What is Open Source?

s390 writes "The Inquirer is running an article by Olliance about "What is Open Source?" It appears to be the first of a two-part series for managers about how to engage with the open source community. The writers seem to know their material. Are they on target or have they missed something important? Do PHBs really need to read this sort of introduction to get comfortable with the idea of using Linux and other open source software?"

Like it or not, managers default to commercial

[Sheetrock]

Which means that Open Source needs to be carefully pitched to them -- commercial, closed source software is how business has been done for thirty years, while free software is still kind of a wierd new hippiesh thing (although having big-time companies like IBM embracing it helps.)

It's like the saying goes; when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like it needs a pounding. Nobody ever got fired buying Microsoft, whereas Open Source seems like a gamble... even moreso now with the bogus SCO lawsuit. Calmly and rationally explaining to the people that make the procurement decisions at your company that free software is a valid alternative and explaining why is necessary, because by default they're going to want to go with what they've always went with.

I loved antitrust

[zapp]

Antitrust beat the hell out of movies like Hackers and The Net.

Atleast Antitrust used GNOME, real unix commands, etc... had hot girls, and an actual plot.

Maybe it didn't portray the fineprint of the GPL, but it did pretty well (I thought) at showing how corrupt corporations can be.

Sorry

[BillsPetMonkey]

But on theinquirer, this is preaching to the converted, and the linux side banner "blindingly easy" betrays a lack of objectivity in approach. I'm not trolling, but this article won't be noticed by the people who really need to see it.

In the area of marketing the "linux zealot" tag is our own worst enemy and unfortunately that's what this will be labelled.

This is unbalanced advocacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are a PHB will have heard some of the anti-OSS FUD that's going around and this article takes no steps to address that. A semi-technical sceptic PHB will dismiss this article.

Not obvious

[Jad LaFields]

As a someone who is relatively new to /., the 'geek scene', and alternative software, I'd just like to point out to many people I don't think that OSS is a very simple, obvious concept. I haven't finished reading the article yet, but I think the idea of explaining OSS simply to 'non-geek' people is a good one, considering the "if you don't know what it is, figure it out yourself, we're not pandering to anyone" attitudes I've seen every once in awhile. Well, off to finish reading...

open source is fun

[tuffy]

Or, perhaps less simply, it's the notion that writing code for its own sake can be worthwhile - both to the writer and to everyone else.

Re:I loved antitrust

[Anonymous Coward]

Atleast Antitrust used GNOME, real unix commands, etc... had hot girls, and an actual plot.

Yeah...and all the code was HTML. Sorry, but if you're going to make a movie based on computers and put so much detail into using proper software to make things look more authentic, the LEAST you can do is rip some GPL'd code from somewhere and use that. The geek factor in that alone would have boosted the movie a lot.

NO

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Source developers have to respect end users before it will be accepted. No more of this "RTFM, j00 n00b. h4w h4w, I 0wn3d j00. 1337."

assumptions

[thoolihan]

The author assumes some things. High Quality? Some software is. OpenSSH for starters. However, anyone who's spent some time installing packages on various GNU or BSD systems knows there are some really awful projects out there too.

Now that I think about it though, thanks to the Java version of ICQ, I think closed source still holds the worst app of all time record...
-t

Self-Reliance

[Bame Flait]

Although I posted offtopic flamebait above, I'm moved enough by this post to respond seriously.

Businesses have a problem these days when it comes to software implementation - people aren't very good at it. This is typically (in my experience), because they have a hard time finding the right people who are expert in implementing software (which in many businesses, is at least as challenging as developing it). This difficulty is compounded when you have to deal with third-parties, which are notoriously unreliable when it comes to satisfying commitments (time, dollars). Those who have the appropriate human capital are the ones best equipped to implement open source effectively - and those who don't, won't.

Now part of the nature of open source is that there isn't a corporate entity out there that bears some responsibility to the organizations implementing the software - and this is where modern executives run into a wall. Without someone on the inside who knows their stuff, they're not going to be implementing anything other than the same old corporate offerings that will come with (mediocre) software and support.

What executives need to realize is that open source doesn't just give their programmers more control, it gives them more control. With the right personnel and a little innovation, open source gives you the power to grow and expand your business in highly specialized ways that proprietary software simply won't be able to match - even in a co-development type of environment (this I know from experience).

