSS becomes the #1. Besides, the vast majority of code written today is for in-house use, not for sale.
Parent
Re:Mod Parent Down (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Mod Parent Down (Score:4, Interesting)
When people started selling software, instead of their services as developers of software, things got weird.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In neoclassical economics, where value is measured relative to supply, you may be correct. However, there are other definitions of value (which is part of why this thread branch has gone around in circles)
However, if you go back to classical economics and then to Marx, you will find the concepts of use-value and exchange value. Software
Re:Mod Parent Down (Score:4, Informative)
No it doesn't. Artificially limiting the distribution of software via copyright, might, but software itself does not. Software development as a service (as open source business models use it) is classic capitalism. It is only capitalism as it applies to services (programming) as opposed to a commodity.
Having a clean floor has no inherent value, but still capitalism accommodates the selling of cleaning services, just fine.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
look up "marginal" (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mod Parent Down (Score:4, Informative)
I would disagree that the "marginal cost of production of a unit of software is damn near 0," when you take into account the man-hours required to create the software in the first place.
You're partially correct. The cost to develop a piece of software is called the sunk cost. It's a good term, just what it sounds like. You sink money into development and it sinks out of sight. It's gone. The cost to duplicate and distribute the product after that is, essentially, 0.
Not like a car. You have sunk cost in auto design as well, but the bulk of the cost is in the components. Cars have intrinsic value as any chop-shop can demonstrate. Software does not have intrinsic value. It can be duplicated for nothing.
Many economists disagree, but my opinion getting away from an economy based on making things with value and relying on things with no intrinsic value is a really bad idea. An economic Pearl Harbor. Maybe we won't be around long enough for something really bad to happen, but if it ever does it could well be an unimaginable disaster.
Parent
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Natural Competition?? (Score:4, Funny)
PS: we are straying from the point, and wading in the murky waters of the fascist nitpickers. And if you provoke me further, the only thing I shall sodomize will be YOU! Go away
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, near the beginning of the article, he admits to being a troll: I'm all for "playing devil's advocate" and having an intelligent debate where both sides are properly represented... but this guy basically admits that he just likes making people mad. So the way he ends his article is no surprise. In fact the whole article is filled with subtle (and not so subtle) jabs at both sides of the debate, such as: Moreover, like any good troll, he creates arguments that are full of holes, thereby inviting angry "True Believers" to fight the good fight and tear his arguments apart. (And as a by-product he gets page views of course.)
I'm fully in favor of a reasoned debate on any issue... but I'm not clear on exactly what new insights this guy's article brings to the debate.
Parent
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:5, Funny)
Either you don't get how
Parent
Re:Most important point at end of article (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. You, apparently, can not.
Parent
maybe? (Score:5, Interesting)
What if your industry is open-source software?
Re:maybe? (Score:5, Interesting)
And Open Source is better for that.
Parent
This guy is talking out his arse (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks for posting a very poor article.
Take it from a Rational ClearCase customer (Score:4, Interesting)
Dealing with ClearCase is a major part of everyone's job there. It was forced on everybody with a top-down executive decision- all version control is handled with ClearCase since they paid for the license. (The "benefit" is that a team in the bioinformatics division can have access to a repository maintained by, say, the oil exploration division.) Everyone who has to use ClearCase hates it. The processes are weird and the tools that you're forced to use are buggy. I've heard people cite ClearCase as a good reason to look for another job. The guy in the next cube had three weeks of work destroyed by a ClearCase update one morning. He smashed his keyboard into 101 pieces on the floor.
There are tiny version-control rebellions all the time- small teams set up little secret CVS repositories here and there- just known to a few guys who then have to keep them a secret from management. Once the top brass inevitably finds out about them, the phagocytosis begins: the team has to stop whatever it's doing and help migrate their entire CVS repository into ClearCase. This was always an abnormally large, painful undertaking for some reason. It was a real tragedy every time it happened- really demoralizing for everyone, even the people in the next row of cubicles just rubbernecking another version control disaster.A cynic might suggest that the people breathing in oxygen are the ones who are exhaling carbon dioxide and destroying the very atmosphere they're breathing. And that if carbon dioxide completely replaced oxygen, these people would not be able to inhale the oxygen that turns into the carbon dioxide they exhale. A cynic would be right.
Parent
Re:maybe? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
A Cynic Rips Open Source (Score:2)
:)
How can we take this guy seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
Open source is not a movement; it's a religion. It is a set of principles and practices that let everyone share nonexistent or semi-existent intellectual property.
Nonexistent intellectual property? Semi-existent intellectual property? WTF?
Any article about whether enterprise users really want to use Open Source software that starts of like this isn't worth reading any further. The guy isn't a cynic. He's someone with an axe to grind.
I wonder (Score:2)
Re:How can we take this guy seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed an even bigger point. The guy's objection applies (if to anything) to Free Software, not Open Source Software, between which there is an entire universe's worth of difference.
Anyone who cannot separate these two concepts in their head is clearly unqualified to hold forth on either subject.
Parent
We cannot (Score:3, Insightful)
enterprise (end) users DON'T CARE @ open source (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Reliable
2) Doesn't (ever?) change its user interface (in part, because they "develop" screenshot-based training materials too)
3) Etc.
It's only the enterprise I.T. technicians ("administrators") that care one way or the other, and then (in most cases because they're spending other people's money) because budget, deployment or licensing disputes are making their job more challenging that they feel it should be.
