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IBM Exec Bemoans Lack of Industry-Specific Linux Apps
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Aug 08, 2008 05:58 AM
from the windows-lacks-compiz-fusion- dept.
from the windows-lacks-compiz-fusion- dept.
Ian Lamont writes "Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and standards, used his keynote appearance at LinuxWorld to complain about the lack of industry-specific open source apps. Despite some encouraging signs in the educational field with Sakai, Sutor said that he was 'tired of waiting' for specialized applications to appear in other sectors, adding that the proliferation of different licenses — and changing legal requirements for using the same software over time — is holding some businesses back from using open source applications."
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Just a thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe IBM might wish to consider throwing some money at someone developing those apps.
Re:Just a thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah.. I was about to say that.
In the world of open and free software, people develop software only becuase they are motivated to make one usually for personal gain.
Unless someone motivates them, you wont expect them to make softwares that they do not plan to use. There is no lack of talent.
We could have seen a GTA clone on the Linux front by now, but we don't for two reasons, no one is sponsoring any project and no one really is motivated enough to start one.
If someone throws in enough money, they will get what they want.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The major problem with the "throw money at it" argument is that ALOT of money is going to be needed to effectively bridge the gap between M$ and Open Source. If we could go back in time (say, 1994) and get Open Source the same level of support as it has today, without a doubt, we would be living a completely different world.
The major problem is as follows: If I spend money to build application X for an Open Source platform, will anyone switch when that same application is also being built on Windows (which
Re:Just a thought... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not a major problem. Businesses can make sweeping statements about how they don't wish to deal with license proliferation. But they have been riding all this time on the tail of an install base that was funded by a lot of consumers, and reducing their costs because someone else has been footing the bill. That isn't going to last. When these closed source companies are maintaining an increasingly complex codebase for a shrinking segment of the market, the cost to the shrunken segment is going to increase until there is no longer a business case for using it. When that point is reached, businesses that refuse to get with the program will go out of business.
If IBM wants to see more people using open software, they should send their legal guns in and start tearing down the tyrannical legal structure that prompted this license proliferation in the first place. After all is said and done, they helped build those legal structures that created this situation in the first place. If we had a system that enshrined the peoples right to have access to ideas, rather than one that enshrined the right of individuals and corporations to erect barriers, this wouldn't be happening, and people could stop funding the rich lifestyles of jet-setting lawyers and get down to the business of being productive and making the world a better place to live in.
The lawyer bills are, at the end of the day, what they're complaining about.
Parent
Re:Just a thought... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't have a life savings. I don't trust economies or currencies and I don't like participating in modern capitalism, so I don't keep large amounts of liquidity or financial investments. But I have been investing years of my effort and surplus income into creating an industry specific infrastructure to support artists who release Creative Commons so there will be alternatives to copyright available for people to turn to. And of course, once it's ready and live, I'll release the technological advances I've made to the community. If you want more details, you'll have to wait till I'm ready to handle the load of a slashdotting. But I put my time and money where my mouth is, and I always have. So, fuck off.
Parent
Re:Just a thought... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't have a life savings. I don't trust economies or currencies and I don't like participating in modern capitalism, so I don't keep large amounts of liquidity or financial investments.
Your participating in modern capitalism whetherr you like it or not, just like I participate in modern socialism and modern communism to the extent that its implemented by my country and the countries that make the goods I buy. I'm not sure how you can't trust economies in general. Where there are people there is commerce, in the general sense of the word. Where there is commerce there is an economy. The Creative Commons is simply a different form of commerce and a different form of economy.
But I have been investing years of my effort and surplus income into creating an industry specific infrastructure to support artists who release Creative Commons so there will be alternatives to copyright available for people to turn to.
So your participating in the economy, following its rules very traditional ways in an effort to change it?
And of course, once it's ready and live, I'll release the technological advances I've made to the community. If you want more details, you'll have to wait till I'm ready to handle the load of a slashdotting. But I put my time and money where my mouth is, and I always have. So, fuck off.
Personally I always tend towards the "announce the creation of the svn repo," as opposed to, "big secret until I deliver a finished product," but I understand the logic of the "TADA" release. That being said, saying, "I have something. It will be big, but I can't show it to you yet. Fuck off." will not win you any support. That being said I wish you luck and hope you do change the world. I am a die hard capitalists, but I don't think the current model of artificial scarcity with "intellectual property" is ideal.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not interested in winning support on the basis of my friendly demeanor. I don't have one. I'm interested in supporting individuals by providing them practical infrastructures that allow them to walk away from their feudal masters, and I'm good at it. Personally, I think capitalists should be executed for crimes against humanity, but I'm pragmatic enough to recognize that to truly win, the social organization they provide must be replaced. Once that's done, they'll be rendered irrelevant.