So cancel your MSDN subscription, and hire a few competent admins and developers. Then listen to them. It might feel like stepping off the plank into shark-infested waters, but they'll soon realize that they're swimming with the mermaids and dolphins in a sea of technical enlightenment.

Missing the Point

[Delphix]

While I read slashdot daily, and have an appreciation for Open Source software, I think a lot of you miss the point. I work for a company that builds 3D simulations. For years we used IRIX. SGI was simply the best graphics rendering stations you could buy. We still have some fridge sized boxes, an old Octane, and a couple O2s sitting around.

However, we've moved to Linux. We use Red Hat 7.2. Why? Because Open Source is great? Beacause we're giving back to the community? No. Because Linux allowed us to reuse all our simulation code that was built using Unix interoperabilty on more modern hardware, cheaper. We can go grab a GeForce4 Ti 4600 off the shelf, get a 8MB Buffered IDE HD, and Dual Athlon chips and they'll eat those O2s / Octanes, and even the old fridge sized Onyx. Slap six of them together and you've got a six channel renderer. We did have to change our IG software. We were using Performer, now we use a third party developed renderer.

For years our the company that developed our renderer has supported both Linux and Windows. Now they only support rendering on Windows. They still support the API for Linux though. So now we're looking three options:

1) Devoting time to developing our own Linux based renderer.
2) Continuing to use their API on Linux, but to control chanels on Windows boxes.
3) Converting the simulation over to Windows and dropping Linux.

At this point option 1 is pretty much out. While we have the in house skills to develop an IG, it would take several years to build something to meet our requirements (needs texture paging, terrain paging, must handle terrain sizes in excess of 2GB, etc).

Option 2 looks attractive because it's the least work. And will probably be what's implemented in the short run.

Option 3 will probably be our long run solution as we've had some trouble with nVidia and ATI drivers on Linux. While they do work in most cases, they don't seem quite as robust as their Windows counterparts. Ie with the Quadro cards...

Now if you go back and read over these things, what we considered in deciding what to use were:

1) time
2) cost
3) ease of implementation

You'll note we never said anything about Open Source. When we first moved to Linux we looked at Open Source issues. We use open source development tools. GCC, GIMP, ImageMagick, Glade... But it had nothing to do with the fact they were open source. If they had been sold to us like IRIX was and performed the same functionality we would have bought them.

We're interested in shipping our product, making $$$, and that's what managers are concerned with. The debate over whether or not we use Open Source software is irrelevent. The questions that have to be answered are how it would impact cost, time to delivery, learning curve. The other thing is, you shouldn't expect businesses to go out and just switch to Open Source because you wrote a persuasive article. If there is a system in place, it probably won't be replaced until it's necessary to do so. It's that whole cost thing again. Why replace something that's been paid for that works until it's necesary to do so.

If you answer that with anything other than it will make the company more $$$, or increase productivity, etc... you won't get very far with the suits.

Open Development

[eadz]

is what open source is really about. I have seen quite a few "Open Source" projects - code released under the GPL - that have been closed development and absolutly useless as an open source project because of this.

you have it exactly

[zogger]

You nailed it. It's a HUGE economic and practicality advantage in most cases for businesses. If they can maintain their competition (somehow) to keep using the expensive buggy stuff, they can pull ahead quickly. And even better if they completely "get it" and share back, they'll have the help and interest in their products they deserve, their business will do better, they can make more money and pay the help and stockholders more..on and on. I'm amazed that businesses still cling to that which just costs and costs and costs and costs and never really delivers all that well. Let em fail I say.

One misconception I had

[jcsehak]

One misconception I had was that open source meant you had to give the product away for free. This was even reflected in version 1.0 of the Open Source Music License I wrote (that I based on the GPL). But that's not so! You only have to give the source away, not the end-product. And you don't even have to make it available for download, you need only sell people CDs of the source for the cost of the media.

Open source isn't so much for the benefit of the end-user as the developer. Or rather, other developers. So it's just as easy to make money on an open source project as a closed one, as long as someone else doesn't take your code and make their own version that better and cheaper. So for MS, open sourcing Word would be a bad idea. But for a musician like myself, "better" is relative. So making your music open-source does nothing but good.

