It'll Be an Open-Source World 178
sniggly writes "Quotes from Wired.com: "MS will become little more than a 'legacy vendor,' offering support for its antiquated products." - and "Oracle... will be forced to open its applications." - this according to a Forrester Research report (link requires a login) that Wired has an article about. Is it the inevitable future of software? Who will be affected, who will go south, who will surface and will companies like ID software, Adobe or Sonic Foundry be able to continue as they are?"
artist and DBAs (Score:2)
How many open source projects have you downloaded and installed only to find ugly/unusable interfaces? We need to start recruiting artist to design/redesign projects so that average people will want to use them. The code can be a clean and elegant as possible, but without a good interface, the project will never fly in the general public
We also need to recruit DBS's to look the database schemas for projects. Programmers don't necessarily know how to set up a database, and often going back and redesigning it requires a complete rewrite, so it just doesn't happen.
There should be a point in every open source project where someone sits down and designs a decent interface and the DBA take a look at the db. Maybe Sourceforge can take up cause, and hire a few for just that purpose. It would greatly speed up the acceptance of open source projects.
- daniel
Hmm (Score:4)
Well, they already have the antiquated products covered. I guess the article is implying they'll be adding "support" in the future. Wow, I can hardly wait.
Re:Let's take a slightly broader view. (Score:2)
If a problem is large enough it is not uncommong to get in contact with the developers at a commercial company to help solve it. At work we've had this experience with Oracle, Microsoft and many other smaller companies.
I don't know about the licensing thing, I've never heard or encountered any real problems. Companies have lawyers that work for them to keep this stuff in check, if it becomes a problem it will be dealt with.
But going back to the article, the licensing agreements especially for say Oracle are rather steep and I do agree that long term the prices are going to have to go down in order for them to keep marketshare.
"Better to have a handful of nickels than no dimes."
Re:Don't bet on it (Score:2)
I was simply pointing out in everything I had done I had yet to see Window 2000 crash, even though I have done some things purposefully to try to cause problems.
We have QC staff at work whose whole purpose in life is to try ot break software. I think I understand the difference.
Re:They will start to care when they ask themselve (Score:1)
Emacs
Perl
ssh
Linux
MySQL
My company runs over 500 linux servers. When I need another 1 or 20, they buy me what I need.
They also need to support it after I move on. That's why we use Perl, Linux and MySQL. We have over 150 engineers that are fluent in these tools.
Our web site gets over 130,000,000 page views a month. Our Network Engineering team consists of less than 10 people.
You try to support over 500 servers in 2 far-flung cities that get > 130,000,000 page views a month with Windows NT with less than 10 Network Engineers.
And my company is saving millions of dollars by using open source when it makes sense (which turns out to be almost everywhere except on the sales/marketing folks desktops). Thats money that stays in our corporate pockets, goes to fund open source projects that we use, and goes to MY SALARY.
I'm not saying NT is not the right tool for some jobs. But it's definitely the WRONG tool for my job.
Re:Mostly systems software (Score:1)
It's annoying to have to boot over to Linux to do REAL work. (ie ssh-ing into my box at work).
sure, there's ssh clients for Windows, but they, for the most part, suck.
So I probably don't play Diablo II as much as I would other wise.
Re:For all of those who think this is BS, consider (Score:1)
Very nice. Too bad that this isn't good enough for most OSS fans - they don't just want free software, they want the source too. Calling Microsoft's success with IE a victory for open source thinking is, at the very best, a half-truth, since you are no closer to seeing the source for MSIE than you are Office or Frontpage.
Re:You are living in your fantasy happy land (Score:1)
Re:Microsoft a legacy vender, HAHA, yeah right! (Score:1)
treke
Re:Don't bet on it (Score:2)
DEC never had a lead... they were trying to garner some of IBM's marketshare.
As far as prices... Office is still much cheaper than the alternatives cost when they entered the market. i.e. a $500 suite replaced a set of 3-4 software packages that each cost $500 individually. Office has not gone up in price by any signifigant degree since it first came out.
Hardware prices. Do you know how much a 486DX50, 16M of RAM, 17" monitor, would have cost you back in '93? About $5,000.
Today one can buy a PIII-550, 128M RAM, 20 gig harddrive, 19" color monitor and all the bells and whistles with a Windows 2000 license for under $1,000.
