Gartner Says Open Source "Impossible To Avoid"

alphadogg writes in with a Network World article that covers a Gartner open source conference, in which VP Mark Driver seems to be going out of his way to be provocative. "You can try to avoid open source, but it's probably easier to get out of the IT business altogether. By 2011, at least 80% of commercial software will contain significant amounts of open source code..." After this lead-in, in which open source seems to be regarded as some kind of communicable disease, the rest of the article outlines a perfectly rational plan for developing an open source strategy.

Re:Already here.

[kebes]

In addition to the domains where open-source is already firmly established (the Internet, as you mention, and many embedded device spaces, too), there are indeed many new domains where open-source is becoming more and more "necessary." Consider this (admittedly brief) writeup [phoronix.com] on a talk given by "Intel's Chief Linux and Open-Source Technologist." The writeup says:

He also mentioned that a major OEM is requiring that by next year their hardware suppliers must either have an open-source driver available or be able to provide an open-source driver within the next twelve months. The likely company that comes to mind is Dell but Dirk refused to comment any further.

If the speculation is correct (that Dell wants all hardware to have open-source drivers available within 12 months), that's a big deal. Such a push is an example of the benefits of open-source being pushed into a new market (in this case, the desktop commodity hardware space).

What does DiDio say?

[bogaboga]

Isn't this the same Gartner that Laura DiDio worked for and suggested that Open Source software and especially Linux had no place in the then "today's world?" I guess things have changed a lot. But what does she say now? An slashdotter wants to know.

Re:Consider the Source

[arun_s]

Heheh. I just did a search for 'site:slashdot.org gartner' and here are some weird analyses they've come up with in the past:
Gartner Says Linux PCs Just Used To Pirate Windows [slashdot.org] (2004)
Gartner Recommends Holding Onto The SCO Money [slashdot.org] (2003)
(Sure they got some better ones too, I just picked the funnies)

Re:It is a disease, and that's why it works!

[arun_s]

There's nothing wrong a viral idea, and there's nothing wrong with admitting that an idea is viral.

Your comment made me think of what first attracted me to the Free Software world. To any one who's discovered the elegant beauty of Darwin's evolutionary theory, there is an equal attractiveness in the way the GPL license is framed.
The very fact that the GPL attaches itself to the code its released under, and survives into the downstream modifications that are made to the code.. there are beautiful resemblances to the way successful life itself evolves.
I'm inclined to believe that licenses that are not viral (e.g. BSD) and depend on altruistic reasons to survive, are somehow doomed to extinction (i.e. will be swallowed by proprietary licenses that couldn't care less about perpetuating the BSD cause). In the long run, the GPL will emerge as the fitter license that made its way into the larger user base while retaining pefect copies of itself.
(Of course I'm neither a biologist nor a programmer, so apologies if I sound like I'm talking outta my ass.)

Re:"Strategy" is Not Rational

[dedazo]

Every significant non free program has roots in some kind of free software.

That's quite a sweeping statement. Since you're using it to back up your implied argument that free software is inherently superior, could you provide some examples of this?

Re:"Strategy" is Not Rational

[cfulmer]

There's a significant distinction, though. Not only is open source software available under a different license, it's also easy to get -- you don't have to go through purchasing to get open-source software; you just download it. As a result, companies sometimes find themselves using, and sometimes selling, open source software when they didn't intend to. It just gets added in by some engineer who doesn't think much of it. That's a lot harder to do that when the software has to be approved by some manager.

A significant part of my law practice is advising clients about what they need to do to comply with a bunch of open source code that has, somehow, made its way into their software. On occasion, I have had clients using open source and proprietary software where the licenses conflicted -- one license says that they have to disclose the source code, and the other one said that they cannot. Those cases are always a lot less painful to deal with up front.

Re:"Strategy" is Not Rational

[tjstork]

Most of the techniques used in modern programming like multitasking, compiling, unix and so on came from Universities

Everything that is Unix ultimately came out of Bell Labs. Bell Labs gave us C and Unix and I think even sh. Before that, much multitasking and research in software development was lead by IBM, as, they were the reigning hardware company and had monopoly power. So really, all of the innovation which you describe came about because the big companies could afford to fund these lavish research facilities because they were gigantic monopolies and had genuinely anti-competitive business practices.

Sure, MIT puked up emacs, and MIT honestly, along with many American universities, are uniquely situationed in that they are essentially subsidized by BOTH corporate America and the federal government. They get paid by the government to do research, on the taxpayer dime, and THEN get to keep the work product, in the form of patents, and THEN SELL that. All the while, they complain about how broke they are, crank up tuition, and then get the Feds to step even with EVEN MORE money for student loans, grants, and what not.

The amazing thing is, universities don't really pay anyone crap that works for them... most tenured professors have a good life, but are by no means rich, and I've yet to see a Postdoc with a decent place to live, let alone car. So you have to ask the question, where does all that money go? Hmmm.... and suddenly, we find, endowments...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._colleges_and_universities_by_endowment [wikipedia.org]