Yes, I'm par
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, you might see a GTA clone some day. There is already an Elite clone (http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]). Development on Vega Strike is slow compared to commercial projects but there is a handful of hobbyists who keep the project going.
Now industry specific software is far less fun and enticing (read: boooring). In that case, I believe it will take real money in the form of salaries for the developers ;-)
Re:Just a thought... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:How about porting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Games do much better on the console.
Some games do better on the console. Some games are unplayable on a console.
Adobe's been receiving requests for years and years about porting its apps to Linux. There's a market, but somehow the normal rules supply and demand appear to be interfered with here...
No, your ability to reason has been interfered with. There is no market for Linux versions of Adobe apps. There cannot be a market for what doesn't exist. There can be a demand. Demand does not create a market. Only the combination of supply and demand create a market.
If you wish to say that Adobe does not feel the demand is great enough to bother creating the market, than say so. Don't try to insinuate that Adobe hates open systems or that they are in bed with MS.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Thing is even if they did (are?)
a) we're talking about a lot of money to fill even a small proportion of the missing apps
b) for the health of the Linux software eco-system there needs to be many developers of such apps, not just IBM and a few other big corporations
Thing to realise is this is a keynote speech at a conference. Despite the tone of "I'm tired of waiting" he's not really talking about what applications he personally, or IBM as an organisation want/need, he's trying to throw out a challenge to th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm tired of waiting.... so I'm going to try to goad you developers into starting a few new projects.
I presume that Sutor meant "industry software" as narrow specialized tools used by many companies internally.
But the Sutor seems to not to get the problem with the industry software. (Or he is intentionally pitching at lack of backward compatibility in Vista). Such software has few buyers and often developed with very sophisticated model called "snow ball." 20 years ago, somebody written little tool for DOS to do some work. Then somebody added another function. Then somebody sold it to another company.
Re:Just a thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess my point is, this is one point where FOSS seems to break down. A lot of industry specific apps are (at least viewed as) highly proprietary and simply won't be prolific in FOSS. This isn't simply a case of no one being interested, or a lack of financial support. More of a NDA / confidentiality / trade secret realm issue perhaps.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most package managers aren't going to be happy with handling distribution packages for COTS software that is mostly pre-compiled binaries.
That's a burden for COTS distribution unless you're Java-based.
Plus, there's that whole Gtk/Qt mess (which one should I use), testing in multiple languages, and the COTS package having to support multiple platforms.
In the COTS space, for industry-specific apps... Mac is finally getting some attention. However, plain jane dumb users (the kind in OfficeSpace) aren't going
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They already throw a lot of money at Linux.
What's really needed is for those businesses stuck on proprietary windows software, spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars every year for their niche software to get together and hire some coders to put together a free solution for the benefit of the whole industry. It's boring stuff, no one is going to write this stuff for free. But since they're paying someone already, they might as well get source code they can modify to their own needs. And yes, t
GPL not strong enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've read the RPL briefly, and it seems that the main difference is that it requires that everything related to
Re:GPL not strong enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything for which they don't distribute binaries they don't have to distribute source. Improving the code only for in-house use means not needing to give any improvements back.
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Re: (Score:2)
Re:GPL not strong enough. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:GPL not strong enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL, but I don't think placing the binaries on company-owned computers for use by company employees is considered distribution. If the company gives an employee a copy for their own PC to work from home, that's a whole new can of worms.
Parent
Very true (Score:5, Insightful)
This is extremely true. We are a 95% Linux site- servers and clients, and it is nearly impossible to find industry specific Linux applications. The kicker is- we would be happy with even CLOSED source, commercial applications. There are needs for specific types of software for just about every industry: medical, dental, car repair, musician, distribution, auditing, education, scientific, etc, you name it.
But what is worse is the lack of applications for NON industry-specific business applications. EVERY business needs payroll, GL, AP, and AR. At least there are some choices with those, but surprisingly few. When you are trying to use Linux on the server AND client side, it is quite a challenge. I know. We are trying to get payroll, GL, AP, and AR *right now*. Fortunately, we found Southware- impressive stuff, although it is expensive, and text-based only.
And no, WINE doesn't cut it- we need real support. And no, we are not able to develop such apps ourselves. And no, we don't have the time or resources to start such development projects. But we have money and want to spend it on something that allows us to use the platform of our choice.