Interesting article...

[Pettifogger]

I don't know why it hasn't been pointed out yet, but the people who wrote this article are with Olliance, which is *selling* open-source services. Now, before you light your torches and get your pitchforks, I use Linux on a daily basis and do what I can to evangelize the movement. I also have a small collection of aging but much loved Macs. There are no Microsoft products in my household. But as someone who works in business, the first thing I noticed is that this is a sales pitch. Nothing wrong with that, but I know that many others in the business community will see a bunch of red flags because of it.

I think the biggest reason keeping businesses from switching is inertia or fear of new things. Everything sort of works right now (if the system goes down, the CEO and/or Board of Directors blames IT, not management) but if management makes a switch to something else entirely and it doesn't work, they're going to lose thier jobs. Trust me, software decisions aren't just based on price, stability and features. Even though Microsoft products sort of work most of the time, they're still beating the fear of the unknown.

For this reason, I really think that Linux/OSS should be pushed on the desktop level. When consultants, like Olliance, come in to install OSS at a company, I think they should put up fliers offering to install Linux on employees' *home* computers, too, if they bring their boxes in. I think one of the greatest unrealized benefits is Walmart selling inexpensive Linux boxes in its stores. That reaches a lot of people, even executives. When they see that it's stable and working and not "scary," it will become viable alternative. Finally, I think some kind of gimmick, like maybe using Linus' birthday as "Linux Day" where everyone who uses it goes to the Mall or somewhere with a bunch of CD-Rs burned with a distro and gives them away to anyone who wants it. The media might even be persuaded to cover something like this. It would spread the costs of producing discs and distribution out over a lot of people. People regularly share their music, why not operating systems, too? I don't know if that would work, but something needs to be done to get OSS onto as many desktops as possible. That's where the real battle for hearts and minds is, and if a CEO (or other high exec) has Linux at home and loves it, you know what will happen at his/her business shortly.

Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial

[Cereal Box]

Interestingly the concept of the company fixing its own problems as they hold the source was just unthinkable. No manager would give themselves more work no matter how much money it would save.

See, you have the misconception that simply having access to the source means you can fix problems in an acceptable amount of time. If you've ever had to pore over a massive project you'll realize that you could spend a couple days trying to track down and fix a problem that is preventing you from finishing your real work or you could simply send a problem description off to the guys who originally wrote the code (and who you're already paying for), and they'll probably be able to fix the problem far quicker than you ever could. THAT is the reason closed-source software is so appealing. If you have a problem with a piece of code you bought you can tell them "hey, I've got a problem, I'm paying you, get on this problem and fix it for me ASAP or we'll be re-evaluating our business relationship with you." With open source software, you might get lucky with helpful developers and you might not. You never know. What you do know is that you don't have the ability to really push open source developers to fix problems for you, and that's a major drawback.

Education, lots of education

[heironymouscoward]

Sometimes what is most obvious to one person is most unobvious to another. OSS is - to Slashdotters - as obvious as water and sun. To managers, it is a contradictory concept and much of the education has to come in the form of explaining why it is "free". Much of the counter arguments to OSS try to leverage the natural paranoia of business people (GPL virus, OSS patent liability, TCO, etc. etc.).

The simple truth - and this is obvious to any neutral observer - is that the Internet changed the dynamics of the software industry by removing all the previous barriers to organization and communication. What used to require a large organization to produce can now be economically (and this is the key) produced by random professionals in their spare time, by tiny teams working on thin margins, and by organizations who would otherwise do nothing special with the code anyhow.

The key questions about OSS ("who pays?") have been asked before, about the Internet, and we now all know the answers: everyone pays, a little, but since the technology required is so very, very cheap, it comes down to rewarding people's time. And it so happens that for many developers, the product is its own reward.

Software only represents a slice of any business's operation, and whether OSS is free or cheap makes little difference. However, when software is expensive (think SAP or Oracle), it eats so deeply into the business that little is left for other investment.

Managers need first to learn that large swathes of the software landscape are now completely in the domain of "as cheap as air", and only foolish people will still pay for something that their competitors get for nothing.

