Open Source Losing its Way?
The Computer & Internet Lawyer (Aspen, Volume 21, Number 10, October 2004) has published a piece by Ieuan G. Mahony and Edward J. Naughton of Holland & Knight. It requires a subscription, and after looking around, I don't think it's on-line.The thesis: the current use of open source by companies that are commercializing it defeats many of the original underlying purposes of open source, such as "freedom, volunteerism, and a shared community...." Well-researched and an engaging read.
Are large technology companies are just embracing open source as a business defense against those software companies with the greatest market power, such as Microsoft and Oracle?
2 Comments:
Some are using it to thumb their noses at Microsoft. Others are using it to promote themselves as "good citizens" in the software community (whether they really mean it or are just using marketing spin is another matter on a case-by-case basis). Still others are using it as a business model to promote sales of other products.
Case 1: Sun and StarOffice. They acquired StarOffice and created an OpenOffice version under an OSS-style license. Part of this was to intentionally jab at MicroSoft's Office suite.
Case 2: Many companies create OSS apps simply to expand their cachet in the community. Eric S. Raymond explained this method of reputation-building in some of his famous writings. Others create a small app that does what they need, then hand it over to the open source community to develop and support it so the company doesn't have to itself. Still others do it out of an honest desire to contribute to the community. Usually, these are companies that derive substantial benefit from other OSS software that they use internally, and they want to return payment in kind back to the world.
Case 3: Netscape. During the browser wars, when different browsers employed their own proprietary tags to augment the W3C's scrawny standard, Netscape gave its browser away for free (and created Mozilla as an OSS project to base Navigator on). The purpose was to sell Netscape's webserver product. They wanted to sell the server by giving the client away for free, thus expanding client market-share and making the server product more attractive to potential buyers. Others give away free software so they can make money on supporting that software.
So the answer to the question is: yes, that happens, but there's more to it than that.
I have always seen this as one of the dangers of pushing the OSS argument over the Free Software argument.
People who don't know of or accept the Free Software side of things trying to take advantage of all of this code but to skirt on their responsibilities or worse, undermine the community for their own benefit.
These are tough issues to get right. The complexities of copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret laws and their interactions do not make it any easier either.
A Nony Mouse
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