Windows 2000 is most certainly not expensive when it comes to hardware.
What Bob Young says: (Score:2)
Someone told me once that if you plot Moore's law with lines, instead of a curve, then we're at a junction of two of those lines. He was a huge M$ buff, so I didn't bother suggesting that Open Source is the advancement that will change our rate of advancement.
Re:Microsoft a legacy vender, HAHA, yeah right! (Score:1)
Apache. Go to Netcraft [netcraft.com] and I think you can agree that there is little standing in its way.
I dont run apache, but I use it every day, whenever I am surfing the web. I also use BIND, and I use sendmail and qmail quite a bit. You use these programs as well.
Re:4 years is too little (Score:1)
PROPAGANDA Re:Why OSS is _not_ the future. (Score:1)
Based your PROPAGANDA on your hatred toward a company (VA) is not good.
Re:The Web doesn't care about your OS (Score:1)
I hope so. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't use the phone for 3 months because I couldn't pay the bill, which ran a bit higher than usual because I did some research on the web. Luckily we can finally use cable modems in our town. But it's just one monopoly replacing another, and even though it's a lot cheaper, due to the explosive growth of cable users and the slow actions taken by the cable provider to update their system, to keep from getting overwhelmed they are now resorting to a more and more restrictive approach : restricted download speeds & more restricted upload speeds and more and more limiting the download quantity. And a friend who lives 20Km from me still has to wait until the end of 2001 before he can get cable. Adsl is so expensive no average person can afford it.
That's not to say that it won't happen, and I do hope it will happen as fast as you think. But from what I've seen it doesn't seem very likely (in this timeframe, I mean).
Frankly, I find that people who cling to these archiac attitudes are the people who know the least about encryption technology
You are right, but if enough people believe it's not safe, Webplications won't be profitable enough. And about credit cards : even though it's secure there's still the chance that, just like in real life, someone at the receiving end will run off with your credit card data. Of course it wouldn't do him much good, but what if this happened with that fantastic breakthrough you were typing up that could make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. It maybe impossible that this would happen in an ideal world, but suppose your webplication wasn't open source (to get back on topic), and the company that made it overlooked some serious bugs or had some convenient backdoors
For what it's worth, I believe it WILL be safe enough (at least if you know what to use). All I've written is just hypothetical FUD. But when the day comes that webplications become reality, and if that day is spoiled by someone spreading real FUD
Of course, with OSS, people can check if their fears have a base in reality, and fix things if needed.
Summary : I DO believe in a rosey future, I just don't feel comfortable with putting a timeframe on it. And that's because those timeframes can never accurately represent the greed factor, both those of companies that want to create webplications and those that want to remain desktop oriented.
(I'm very tired at this moment, so please ignore the typos and grammatical errors - heck, I'm so tired that maybe you should ignore this post altogether. I won't lose any sleep over it, mainly because I can't afford to lose more sleep anyway
Re:Microsoft a legacy vender, HAHA, yeah right! (Score:1)
It isn't apache!
Re:4 years is too little (Score:1)
Re:The Web doesn't care about your OS (Score:1)
Yes, I can see things like Office and widely distributed business apps becoming web enabled. However, the future of software is on the intranet, not the internet. I see Office 2010 as possibly being a server that sits in a company server room, but not at Microsoft headquarters.
CD-ROM software will not die as long as...
- People and businesses want to have ownership of what they buy. They want something they can hold in their hand and sell to someone else if they want. Also, most complex business apps are customized to meet individual business needs. Oracle would not be the major business player that they are if they sold the same apps package to everybody.
- Wide area network speeds do not justify running some apps from the internet as opposed to your local hard drive. Also, reliability is a huge issue. What happens if Microsoft's server goes down? Does the world go down with it?
- People who value security will not let this happen. Software vendors will have problems with people breaking in and stealing software, while users will be exposed to the dangers of having their applications and data open to anyone cunning enough to figure out how to get to it. The only true security is a broken connection.
However, I do agree that in the new software development model, the browser is more important than the OS. I think the open source movement has become misguided in that they've directed their energies toward competing against the monopoly OS, while the open source browser has yet to be fully realized.