What is needed is a COMPELLING, modern, cross-platform, open-source, GUI, business application development environment. It is 2008. It shouldn't be difficult anymore for existing vendors to port their software to all major platforms and support them. Eventually this will happen, at least with a few major vendors. But in the meanwhile, Linux is suffering horribly in business outside of being web/file/print/compute servers.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
For industry specific and niche applications it is doubtful whether you will ever get a set of open source applications for a lot of set purposes. What is required are reasonably straightforward development frameworks for application developers to pick up, create a wide variety of software and be able distri
Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the lack of non industry specific apps - HR, Finance/Accounting. You mentioned that sort of stuff. Stuff that every fair sized company needs.
Then there's also stuff like calendaring/scheduling.
Lots of people are resorting to MS Outlook and Exchange because the OSS options just aren't compelling.
You need an OSS client AND server that work well together for email, calendaring, etc AND the client must run on Windows/O
Re: (Score:2)
I won't comment on "Visual Basic".
As for Qt4: Is it compelling and appropriate for business software vendors? (I don't know).
Of course, having the tools is a major plus, but getting business application vendors to use them, I suppose that is the real challenge.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The genius of Visual Basic was that it packaged up everything business types needed to write a GUI-based app for Windows -- a language (with simple syntax), a GUI toolkit, an interface designer, an IDE, and a compiler -- in one package.
This meant you could go from start to finish without having to stop and make decisions all the time about how to fit the next piece into your puzzle. When you wanted to design your GUI,
Notes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you run notes without wine?
Myopic execs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
There aren't many. There are a handful. At best. For people who try to run Linux shops it's indeed very difficult.
For something that impacts pretty much every business, finding a proper accounting package that will be accepted during yearly audits (in Europe) is pretty much impossible at the moment.
More specialised packages for innumerable industries simply don't exist although in many case you can hack something together fairly easily from what's out there (but most businesses aren't too keen on that kind
i dunno (Score:3, Informative)
but I think a company could get open source programmers to work on open source industry-specific apps by *shocked* paying them for it! I sure as hell would take time out of working on my own apps to do contract work for IBM, as long as a check is coming to me in the mail. No money? I'll just continue to put my heart into my own open source applications. Heh, no, I did not RTFA yet.
Why Sakai? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder why the example mentioned is Sakai? Anyone working with Open Source Software in the education knows very well that the real success story is Moodle [moodle.org]. Unfortunately the article doesn't go into details in this regard, so I'm left just thinking that it's another case of Big Organization Blindness.
Lack isn't a big surprise... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's quite understandable that a business that needs some industry-spesific application and comes to the conclusion that they must pay to have it made, won't make it open source. It's kind of against traditional business sense to pay for something, and then give it away so that your competitors get access to it for free... And even the usual open source arguments of getting "community development" benefit won't fly here. It's unlikely the competitors would "give back" their modifications/fixes with GPL, if they are just using the software internally, as they probably would with a lot of "industry specific" software. And even if they're distributing it, they probably wouldn't put any effort in "giving back", they'd do it only if somebody found out and actively requested they comply with the license.
I think a yet different kind of licence is needed... It could for example require at least read-only online version control repository for anybody who compiles the software from source and uses it in any way, and also require that the internal version is compiled unpatched from the public repository, and that if some closed code is used with it, the open code must not depend on the closed code (only the other way around). Or something like that, making sure that whatever competitors do with the open software, they can't hide their improvements easily.
changing legal requirements... (Score:5, Insightful)
This "changing legal requirements for running the same software" bit is obviously a crack at the GPLv2 to GPLv3 transition and similar license changes some projects go through.
Anyone speaking on behalf of IBM should realize that the EULAs for proprietary software change between versions all the time. Hell, many of them allow the publisher to retroactively change the terms of the EULA by posting the new wording to a website.
It isn't really fair to call one group out as being inferior for having clearer licenses that just happen to change more noticeably. It's the changes you don't notice until you're being sued that are the really painful ones, after all.
Hear hear.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I encounter this problem daily. I'm in a corporation that makes software.
EVERYBODY in the company knows that Linux is great, has been proven to be stable, the kernel can be adapted to run on anything, and now has a superior GUI (factoring in compiz/beryl + emerald), and you can use every programming language known to man on it.
Our particular problem is that the Microsoft monopoly has held on for so long, we're populated with a lot of Microsoft druids from the highest levels of the organization to the bottom.
We can't fire those people, obviously, and replace them with OSS-devotees; that would cut off our nose to spite our face. And besides, our clients (power industry, oil and gas) are almost always 100% windows desktop shops, with the random chance that their SAP system might be on an AIX server or HP-UX or if it's a brand new IBM mainframe... would be on a Linux mainframe.
