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04.30.2008

The "Loud Minority" in the FOSS Movement

A ZDNet report on the "loud minority" in the FOSS Movement.

Efforts to increase the adoption of open-source software are being derailed by the efforts of a "loud minority" within the community who have made personal attacks on individuals who have expressed doubts about the software, according to one of the open-source movement's main advocates.

Jeff Waugh of open-source advocacy group Waugh Partners was disheartened after a series of personal attacks directed at the heads of Australian government agencies. These included comments directed at Australian Taxation Office chief information officer Bill Gibson...

Some of the public responses to the article labelled Gibson a "bureaucratic parasite" and his concerns "short-sighted".

While Waugh believes the open-source model holds better security outcomes than its proprietary equivalent, he describes the vitriolic reaction to Gibson's comments as being "disgraceful" and says they achieve nothing for the industry.
...
"This kind of language makes it extremely hard for the open-source industry to get the appropriate level of consideration in government departments," Waugh continued.
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Waugh was also disheartened when personal attacks were levelled at Standards Australia's Alistair Tegart over Microsoft's push to have its OOXML format accepted as an ISO standard. "I suspect that as a result, [Teggart] is becoming deeply cynical about open source," Waugh said.

Is this the same "loud minority" that prattles on about the moral value of free code, FOSS licenses as social contracts and the freedom-to-tinker that consumers have shown little enthusiasm about?

posted by Noel Le @ 7:36 AM | Free Culture Movement

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04.23.2008

Linux Goes Corporate

Nick Carr comments on a Linux Foundation report that over 70% of Linux kernel development is done by paid workers at commercial firms. Apparently, Linux has become a corporate initiative. Carr writes:

There's nothing particularly surprising in the shift from the volunteer to the corporate model - it tends to be what happens when lots of money enters the picture - but it does reveal that while Net-based "social production" efforts may be unprecedented in their scale and unusual in their technology-mediated structure, they are no more immune, or even resistant, to being incorporated into established market systems than any other type of labor that produces commercially valuable goods.
...
The shift in Linux kernel development from unpaid to paid labor, from volunteers to employees, suggests that the Net doesn't necessarily weaken the hand of central management or repeal old truths about business organization.

Right. I would add that the increasing corporate aspects of Linux, formal capital-organizational structure, is good for its sustainability and viability in the market. Free software advocates may disagree with this point, yet they turn a blind eye and undoubtedly rejoice in the gains of Linux from its increasing corporate nature.

Continue reading Linux Goes Corporate . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 11:03 AM | Free Culture Movement

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04.17.2008

Reality Settles in on FOSS

CNet Blog Network contributor Matt Asay writes:

Linus Torvalds used to talk about "world domination" as his goal for Linux. These days, though, while we seem to be making progress toward this end, we also appear to be increasingly complacent. We downplay the ideology that underlies open source in favor of "safe" rhetoric about lower sales and marketing costs and such.

Thanks Matt. I love reading your blogs, but I fear you're over-complicating things here. Another way to state that FOSS is not living up to its hype, that its not all its cracked up to be, and that its supporters are increasingly happy with lowered exepectations is: "reality settles in on FOSS."

I'll await word from Mr. Asay on whether digital copyrights and software patents can help explain the sudden pedestrian state of FOSS.

posted by Noel Le @ 11:30 AM | Free Culture Movement

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Red Hat Gets Realistic

Martin LaMonica from CNet writes on Red Hat's latest desktop Linux strategy.

Red Hat likes Linux on the desktop, but it also likes making money.

The company's desktop software unit on Wednesday released an update on its plans, saying it will focus its efforts on specific markets but not face off against Microsoft in the consumer market.

The Linux Desktop team explained:

An explanation: as a public, for-profit company, Red Hat must create products and technologies with an eye on the bottom line, and with desktops, this is much harder to do than with servers. The desktop market suffers from having one dominant vendor, and some people still perceive that today's Linux desktops simply don't provide a practical alternative.

Instead, Red Hat is focusing on desktop software that works with its server products aimed at businesses and developers.

Hmmm. Red Hat diverting commercial efforts away from direct competition with Microsoft? Pretty soon, we will hear the Free Culture-Software Movement crying stifled innovation in the desktop space due to lack of competition (despite the fact that non-competition is due to Red Hat unwilling to go head-to-head with Redmond).

If Red Hat was really a good FOSS community citizen, it would still compete directly with Microsoft on the desktop, ride any loss to its bottom line, and therefore promote the freedom to tinker and the FOSS revolution.

posted by Noel Le @ 11:05 AM | Free Culture Movement

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04.16.2008

FOSS Adoption and Consumer Welfare

Jon Brodkin from Network World reports on recent FOSS research from Gartner:

Nine out of ten software-as-a-service providers will rely on open source software by 2010 to save money, but the cost savings likely won't be passed onto customers, Gartner says in a new research note.
...
"The name of the game with software-as-a-service providers is dialing down your software acquisition costs," [Gartner Analyst Robert] Desisto says. "It's really economics-driven."
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The savings SaaS providers obtain by using open source software can be passed on to customers, added to profits, or used in R&D. Users shouldn't expect to see any cost savings, though, Desisto writes. The savings are more likely to go toward the vendors' bottom lines or R&D.

If cost savings of SaaS FOSS adoption are not passed to consumers, but directed towards firms' operating costs and (re)investments in innovating activity, consumers may still benefit from the increased choice of goods-services in the technology market. Interestingly, if consumers do benefit in this scenario, they would do so because these firms are behaving like traditional commercial entities in watching their bottom lines, rather than ascribing to FOSS ideology.

posted by Noel Le @ 10:19 AM | Free Culture Movement

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04. 2.2008

Commercial Open Source Firms Get VC Money

InformationWeek reports on a year-to-date increase in VC funds flowing to commercial open source companies.