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Re:Changes for Today's closed source developers? (Score:1)
Why OSS is _not_ the future. (Score:3)
I hate to say it, but we're seeing why OSS isnt the future in recent months. The reason why this particular OSS life-cycle (1994-2001 or so) will inevitably will fail is because the corporations step in and milk the process for money. It sours everyone on the whole idea because it introduces foreign concepts like exclusivity and heirarchy to a group of people who have otherwise functioned quite well without it. So what's wrong with this? Its a subtle problem. OSS continues to grow and function on one basic premise. Whats mine is yours, and what's yours is mine, and we share openly and equally, period. When someone interrupts that system and says, "No. You cant have this until you give us X Y and Z", then the creative process will halt. No one will make a move out of fear of being screwed into the ground.
Here's a small example. Remember how the industry was back in the mid 70's and early 80's? It was pretty much the same deal -- People shared software openly, without much of a regard for where it came from. Good software survived because people used it. Bad software died because people didn't use it. People added to what they recieved, improved it in some small way, and passed in on. Then, software companies sprung up and decided to taint the process. People didn't call it "open source" back then. They just called it "trading". When the process is corrupted in even the smallest way, the overall picture will change. In my opinion, this change ultimately spells out failure for the whole OSS movement.
Here's another reason OSS will likely fail. By VA Linux Systems' own admission, the majority of active OSS projects in the world, right now, are being housed on SourceForge. SourceForge is owned by a company that has yet to turn a profit, and is currently teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The company is backlogged, and incurring a huge amount of debt in an attempt to spread out resources. The lush green pastures provided by companies like VA tend to evaporate overnight, once all the money that can be made has been made. Its just a matter of time before the process is fully milked and depleated. Nothing separates VA from any other company out there -- Statistically, they stand a 93% chance of failing within the next 5 years.
And, a third reason:
Ultimately, no one will work for free, if they know the guy next to them is doing the same work for pay. In the last few years, theres been a shift from intellectual competition to financial competition..The whole idea of competition is counterintuitive to the development process. OSS projects are developed in stress-free circumstances. No deadlines, no sales figures, no pressure to gather mindshare for your product. Changing the rules of the game by introducing financial competition is outright suicide. That alone will ruin the OSS movement.
My $0.02,
Bowie J. Poag
Not OS like (Score:1)
Re:Don't bet on it (Score:3)
Daily reboots have never been an issue with NT to begin with. Microsoft is pushing in the direction of NT/2000, not win 9x, so your statement is doomed given time.
I think it's very dangerous to continue thinking things such as "the core OS has great stability that MS products lack"...
It was this same thinking "Of course linux is faster than NT" that led to the disappointment from the mindcraft benchmarking.
We don't hear that "faster" statement much anymore, and it's hard to test for stability. But, I still wouldn't be to smug about it.
Not So fast (Score:1)
Anyhow, there is no reason to beleive that OSS is going to surpass closed source anyday now. OSS is domaniate on the internet today. Has been for some time. This isn't new. Yet, OSS has essentially a near 0% marketshare of the desktop. Gnome and KDE are wholefully inadequet for home needs. Very little multimedia support, ugly fonts, horrible printing support (both in accuracy and printers available), an interface that makes Windows look easy, et. al. Progress is slow in UI on Linux and innovation is pretty much absent. Copy copy copy. Copy WIndows, Copy Office, Copy WinAMP, pick your app. It's pathetic.
An OS written by programmers for other programmers will NEVER be used by my mother.
Re:Don't bet on it (Score:2)
Perhaps, but I feel (yes, that's 'feel', not 'think') that a 'movement' gets going not because of sound rational reasoning, but rather is a phenomenon that manifests seemingly out of the background, until it becomes the new background. It is always easy to make up plausible reasons and explanations afterwards, but all these depend on points of view. So what I'm saying is, when the common automatically aquired belief system comes to include 'software is free', 'educated' people will sit around in bars having rational discussions about how 'free is the proper way', and making up all sorts of reasons for this to be so. They won't have a clue why it's really happened, or whether it really is 'better', but once this movement is going, people will just unconsciously accept it.
Impressionist art is today considered popular, and liked by a lot of people. But originally it did not "fit" what people thought art should be, and they would 'rightly' criticise it. They could find reasons for damming it. But today, people find reasons for admiring it. The movement succeeded, and became the new norm.
As my point is "touchy feely misty", it says nothing concretely useful, like 'exactly when will 51% of desktops will be linux...' I'm just saying that Linux may come to dominate regardless of all the rational and sane reasoning.