Managers need secondly to learn that this process keeps on moving. One by one the bastions of commercial software will become commodity items. The businesses with the capacity to be pioneers will always benefit. The rest will follow when the technology curve flattens out and moves into the "general market" and then "late adopter" phase.

OSS is simply a slice of a standard S-shaped technology curve. It's the same curve that drives Moore's Law, and indeed, one can say that software cost has a half-life. One could even estimate this. Allow me to state "Heironymous' Law" of falling software costs: every 18 months, software products fall in cost by half, eventually reaching effective zero.

Which is why we can now get databases, office suites, Beowulf clustering software, etc. etc. etc. for the cost of bandwidth.

Patents, by the way, are a brake on this technology curve, and this is IMHO why those of us who love and feel this curve hate patents so much. Technology wants to be free.

Perhaps...

[Tadrith]

...corporate managers would be more willing to work with things such as open source, when the open source community stops referring to them by childish names.

While the attitudes represented here on Slashdot assuredly are not indicative of many who contribute to open source, it's silly to think that the attitudes that frequently show themselves here do not get back to these people. Many of them do read sites such as Slashdot, and until the community can manage to present itself in a respectable manner, and in a way that's acceptable to corporate culture, I don't think widespread adoption will take place.

There's definitely promise in open source, which is why you see companies like IBM and Red Hat attempting to put a polished corporate face that people can associate with on Linux. They're trying to bridge the massive gap between the way corporate managers think, and the way your average Slashdot reader thinks. However, the community has a loud voice... and unfortunately, frequently all that comes out of it is sarcasm and snide comments. These companies can only do so much.

one additional note

[dh003i]

Something I forgot to mention. Despite the fact that both of these groups have slightly different ideologies, in real-world terms, they both agree -- for the most part -- on what licenses are acceptable, which means that individuals from the two movements can and do work together to accomplish common goals (as most of their goals are common).

It is rather like two different groups of individuals who support the right to choose regarding abortion. One group may support that right because of ideological reasons: they think women should be entitled to that choice. Another group may support that right because of practical reasons: they think that the effects of illegalizing it are harmful. In the vast majority of cases, both groups will agree with one another, and can work together to accomplish a common goal. It is called an incompletely theorized consensus. The Founding Father's had such in regards to their conception of privacy.

ok

[BigBir3d]

Do PHBs really need to read this sort of introduction to get comfortable with the idea of using Linux and other open source software?"

Do you want your boss to understand what you need?

In case you didn't notice (which I am assuming you didn't since the question was asked), your boss won't sign off on a huge shift in company policy without understanding the situation. I am talking more than the "blah blah cheaper" or the "blah blah security" arguments.

Managers respect calm, cool, intellectual evidence. Spitting (side effect of excitement in some geeks), poorly shaven, long-haired, smelly, hippy looking guys, espousing the socialist aspects of open source (that is what it sounds like to most un-informed mgmt types) get nowhere unless they are preaching to the choir.

Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial

[Jason Earl]

If you want to be able to put pressure on Free Software developers, then you have to have a business relationship with them. This is no different than what happens with commercial software vendors. For example, let's say you purchase a software package, and then decide that you are going to skip an expensive upgrade cycle. With commercial vendors the most likely response to "fix this problem, or else" is "it's fixed in the next version that will be $XXX to upgrade your licenses."

With Free Software you might get your problem solved for free. I personally have had very good luck bringing up issues with Free Software. However, if you are truly worried about support, the simple answer is to purchase a support contract from the vendor of your choice. Not only will your support contract likely cost you less than licensing commercial software, but if you feel your vendor isn't giving you adequate support you can purchase support from someone else.

In short, if you pay the Free Software developers money, then you can threaten to change your business arrangement in the future. If you don't, then practice up on your diplomacy because you are going to have to sweet talk developers into helping you.

Open Source

[Anonvmous Coward]

Open Source: The re-writing of already released software in order to avoid paying for it.

Man I hope people are in good humor today.

Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial

[Aadain2001]

The Open Source option is just that, an option. It is not the end-all, be-all of software paths for a company to follow. But it should still be looked at and given a chance. The people who can benifit from Open Source the most are large companies who already have programers on staff. The programers can learn the project and start fixing bugs/adding features to it without the need to deal with all the corporate politics that are involved with B2B. This way you can put pressure on a person to get the job done since they are inhouse. And, in the case of licenses like the GPL, the company doesn't have to give the work back if they only use it internally. But they could offer the fixes/features back to the world and see if others would add features/fixes to it as well, which they could merge back into the internal version. Think of it as getting a large pool of free eyes to look at what you are already doing and paying for.