But, I don't see anybody that wants a native SAPGUI for Linux, much less see the product I work on, which is graphics intensive, to run natively on Linux.
Shoot... imagine your average SAPGUI corporate druid that would want to run SAPGUI on Linux natively... this is what they would have to do:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applications_GUI_Multimedia/HOW_TO_Run_SAP_GUI_On_LINUX_To_Connect_SAP_R3_Systems
You think they're going to do that? Unless they're a geek... no.
And that little example is just a product I work on that is 80% Java based. Think of that huge mountain of little VB6 apps still out there.
Most corporations have tons of home-grown apps that sit internally which take care of important processes that keep the company humming. Sure, most of them could be reduced to python scripts with a CLI front-end, a Berkeley DB instead of Access and the users could just use PuTTY to get to them; but is that realistic? Who wants to do that work all over again?
What would convince companies it is worth their time to move to a FOSS platform on the desktop?
I mean, we already have a nice office suite that does most of everything you want and has that neat free-PDF generation stuff Office doesn't have (OOo), email clients galore, seamless wireless connectivity has gotten better, plenty of browsers, lots of security, every networking app and util you can think of, and every day--more native OSS clients you can shake a stick at.
These are just some of the problems that have to be worked around. I do my part where I work. My desktop at work is Linux, and so is home. Been that way for years now.
Always run the bleeding-edge version of Compiz and when other admins, execs, system architects and other geek-minded people pay a visit to my desk, I make sure they are wowed and dazzled by my desktop display [face it... candy does lure them in].
The problem out there in corporations is the population of people who are more than willing to dump and reload to a new version of Windows whenever it comes out, but mainly too afraid to run Linux on anything other than trash boxes--at best.
If you want people to embrace the desktop, you need to convince people that they love it, not argue with them when they try to compare KDE+GNOME to their old Windows installation.
Apple seems to have accepted this reality--and the market share of OSX in the desktop space has been increasing the last 5 years.
Just keep doing cool stuff on your own workstation or your laptop, and share it with.
Jealousy is the best and fastest way to spark adoption.
Re: (Score:2)
If you want people to embrace the desktop, you need to convince people that they love it, not argue with them when they try to compare KDE+GNOME to their old Windows installation.
Well said - belittling someone else's tools is not the way to win them over to your side.
Apple seems to have accepted this reality--and the market share of OSX in the desktop space has been increasing the last 5 years.
But Apple has a big advantage over Linux - a tightly controlled environment that simply works. No need to build pr
It's a chicken and egg problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget about licenses for a minute. There's no law that says "Applications running on Linux must be GPL'd".
The thing is, nobody's going to develop a Linux equivalent of, say, your favourite accounting/payroll application for free. It's as boring as hell to write and doesn't really directly benefit the person writing it so it is (and is likely to remain) the enclave of commercial software houses. GnuCash and the like don't really count here - I'm talking about the kind of application used by business accounts departments with at least a couple of people working fulltime.
And seeing as porting the software to Linux costs money - you've got to pay those developers somehow - you're not going to do it until such time as you've got a reasonable number of customers saying "Do you have a Linux version available? Because if not we're going elsewhere." (And that threat needs to be credible. Migrating your entire accounting department to another application isn't something you do lightly.)
Similarly, the businesses using these applications are more concerned about being able to run them than the OS they run on. "I can save you a bunch of money on Windows licenses" doesn't sound so attractive when you add "...but you won't be able to use products X, Y and Z on which you've built your business, and right now there is no credible alternative."
It's a simple case of economics (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's very much a chicken and egg situation, but a small developer writing software for specific smaller market sectors will probably only realistically be able to afford to develop for the one platform, and that platform is going to have to be the one used by 95% of businesses - Windows.
There's the potential for this to change with the (relatively) recent arrival a number of good RIA solutions, but these are essentially platform neutral and so aren't likely to help Linux adoption.
Any smaller business trying to find a nearby support company who are fluent in and can advise them on Linux systems will often struggle to do so, and the majority of others will of course advise them (often with generous helpings of FUD) against going the Linux route, as it's not in their (the support company's) best interests.
I'm a user and huge fan of Linux and FLOSS in general, but as a software developer who's pretty much always worked in niche markets, I'm also realistic about these things. I have to be - I need to earn a living.
Telecom Apps (Score:2)
But yes, we could use some really good Business Process Management software also. Although that isn't necesarily industry specific.