Re:For all of those who think this is BS, consider (Score:2)
But, of course, the real reason Microsoft got so strong is that IBM chose them to produce the OS. If IBM had developed this in-house, I don't think we'd have a Microsoft today. IBM would probably still be a juggernaut (if it survived anti-trust lawsuits). Translate this to Microsoft. Microsoft rarely shops out work. When they do, they usually end up either taking the idea and putting the company out of business or, more usually, buying the company and bringing them into the fold. Microsoft makes sure that others can not replicate its core software. There's only one Windows, not Windows clones, and Microsoft produces everything from the OS to the applications to the games to the drivers for mice and keyboard. Microsoft does not rely on anyone like IBM did and Microsoft does its damnedest to make sure that no one can do (not do better or do differently, but do) what they do.
So you're comparing apples to oranges. Take a look at the mistakes that IBM made and take a look at the mistakes that Microsoft hasn't made. About the only huge blunder on Microsoft's part was not recognizing the impact of the Internet, and we all saw how quickly they turned that around.
Re:Damned...I am not a genius. (Score:1)
True enough.
Last I remembered, Apple has a 80% market share on PCs about 15 years ago
They did?
they died 10 years ago
They did?
Hmmm... amazing what gets modded up these days.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Apache is no good for large sites? (The Data) (Score:1)
What the Top 25 most popular websites (at home) run
Webserver: 8 Chose Apache, 6 Chose Netscape, and 6 Chose IIS (2 didnt have much of a choice). 3 did their own thing and 2 I dont know about.
OS: 9 chose Solaris, 6 chose windows, 4 chose BSD, 3 chose linux, 2 chose Tru64 UNIX, and some fool chose IRIX.
Ummm...what big companies were you talking about?
This weeks nielson netratings (at home) with server info
Property Unique Audience (000) Time Per Person (hrs:min:sec)
1. AOL Websites 28,628 0:13:31 running NaviServer/2.0 AOLserver/2.3.3 on Solaris
2. Yahoo! 25,720 0:30:15 running unknown on FreeBSD
3. MSN 19,847 0:21:12 running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000
4. Microsoft 16,686 0:05:42 running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000
5. Lycos Network 9,550 0:09:24 running Microsoft-IIS/5.0
6. Excite@Home 8,934 0:14:52 running Apache/1.2.6 Red Hat on Linux
7. GO Network 7,649 0:14:12 running unknown on Solaris
8. eUniverse Network 5,264 0:08:36 running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98
9. Time Warner 5,114 0:09:16 running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on Solaris
10. eBay 5,071 0:52:51 running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98
11. About.com 5,032 0:06:48 running Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) on FreeBSD
12. AltaVista 5,023 0:09:17 running AV/1.0.1 on Compaq Tru64 UNIX
13. NBC Internet 4,602 0:07:41 running Netscape-Communications/1.12 on Solaris
14. Amazon 3,971 0:08:43 running Stronghold/2.4.2 Apache/1.3.6 C2NetEU/2412 (Unix) on Compaq Tru64 UNIX
15. iWon.com Inc. 3,842 0:26:29 running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3 on Solaris
16. LookSmart 3,738 0:05:44 running Apache/1.3.4 (Unix) on Solaris
17. EarthLink 3,254 0:08:27 running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 on Solaris
18. Ask Jeeves 3,157 0:06:39 running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4 or Windows 98
19. CNET Networks 2,920 0:06:12 running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on Solaris
20. SmartBot.NET Inc. 2,827 0:03:53 running Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) on BSD/OS
21. The Go2Net Network 2,739 0:05:51 running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) ApacheJServ/1.0 g2am/1.39 adutil/1.8 g2ad/1.66 PHP/3.0.16 mod_perl/1.16_03-dev on Linux
22. Real Networks 2,693 0:04:06 running Thisisarealoperatingsystemfromthefreeworld1.2alpha 12 on Linux
23. Gator.com 2,598 0:06:17 running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) PHP/3.0.7 on FreeBSD
24. American Greetings 2,553 0:08:56 running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP2 on IRIX
25. iVillage 2,472 0:08:45 running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP1 on Solaris
I think the data speaks for itself
Reality check (Score:1)
Personally, I've had two experiences with MS support. The first was when my MS mouse stopped working. MS sent me a new mouse, no questions asked, without even asking me to send the broken one back. The second was due to an obscure bug in Win2K that happened to affect a game that I was playing a lot. That one took a bit longer to solve, but eventually the support guy actually contacted the relevant programmer and had him send me a fixed DLL, hot off the compiler.