Re:Perhaps...

[RatBastard]

The other issue is that businessmen/women don't give a damn about Open Source, save for ownership issues of anything designed in-house. Why? Unless the point of teh company is to develope software, they are not interested in getting at the source code. They are interested in a solution that works and will be supported by a vender of some sort.

The theology of Open Source is meaningless to them.

and I tend to agree with them. I'm not aprogrammer. I don't care about the source code. I couldn't find a trojen or back door if the comments in the source code told me it was there. I do care about open formats and standards that allow flexibility in my software chioices (say, using MPG video rather than WMV, or XML rather than that funky crap Word and Excel use).

I'd mod you up if I could.

[RatBastard]

Mostly because I agree that a lot of open source projects exist for that very reason.

But I'm also a cynic.

Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial

[MrResistor]

See, you have the misconception that simply having access to the source means you can fix problems in an acceptable amount of time. If you've ever had to pore over a massive project you'll realize that you could spend a couple days trying to track down and fix a problem that is preventing you from finishing your real work or you could simply send a problem description off to the guys who originally wrote the code (and who you're already paying for), and they'll probably be able to fix the problem far quicker than you ever could. THAT is the reason closed-source software is so appealing. If you have a problem with a piece of code you bought you can tell them "hey, I've got a problem, I'm paying you, get on this problem and fix it for me ASAP or we'll be re-evaluating our business relationship with you." With open source software, you might get lucky with helpful developers and you might not. You never know. What you do know is that you don't have the ability to really push open source developers to fix problems for you, and that's a major drawback.

Going to the maintainer or a major developer for the project and saying "hey, I have this problem and will pay you $x to fix it" would probably be plenty of leverage on an OS project, and would probably still be cheaper than the CS solution, and likely eliminates the need to be an asshole about it.

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Basically, what you're saying is that CS is a more attractive solution than OS for people who have no vision and no people skills.

The concept or the community?

[phorm]

All IMHO of course...

The OS concept is basic in the idea that you can view and/or modify (assuming that you have the skills) the functionality of a program being provided to your or your company. In many cases, it also means that the software itself may be free, and will permit personal modificatins, etc.

The OS community as a whole is a combination of people who fall into one or many categories:
a) With a goal to improve IT as a whole, by providing software to the global community that is without strangling license terms, hidden bugs/tricks, or other nasties
b) People that simply want to test their skills, and believe they have something to offer out to the world. The bored, the haxors, those that like to code in their free time.
c) The code-hippies - "code wants to be free", open-source is like free-love and such individuals tend to be highly anti-capitalism or anti-corporation.

Whilst I realize that many people may take offense to the "hippy" remark, you must understand that a lot of the reason the hippy era is looked down upon is because corporate culture one. The concept of "sharing information" for the betterment of everyone is something that has been around long before either hippies, coders, or Open Source - but it's something often quite common to all. I see us as a group with slightly radical ideas, but something real to offer that is becoming increasingly valuable as the corporate noose tightens on the world.

Many projects are (in most ways) free, and are a way of saying to the world, "this is my contribution. Value it, find use in it, and see that there is another way. If you can, take what we have given to you, improve on it, and give it back to the community."

Truly, I doubt that a roomful of OS geeks could get together and agree wholly on anything, but we could co-exist with the knowledge that at least at some level - we share a common cause and common roots. OS is quite possibly one of the few contenders left to give a little hopefulness to an increasingly corporate world, so let's hope we succeed.

Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial

[Dalcius]

"you could spend a couple days trying to track down and fix a problem that is preventing you from finishing your real work or you could simply send a problem description off to the guys who originally wrote the code (and who you're already paying for), and they'll probably be able to fix the problem far quicker than you ever could."