Legal requirements for using software? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is an interesting new kind of FUD about free software: that there are legal requirements for 'using it'. The GPL is quite explicit: running the program is not restricted; unless you are modifying or distributing the software, you can do absolutely what you like. Every other free software licence is the same. This message needs to be spread more widely.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, with GPLv3, there is now legal requirements for using it. That is, if you modify GPLv3 code and use it, but not distribute it, you are still legally obligated to made the modification public. That is the main reason why Linux is against v3.
Re: (Score:2)
What you say is true.
However, when you're a serious user of vertical-market software, you're always getting changes made. Even with closed-source, proprietary, commercial software the big customers who use it the most get the features for which they ask.
When you give a customer like that an open alternative, they'll have it modified by any consultant, freelance contractor, or in-house programmer they can. They then need to know what they can do with the modified versions and what they can't.
This still leave
Throwing money at a problem isn't enough (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, if someone wanted to build an Open Source CAD package, it would be an expensive and time-consuming chore and the odds of other people picking it up and building on it themselves would be very low. For every successful growing F/OSS project out there, another 100+ out there have crashed and burned for a variety of reasons.
What needs to happen is a bunch of people, preferably businesses, with similar interests should hire programmers and developers to work together with a common goal in mind... and that goal shouldn't be to "sell software" either. It should be to build the tool that works the way they need it to work. They can give that tool to other people in their fields so they can read and write their files and grow on from there.
Once upon a time, when a business needed software, they hired programmers to write and maintain them. And an interesting reality is that it's quite likely that programmers are cheaper than software licenses. I could be wrong, but the price of software seems to be ridiculously high. I know my own office spends a ridiculous amount of money for an AutoCAD seat... every year. Maybe it's not as much as the cost of a drafter, but still. After enough seats are purchased and renewed annually in a large enough setting, you could keep two or three good programmers on staff. And if industry related businesses could team their smaller programming staff together, a larger team would emerge and could actually put some interesting things together for a price that is less than or equal to what they are paying now for software that doesn't quite ever meet their needs.
So if industry specific software is needed, the industry needs to get off its ass and stop wasting money on commercial software and put it into programmers.
Wow (Score:2)
They put the linux trolls on the frontpage now ?
Seriously though. There are many industry specific apps for Linux, but perhaps not enough. They come when somebody writes them. Everyday this problem is becoming smaller - what does he want ? A miracle ? Then put your money where your mouth is.
The license complaint is 100% bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
And then, on top of all that, to buy or use the Free Software in question, it usually isn't even necessary to become bound by the license, so the license becomes irrelevant anyway. If you're going to create a derived work of one of these products (and the need of customization and maintenance isn't all that rare), then the license starts to matter, but again, even the most restrictive (GPL3?) is vastly easier to comply with, than anything in the proprietary world. Where's your customized version of MS Windows or Adobe Photoshop? Oh, that's right, you don't have one, because they haven't offered you a license that lets you maintain those products.
I can't find the tiniest amount of merit in that complaint. There's absolutely not a single shred of truth in it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, he's 'tired of waiting', eh? I find that waiting for code to appear in front of me is a very poor method of production.
Re: (Score:2)
I find that waiting for code to appear in front of me is a very poor method of production.
Hey, it works for me. Admittedly it's all in green and falling down.
Re:Funny thing how not many want to slave for noth (Score:5, Funny)
I take it you don't use ext3, then.
Parent
Re:Holding me back (Score:5, Funny)
He's not a moaning exec, he's a man with a vision :
"Either it's going to happen or it's not going to happen." (Bob Sutor, vice president of open source and standards at IBM)
It's because of this kind of insight that he's a VP at IBM and you're not.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Either this is going to be modded up or its going to be modded down.
INTERNATIONAL Business Machines (Score:5, Informative)
They really do not hire any Americans in significant numbers.
Yeah funny how a company called International Business Machines which operates in 170 countries and gets 63% of its revenue from outside the US [ibm.com] would even think to hire someone anyone but Americans. I can't fathom why they want to hire locally in BRIC [wikipedia.org] countries where IBM's revenue grew 26% in 2007. Apparently no one informed IBM that they have a responsibility to only hire Americans who know little to nothing about the countries where IBM is seeing the highest growth.
I cannot explain it but over the last several years I have yet to see an Indian developer who was trully creative and innovative.
Right, because a nuclear power like India with a billion citizens must not have a single creative person. I'm sure all the incredibly talented Indian engineers and doctors I've personally met must really be from somewhere else. After all, according to you they have no imagination or creativity if they are from India.
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