If only all software companies had that kind of support, the world would be a much better place.
Re:Microsoft a legacy vender, HAHA, yeah right! (Score:1)
Besides, from what I have been able to surmise. Apache's use is mainly on low-end low-traffic servers. And the results of netcraft do not show what is virtualy hosted. in others words netcraft has a serious flaw in there information gathering. With virtual hosting there may be hundreds of hits for apache when it should only count as one. one hit, one server. that would definatly level the playing field.
The one reason that I see open source as never taking a lead is because there is a minimal amount of funding. This causes those with great ideas to be sucked in to the larger companies with large capital and can pay them respectively. Hey, if I come up with a great idea, I sure as hell ain't gonna let it get out for free. No way!
You might be right, but you're no stock guru. (Score:1)
Gee, I wouldn't. I bought 100 shares for my mom at $74. Let's see... there are two possible outcomes...
1. Microsoft wins the appeal, stock returns to normal $100+ area and beyond.
2. Microsoft loses appeal at Supreme Court, they split the company up, and we get shares in each of the remaining Baby Bills.
I really feel my mom's chances of making out on this investment are pretty damn good.
-thomas
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Re:"Blah-blah-blah... we will take over the world. (Score:1)
Off the top of my head the following major free tools are superior perl, sed , bash, grep
But Gates is no visionary... (Score:2)
MS has made plenty of mistakes, but one in particular was when MS made its first big step.... Gates tried to sell IBM the rights to DOS to IBM more than a couple times. Fortunately, for Gates, IBM refused. If IBM hadn't, the odds are that MS would be nothing but a memory.
Someone should tell the DVD-CCA (Score:2)
Moderate as flamebait (Score:1)
Also you say that software should be based on quality, but you immediately follow that with a fallacious argument that you NEED the POS NT.
Give us some support for your arguments.
+++
Re:For all of those who think this is BS, consider (Score:1)
That last bit -- there was a big reason why IBM didn't force MS to sign an exclusive contract. The big multi-decade Justice Department anti-trust suit against IBM.
This is why, despite my libertarian-conservative beliefs, I didn't oppose the MS antitrust suit. MS wouldn't have had an OS market outside of IBM if it weren't for the DoJ.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:For all of those who think this is BS, consider (Score:3)
Now let's look at Office. Is there any difference between Office 2000 and Office 97? (ok, the clippy and incompatible file formats don't count). Is there any difference between Office 97 and Office 95? For that matter, is there any difference between Office 95 and Office 4.2? I've used all of them and, again, the changes are cosmetic. One major improvement Office 95 has is long file names (it was released after Windows 95). But other than that, there are NO major changes between the releases.
Now let's take a look at IE. I haven't seen IE 1.0 but I did see IE 2.0. It was a complete joke. I can only assume IE 1.0 was even worse. IE 3.0 was much much better. IE 4.0 was better still (but more bloated). And IE 5.0 is the best browser currently available (I'm not counting Mozilla as it's not out yet). But they gave away IE for free. Why did it become so much better? Because MS actually had to *compete* against Netscape (well, they also "cut their air supply", but that's a different story altogether
The point I'm trying to make is that the software companies will improve their software only if they are forced to by the competition. If there is no competition, they'll produce such amazing "innovations" as MS Bob.
___
'It'll Be an Open-Source World' (Score:1)
Re:Damned...I am not a genius. (Score:1)
Given that, why is this post Insightful?
It just irritates me a bit... (Score:1)
But I've been reading articles like this for ages. Maybe the people at wired could get a copy of the Cathedral and the Bazar?
There was a time when Wired (magazine at least) reported on technologies that wouldn't hit slashdot for ages. They've even done a small blurb and then a rather large article about slashdot. But posting tripe like this gets to me...
Tommorow on Wired: Cellphones are bad for you, so are CRT monitors.
I'm posting this as anonymous, because I'm afraid it'll just fall in with the rest of the trolling on slashdot....