The money went toward 20 deals, of which 17 had a publicly disclosed value, resulting in an average deal size of $12 million. "The first quarter of 2008 was the most successful quarter in history in terms of open source vendors raising venture capital funding," writes 451 Group analyst Matthew Aslett. By comparison, 11 deals with disclosed value brought in $100 million in the first quarter of 2007.

Undoubtedly, the VCs are seeking monetary ROI with their funding.

posted by Noel Le @ 11:30 AM | Free Culture Movement

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04. 1.2008

Groklaw and Commercial Influence

Groklaw is doing a series of posts on purported irregularities in the Open XML ISO approval process, with the insinuation that some of this may have resulted from the influence of Microsoft. Not a surprise. Groklaw has long used the approach of looking for tension in industry and policy settings, and attempting to trace connections back to Microsoft.

Whats amusing is that Groklaw was the source by which I uncovered the FOSS Movement's involvement in the 2007 EC case against Microsoft. Following the decision, while celebrating a victory for its FOSS friends and a loss for its enemies (Microsoft) through a series of blog posts, the Groklaw community showed itself steeply concerned with vested commercial interests (various FOSS entities and Microsoft competitors).

Its further amusing that Groklaw has done nothing to bring attention to the fact that IBM (a major opponent of Open XML receiving ISO approval) is historically a suave player in the standards process. Unfortunately for IBM, it may be better at the standards game than properly securing government contracts. Big Blue has recently been suspended from contracts with the US federal government as well as the state of Massachusetts.

posted by Noel Le @ 12:43 PM | Free Culture Movement

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The SFLC and Microsoft

Over at the Cnet News Blog, Martin LaMonica reports on recent Software Freedom Legal Center (SFLC) analysis of terms covering Microsoft's Open XML format. The Open XML format is up for final approval at the International Organization for Standardization this week. Microsoft competitors have been critical of the file format, and the SFLC shows no exception.

Having followed technology policy for a number of years, from within the West Coast software sector, and then in the think tank community of Washington DC, I've grown accustomed to the fact that industry entities compete on policy positions as they do in product-service markets. It still baffles me, however, the positions of FOSS entities such as the SFLC, that aim to weaken practices that do not support their own. The issue is rarely whether or not others conflict with the FOSS Movement, rather, the FOSS community shows agitation whenever others do not support its ideals. The result is the perspective that others' gain is the FOSS Movement's loss.

For example, the SFLC took issue with Microsoft's Open Specification Promise (OSP).

The OSP cannot be relied upon by GPL developers for their implementations not because its provisions conflict with GPL, but because it does not provide the freedom that the GPL requires... GPL developers, with their special sensitivity to issues of preserving downstream freedom, will be unable to rely on the OSP with confidence...

...Microsoft wrongly blames the free software legal community for Microsoft's failure to present a promise that satisfies the requirements of the GPL. It is true that a broad audience of developers could implement the specifications, but they would be unable to be certain that implementations based on the latest versions of the specifications would be safe from attack.

Oddly, the SFLC criticizes perceived ambiguity in Microsoft's OSP to preserve goals that are themselves painfully ambiguous: the freedom that the GPL requires, the sensitivity of FOSS developers, and their safety from attack. Further, in positioning these values as standards to gauge Microsoft's OSP, the SFLC uses the GPL, which IPcentral analysis has argued is purposefully unclear and reliant on vague threats of community enforcement.

One thing is clear though- the SFLC and the FOSS Movement will criticize all instances that do not advance their ideals. They are simply destructive and find weakening the efforts of others as its own reward.

posted by Noel Le @ 10:18 AM | Free Culture Movement

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03.31.2008

Bazaars and Cathedrals

Mark Blafkin from ACT reviews a recent industry discussion highlighting the joint presence of proprietary and FOSS technologies in the digital ecosystem. Blafkin notes one IBM technologist stating: "the combination of the bazaar model and the cathedral model drive innovation to a much higher degree than either would alone."

Right, innovation benefits from different kinds of development-business models. Yet often, this point is distorted by FOSS proponents who argue that FOSS should over-ride its proprietary counterparts, and therefore intellectual property rights lose importance. But the mere viability of FOSS development-business models does not render traditional proprietary models obsolete.

Too frequently, FOSS is positioned as a phenomenon that will displace proprietary models. This view conflicts with developments in the industry. Organizations that adopt FOSS business channels have shown no inclination to abandon their patent backed P&Ls. If FOSS could replace proprietary innovation, IBM would have jettisoned its more traditional revenue streams years ago. Instead, IBM has continued, and even increased, its investments into patented technologies.

While some technologists may jump and throw their fist in the air for the right to tinker with FOSS, consumers must be cautious of policy recommendations that favor FOSS at the expense of proprietary innovation. Consumers have already indicated their limited benefit from FOSS, and their policy views should follow their technology adoption.

posted by Noel Le @ 8:38 AM | Free Culture Movement

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03.30.2008

FOSS Developers

The ACT blog reports that a substantial number of FOSS contributors work at proprietary firms.

Somebody, please remind these developers that the FOSS movement relies on their continued tech support-troubleshooting for contributed code despite current professional affiliations, and that in a down-turn economy, if they get laid off, heck, they can still work for free and be part of the revolution.

posted by Noel Le @ 9:01 PM | Free Culture Movement

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03.25.2008

Notions of Free

posted by Noel Le @ 8:15 AM | Free Culture Movement

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