This point does have merit, but I suppose you're talking about problems with small to mid sized companies. Big ones (Like Microsoft, IBM, Novell, etc.) aren't going to fix your problems any time soon; they have so many customers, unless you're a big-shot (who can spend the $$$ to fix it yourself), they won't care. Have you had the pleasure of paying money for an incident to report a bug to MS? :)

---
"What you do know is that you don't have the ability to really push open source developers to fix problems for you, and that's a major drawback."

No, but truth be told, most OSS developers aren't working on their projects because they're told to or are being paid. They do it because their projects are their babies.

Typically, problems reported are fixed in relatively short order because:
1) you've likely, in the process of debugging your own software or tools, have isolated the problem to a specific area and pattern and
2) OSS folks almost always use the software they write themselves. That's usually why they write it in the first place.

Your argument has some weight, but I don't think it pans out in the large scheme of things.

[Apple Switch] My name is Dalcius, and I'm a Software Analyst (debugger) for a mid-sized company that deals with semi-large ones. [/Apple Switch]

Re:Like it or not, managers default to commercial

[Jason Earl]

You're saying that you can buy a support contract from any number of organizations? Forgive me for sounding less than enthusiastic about that prospect. If I buy support for product X from company Y, yeah they're my only option, but they make product X and the guys who coded it are intimately familiar with it. They have specialized knowledge of it.

It's no different in the Free Software world. Free Software doesn't spring forth from the mind of Zeus fully grown, some hacker writes it. Most of these hackers have mortgages and such just like the rest of us.

Now let's say I want support for Apache. Who do I buy that from (honest question, I don't know who you can "pay" to support Apache, or any arbitrary open source program)? How am I supposed to expect them to have intimate knowledge of the product? It sounds to me like buying "open source support" from a company means you're paying these guys to be "jacks of all trades", which of course means that they are "masters of none". Doesn't sound like such a good deal to me.

Apache support is easy because you can get it from almost anywhere. For example, both IBM and RedHat have engineers that are part of the core Apache group, but just about any major organization has people that are well versed in Apache. Chances are good with Apache that you will have a configuration issue and not an actual bug.

A much better example, is PostgreSQL support. First of all, PostgreSQL is quite a bit more complex than a simple http server. Secondly, PostgreSQL is a project that I personally am more familiar with. You can get support from PostgreSQL Inc. [slashdot.org] or Command Prompt command [slashdot.org], and RedHat will sell you support for their Red Hat Database which is nothing more than rebranded PostgreSQL. All of these organizations have staff members that are extremely familiar with PostgreSQL.

From my own personal experience these smaller Free Software support organizations are a world apart from the heavily scripted phone support available from most commercial software development firms. Heck, all of us have been on hold for an eternity only to have the tech ask us if we have rebooted the server. Just like anything else it generally boils down to how difficult your problem is, and how much you are willing to pay to make it go away. If you offer RedHat enough money they will put Tom Lane on your PostgreSQL problem around the clock and the problem will simply go away. Try doing that with Oracle or MS SQL Server.

Re:NO

[tcopeland]

> Open Source developers have to respect end users

"Open Source developers" are not a monolithic entity. They are just people. All kinds of folks write open source software - nice people, mean people, nice people who are having a bad day, people with big egos, people who want to help, etc.

That being the case, there will always be people who respond to questions with "RTFM j00 n00b." And there are others who will respond with "thanks for the feedback, please see question number 12 in the FAQ, does that help?".

If you're working on a project, you have a choice every time someone posts to your lists/forums/whatever - how will you respond?

Note the promises in the article

[jtheory]

This made me squirm a little:
Open Source software has the following characteristics, some of which are not usually found in legacy commercial software:

# Control resides with the user
# Highly stable
# Proven security
# End-User input to evolving functionality
# Excellent quality
# Highly flexible
# No or reduced License Fees
# No vendor lock-in
# Self-determined upgrade path
# Can run on less expensive hardware
# Very cost-effective
# Freedom of vendor choice
# Fast development cycles
# Ongoing evolution.

Wow, all open source projects have these features? I think it's important to let managers out there understand that there *are* some high-quality OSS projects out there, but it's not nice to just ignore the fact that most OSS work is crap.

Sure, you can find 300 projects in SourceForge for any given need... but most of them are still in the concept phase, or comprise a few crappy pieces of code that are currently running on a single teenager's home server.

I just tend to think it doesn't help anyone to present such a one-sided viewpoint.