Er, um, do we have to have a gun? (Score:1)
Changes for Today's closed source developers? (Score:4)
1. As a developer, software licencing issues do not normally effect my day to day work.
2. I am already used to going through a 'code review' process by outside personel, so that while additional eyes may view my code, it really won't change my overall developement style.
3. I suppose that it will make things 'legal' when I take my generic, private libraries and classes that I've written from one employer to the next, but who really concerns themselves about this anyway?
Someone, please, tell me how this will affect me, the average joe software developer guy?
-jerdenn
Applications yes, Games no (Score:2)
Re:BYTE told us some years ago... (Score:2)
sig:
what a well thought out article... (Score:4)
Come on people, let's be critical for once here when something goes our way.. does this realyl sound like sound research? They go on about "beware geeks with guns", etc? That sounds like they just want press, like most of these researchers do. The fact they mention Dell makes no sense whatsoever and just shows what a lousy "study" this probably was.
sig:
A Few Upper Limits On Open Source. (Score:2)
1. If the current high demand for IT professionals falls, it could result in reduced interest in CS on college campuses. What percentage of Open Source is written by grad students?
2. A cultural or demographic shift could reduce the number of twinky-gobbling caffeine-a-holic dudes who are willing to stay up until 3am working on code. Actually, the twinkies may just kill all the hackers.
#2 will be especially hard on GPL'd projects if BSD or other non copy-lefted alternatives are available. The latter can be revived by the traditional business model. The former can't; not legally anyway. (Some have referred to the "GPL virus", but because it prevents smooth shifts in the equilibrium between Open and Proprietary software, I prefer to call it the "GPL ratchet".)
3. The commoditization of software could cause a shift towards proprietary hardware. I don't mean to harp on this, but it's a point a lot of people seem to miss. We have commodity PCs now, in large part, because they all have to run MS software. Start letting HW vendors write their own custom OS's, then we are back to the early 80s with Apple, Atari, Commodore, etc... and very little software compatability. Sure, they'll all run elf binaries now, but once the hardware market is fragmented, HW vendors will try to come up with killer apps to lock you into their system, much as Apple did with graphics early in the game.
So... just because OSS looks like it is going to take over the world now, doesn't mean it will. In fact, there may be a "cycle" that takes place between Open Hardware and Open Software. 1980--not much standard hardware on the market. 1990--not much Open Software on the market. 2000--a move towards internet appliances and game consoles, all with different hardware.
4. If the current OSS domination does collapse in a highly noticeable way, this might prevent a new cycle of OSS domination from occuring for quite some time, until a new group of young, undiscouraged hackers emerges.
Re: ain't gonna let it get out for free. (Score:3)
Then why on earth should anybody cooperate with you? Nice trolling, but if there's an atom of sincerity in your claims, it's rather sad, as you're crippling yourself by refusing to have your ideas (whatever they are, if any) exist in a social context with the ideas of others.
This translates roughly to 'I am smarter than everybody else in the world regarding the field in which I work'. You won't ever communicate your ideas- they are for franchising only, not for discussion. There are few people who have any business whatsoever taking such an attitude- among them, possibly, John Carmack- who opensources his old engines, pitches in on opensource projects, and posts to Slashdot like any member of the community.
It looks like the people who _really_ have ideas and aren't just wanking about it tend to be the people who are discussing them with others and placing more importance on their superior ability to reach a synthesis with the ideas of the community, rather than those who say 'if' I come up with a great idea I will defend it with my life and never tell anybody.
This might be a little counterintuitive- but it's so well established that it bears closer examination. Essentially, the people most capable of continuing to turn out competitive work are the ones most likely to want to cross-pollenate with other developers in the community, secure in the belief that they can execute on the ideas better than their competition. And on the other hand, the people (and companies) least capable of coming up with new ideas or executing on their existing ideas are the ones who most want to chain up the ideas themselves, the ones saying 'I wouldn't let an idea go out there for free, are you crazy?'.
It looks to me like this is a convenient little litmus test, to distinguish between classes of developer and their relative capacities. In a way, to act from a presumption of idea scarcity almost _proves_ you don't have many... if you can't consistently come up with new ideas for new situations so easily that you can afford to give them away, what business do you have aspiring to be a professional programmer?
Re:The Web doesn't care about your OS (Score:2)
I'm not doubting that CDROMs will still be burned, but the network will be the de facto way to distribute software. How many linux users wait to get a CDROM version of an RPMs they want? Virtually none.
