Software "Open Monopoly" 284
garoush writes "The following article is at C|Net.news Software "open monopoly". In it "Sun developers Petr Hrebejk and Tim Boudreau say the economics of open-source software will break Microsoft's operating system hammerlock and replace it with a what they describe as an 'open monopoly.'"
I Personally have issues with such claims. With .NET, MS is positioning the company at "services" -- in effect MS is now gearing up to take on a new monopoly: "services" at the "consumer" level. If you agree, I don't see how "open monopoly" can break MS. After all, your average "Joe the consumer" doesn't know a thing about open source. " The submittor has an interesting point - but I think that even if John Q Public knows nothing about open source, if the services he uses are running open source, it doesn't matter.
John Q Ignoramus (Score:2, Insightful)
And the inverse works just the same (John Q Public would be perfectly happy with closed source services). This is a battle that won't be won at the consumer level.
Business for the established (Score:2, Insightful)
Translation: I support a laissez-faire business model. For me. But please shut down our competitors.
Everyone is wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:what is wrong with..... (Score:5, Insightful)
if it is an OSS monopoly, would that not mean that the people are in total control?
If I understand what you imply by "the people", the the answer is "no". Just take a look at most (NOT ALL!!!!!) OSS projects today: while there are some notable exceptions, the developers are not interested in making "better software for the people", but "better software for themselves". I am not making a negative value judgement here; there is nothing wrong with this attitude! If you are going to write software for free in your own time, I EXPECT that you will write the software you want, with the features you want, and document it however you want, even if those things don't advance the needs of the larger user base.
But this model doesn't put "the people" in control any more than a closed source model does! In fact, while it might make the monopoly a little more transparent, it completely removes all incentive to be responsive to the "needs" of the "users" (i.e., those users who are not also active developers); in this sense, an OSS monopoly may actually be WORSE for the "the people" than a closed source monopoly is. The closed source monopoly at least has to worry about pleasing government regulators and large volume customers; OSS projects don't even have those hurdles to overcome.
Big Players back Open Source? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Enough already. (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you just type this up randomly, expecting to get moderated up just for rebellously bashing slashdot, with a bit of "get real" attitude added to it?
The article wasn't brilliant, but it brought up one point, and then took an acid-induced trip out into left field at the end.
It was basically saying that OSS products will gradually eclipse propriatery solutions, because there are too many problems and costs associated with properiatary software nowadays. Not just monetary costs, but also costs for downtime, costs for cleaning up after a worm takes out your office network for 2 days, and (potentially) reduced hardware costs.
OSS doesn't have licencing costs (which are a huge factor and headache for smaller companies), and are (generally) more reliable with respect to issues such as viruses, worms and trojans.
It's actually fairly ironic -- just as OSS software is trying to figure out how to make themselves profitable, MS is right alongside them scrambling to find new revenue streams for thier flagship products, because they're not as relatively profitable as they used to be.
The problem with the article (which any english teacher would tell you -- wait, these are web writers, they probably failed english class) is that it suddenly decided to go off into left field at the end talking about how companies that provide OSS can be profitable, which has really nothing to do with it's first point -- in that the gradual increase in the use of OSS is inevitable.
Re:Everyone is wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look back a couple hundred years to the days where cargo was shipped via sailing vessels. Then one day someone (James Watt?) designs an efficient steam engine. Someone else (Robert Fulton) figured out a way to effectively drive a ship using a steam engine. Most of the shipping companies (my great great grandfather 's company included) could not foresee the impact and benefits or this technology. As a result, his son (my great grandfather) basically put him out of business by taking advantage of the benefits of steam powered ships.
The electric motor is another good example. When they were first exhibited, they were unreliable, and room filling (remind anyone of another tech that we know and love?). Today, electric motors are effectively invisible.
History continues to show us that innovative people will realize unorthodox uses for gadgets that many think will never have a purpose. And those unorthodox uses will (overall) make our lives easier, and more pleasant to live.
Open Source Development - a new process (Score:3, Insightful)
Before Henry Ford, there were lots of little companies that built cars by hand. Ford's new process for creating cars made them cheaper. The small car companies at the time said, "But most people will always want hand-built cars, because they are custom built and better quality." They were of course wrong - the more efficient process won in the end. The only way that car manufacturers of the time could survive was by producing cars by the same process, so very few of the companies survived.
Microsoft will try everything they can to stop the progress of open source, but in the long term, the more efficient process will win. Just like the car manufacturers of old, the only way that Microsoft can survive is to start using the new process. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it's a loose-loose situation, because the new process is so efficient that it is hardly possible to make a profit from it. So, either way, Microsoft dies. I give it ten years max.
Ten years may not seem like a long time, but remember that it is less than ten years since the launch of Windows 3.1
Fat US Corporations and Microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
I suggest people consult some facts before making pronouncements of Microsoft's impending doom. Look at Microsoft's earnings and think for a moment about where that company gets its money. Go here [microsoft.com] then you can begin to understand exactly how Microsoft is dying.
Microsoft's most recent quarterly earnings for Three Months Ended September 30 per region:
South Pacific and Americas Region: 2,433 million
Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region: 1,105 million
Asia Region: 604 million
Now for the same period last year:
South Pacific and Americas Region: 2,154 million
Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region: 1,085 million
Asia Region: 708 million
The only region in which MS earnings actually went up in this comparison is in the United States of America. The rest of the world is quickly figuring out that it doesn't need to be paying a tax to Microsoft. The fat US corporations are the only ones who can still afford MS software. That's why IBM says over half of its DB2 installations in China run on Linux. There is a similarity between US corporate use of Microsoft tax-ware and the bloated US car industry of the 1970s and 1980s. The US car industry had to reform in order to compete. The same will probably happen in regard to wasting revenue on tax-ware given the recent economic downturn.
Re:Fat Corporations and Microsoft (MS not doomed) (Score:2, Insightful)
OEM $1,819 $1,984
Apparently, the OEM channel is too opaque to be region-based, which isn't very surprising. And of course total revenue:
Total revenue $5,766 $6,126
But yes, Asia-Pacific did go down significantly year-over-year. And that is interesting. And the URL is here: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY02/Q02_1
government should stop using GPL, but not OSS (Score:1, Insightful)
Here's my view of the American Way: The government pumps a lot of money into academic research, then benefits since the breakthroughs are picked up by entrepreneurs in the industry, which end up providing jobs, paying taxes, increasing our product productivity frontier, etc, to keep the economic growth cycle going.
I don't know what is more "American" than that. Our universities are world reknowned for their success in fueling this phenomena. Unfortunately, in the case of the software field - research that gets locked under the GPL often cannot be carried over to industry. In fact you get tens of thousands of engineers in companies like Microsoft who are mandated not to even read GPL code because some of it might carry over into their work. What a waste of carefully crafted code! It's never even seen. Putting it under the GPL has effectively destroyed it.
What it comes down to is that everyone who pays taxes should have the freedom to use the results of government sponsored research. This includes those in industry who want to use it in conjunction with intellectual property that they need to keep to themselves in order to stay in business. GPL doesn't always allow that. Government sponsored institutions shouldn't be using GPL - they should be using a less extreme open source license alternative - like BSD - so that taxpaying companies can use source code coming from taxpayer funded research.