Republican Communists? (Score:2)
then
So, open source guys are Republican Communists?
I don't think this guy's a cynic. I think he's a schizophrenic.
Re: (Score:2)
Not true of the open source movement, I would say, but its not that incoherent of an idea. While the rhetoric of Soviet Communists and American Republicans are very much opposed, the Republican Party, since neoconservatism became an important force within it (and even moreso as it reached its zenith in the present Bush Administration) has adopted quite a bit, tactically, of the Leninist model.
Which probably shouldn't be a surprise given the Trotskyite origins o
It's Lonely At The Top... (Score:2)
Throw the baby out (Score:3, Insightful)
The truth is that if this guy is as cynical as he's making himself out to be, then he's guilty of the very fanaticism that he's accusing the OSS community of. Because no OSS means no Firefox, no OpenOffice, no Apache, no PHP, etc. If he's really extreme about it, then he can forget about buying products from big names like Apple, Cisco, or Novell. Even Microsoft would be on his list for having dabbled in OSS!
Will he really cut his nose off to spite his face, or will this cynic turn hypocrite?
* Doubled up just to annoy the grammar nazis!
This guy just doesn't get it. (Score:3, Interesting)
A cynic obviously can't see that there are other business models other than "proprietary-solutions vendor."
A cynic can't see that if open source replaced proprietary solutions, their daytime living would be their night time hobby.
I've Always hated Howard Anderson (Score:5, Insightful)
To their credit though they're at least not a PR arm of Microsoft like Gartner.
WTF - is Jack Welsh a contributor to SlashDot now? (Score:2)
WTF - is Jack Welsh* a contributor to SlashDot now?
Anyway, if you're #3-10 in your industry, you're ranked there because of market share or total sales, not because of IT expenses or even profitability. Just cutting licensing costs may get you a pat on the back and a promotion, but in the infinitely more complex context of running a business and competing in the marketplac
Mission accomplished (Score:2)
MS yes Cisco Maybe (Score:2)
Worn-out metaphor ... (Score:5, Insightful)
So why would computer customers be stupid enough to buy computer systems whose inner workings are hidden and inaccessible to anyone not working for the manufacturer? This doesn't make any sense, and we should expect that eventually users will wise up, as they long ago did with vehicles.
It's especially baffling that people are purchasing software that is so full of "exploits", and when a new bit of malware appears, users have to wait for the software's manufacturer to come out with a patch. You wouldn't tolerate this with other purchases, why would you accept it with software? Just as you expect your local mechanic to have repair information available, you should expect that your local software hackers would have access to the information to fix problems. That is, they should have access to your software's source.
It's especially baffling that, if I want a failing gadget to be fixable, someone would call my attitude a "religion". If the term applies at all, it should be applied to the people who accept the idea that "there are mysteries" behind their purchases, and we mere mortals shouldn't be permitted access to the inner workings of the universe. That's what a "religion" is. The idea that things in our world should be open to examination by us isn't religion; it's rationality and science, which is the opposite of religion.
Or, in the case of manufactured articles like cars or operating systems, it's just good engineering.
Re:Worn-out metaphor ... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's still a ton of functionality undocumented and unavailable to owners/users, such as the ability to modify values stored in the vehicle's PCM. A great deal of tuning is available in software, but they still don't give that information out.
For example, I have a Subaru with DFI (Distributor-Free Ignition). It's got a waste spark system with two coils, each of which serves two cylinders. And it has crank and cam sensors, and you never adjust the timing. Unfortunately, this also means that you can't adjust the timing without installing a complete engine management system.
(There are exceptions to this rule, for example pre-1996 DOHC nissans tend to have a CONSULT port interface which is basically just a snazzy, externally-clocked serial port. You can bump timing up and down in 0.5 deg increments. But someone figured this out using a factory tuning tool...)
The automotive industry has made it easier to fix cars by making them largely self-diagnosing (if you know what to look for, of course, they're not always correct and "MISFIRE IN BANK 1 CYLINDER 2" doesn't tell you what caused the problem) but they've made it much harder to customize them by moving the workings of the vehicle from the physical world, where they are exposed, to a black box.
If anything should be Open Source, if not Free Software, it is the programs in automotive ECUs.
Parent
Clearly Ignorant of the facts (Score:4, Informative)
I first read this article on an Australian site (http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;8103 29453/ [computerworld.com.au]) last week and it has been syndicated and is doing the rounds. This guy, Howard whoever he is, clearly has done zero research and has no facts to back up his comments - especially the finale.
At the end of last year the EU Commission released one of the most comprehensive reports on the impact, spread and use of Open Source, around the world. They found that, in actual fact, only around 10% of those who contribute to Open Source projects (the software engineers) are employed by proprietary vendors - the overwhelming majority are employed by the enterprises Howard so cynically believes are using FLOSS purely to beat down the cost of proprietary systems.
You can download the entire report from the EU itself here: http://flossimpact.eu/ [flossimpact.eu]
There are many other reports from major research organisations that are concluding similar things. Forrester research has recently found that over 50% of large enterprises are using FLOSS in mission critical applications and this is growing.
A quick Google would lead Howard to many of these findings.
Alanhttp://www.theopensourcerer.com/ [theopensourcerer.com]
Yankee Group (yawn) (Score:5, Informative)
Surely you all remember miss Didio and her corperate horse whispering.
Re: (Score:2)
From TFA. Didn't you know?
*finds felt tipped pens*