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Phases in FOSS Markets

What we all thought would happen. This is just phase 1.

Phase 2 is also suggested in the article- consolidation:

...open source developers and distributors now must face a threat that always existed... Saugatuck's... research... has shown continuing, significant increases in open source adoption in all markets, from operating systems to enterprise productivity software to server desktop applications. Growing markets attract competition; large markets attract large competitors.

Scholars have predicted that an expanding open source market would favor relatively large, vertically integrated firms. Companies like IBM and Oracle can easily step into and penetrate open source markets. To compete, open source firms, which already show a higher concentration than the rest of the technology industries, will need to consolidate or risk becoming niche players. The FOSS community may see this as a necessary step for survival, but doesn't it betray their ideological stance against big corporations when they become them?

Well, at least there will always be the small guy to push around- individual developers that FOSS firms will still need to make money off of.

posted by Noel Le @ 12:59 AM | Free Culture Movement

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From where do you get the idea that "the FOSS community" has an ideological stance against big corporations? Do you have any evidence to back that up or is it only your own conjecture? I'm sure some individual FOSS participants have such a stance, but what leads you to believe that's a defining feature of the community? And just who do you include in the community, anyway?

Posted by: John Gordon at April 27, 2007 8:08 AM

Yes

Posted by: Noel at April 27, 2007 12:07 PM

Noel:

What an incredible predictive leap--you predicted that in a rapidly growing market, there would be competition, and the there would be some new firms, and that the new market would even attract some large companies, whose traditional line of business was something different than open source.

WOW!

Posted by: enigma_foundry at April 28, 2007 2:34 PM

Yes, thanks Enigma, the model above is a solid prediction, leading to FOSS firms consolidating; thereby raising barriers to entry and contradicting the myth that the FOSS model facillitates small firm innovation.

Posted by: Noel at April 29, 2007 1:49 PM
 
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