- Wide area network speeds do not justify running some apps from the internet as opposed to your local hard drive.
What hard drive? Seriously - a little flash memory is all you will need. Getting rid of hard dirves is required for devices to be rugged enough for real mobile use. Your palm pilot or cell phone is the model that will be followed - flash memory is going to get huge, fast. Intel knows this.
- People who value security will not let this happen.
If you value your credit card number to the network, what else is there? I think people do trust security products and secure network protocols.
Re:Why OSS is _not_ the future. (Score:2)
Well, I may not agree with your choice of lifestyle..but if it means anything to you, I care about you, Penis Bird Guy. I don't want you to feel that you (and your parrot) have no one to turn to in your time of crisis. I care--and I think I speak for everyone here, when I say that our homes and our hearts are open to you....and your penis, and your bird.
Let us help you help yourself, Penis Bird Guy.
Bowie J. Poag
Re:ID software? (Score:2)
They have also released the source code [modscene.com] to a large portion of Quake 3, minus the 3d engine plus a few other things. They're keeping the 3d engine proprietary for now (which is understandable given its profitability), but they're encouraging users to modify the rest of the game through mods and such. Again, "not your traditional proprietary software company."
=================================
Re:Rash Headlines (Score:5)
sirch wrote to us with the latest research from Forrester Reports. The report alleges that this year's massive hyping of Linux will fade in 2000, as well as stating that it's not probable that CIOs will be switching over in massive numbers to Linux.
And eight months later Forrester says Microsoft is doomed? I didn't take them seriously in the slightest then and I don't now.
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Re:Changes for Today's closed source developers? (Score:2)
Me, that's who. That's illegal and they get pissed at that. Not just the employer that you stole from, either. The employer who received the stolen code will often get pissed for 2 reasons.
First, they can get sued for having/letting one of their developers use code from other companies like that.
Second, they don't want you taking your code with you when you leave.
If you must do that, then develop that stuff on your own time, and then you can use it wherever you want (or at least your employer will be more likely to allow you to). I'd reccommend that you release the source for it first, though so there are no questions about it later.
Re:OSS and the little guy (Score:2)
Yes, but that 10% is a very important 10%. Many of these in-housers are doing the same, dull, boring crap, like yanking payroll information out of a database in various customized ways.
The other 10% are guys like Larry at PolyBytes [polybytes.com]. Here's a guy who most likely enjoys what he is doing, charging a decent price for his software (which I use and like so much that I registered another copy for work) and probably making some profit (though I have no idea what his sales figures are). As for support, my $20 registration has gotten me very prompt and courteous support. I'm sick and tired of the Free Software argument that says guys like Larry are oppressing me because I can't see their source. Quite the opposite, PolyView has set me free from the drudgery of converting and manipulating various image formats.
In years past, there were lots of Larrys providing a wide range of choices in various software categories. If the OSS juggernaut rolls on, and there are only 1 or 2 current programs to perform tasks in a particular category, how will this enhance the freedom of the user?
The other thing I don't like about this 90/10 argument is that I have never seen hard statistics from reputable sources to back it up. Also, this argument has a tendency to reinforce itself. People say, "oh it doesn't matter that we hurt these people, because they can always get a job doing this". I haven't asked larry, but I bet he has no desire to take a job at some bland corporation that involves pulling things out of a database all day. He's probably more free and happy doing what he's doing. And I feel free using his software. A world where all software is "Free Speach" may not be so Free after all.
Re:A Few Upper Limits On Open Source. (Score:2)
Before OSS was the huge movement it is today, almost everyone involved was very smart and very productive. Nowadays the signal-to-noise ratio in the community is pretty bad. There are still great projects being created, but for everything that has the potential to be the next apache there are 20 badly written icq clones. The amount of new smart people coming into the ocmmunity is not rising in proportion with the amount of attention and hype OSS has gotten.
So I agree completely with these points as being very plausible ways for the OSS movement to change completely in the next little while. After all this study seems to think OSS isn't going to change at all, just Microsoft. Hmm.
sig:
Re:Pardon me, but this is FUD (Score:2)
Partially true - they had the largest percentage gain, although it was not the "larget" IPO ever in terms of generating the most cash - I think that distinction belongs to ATT wireless (not sure thought).
More on LNUX finance's can be seen here [yahoo.com].
Re:Ughh. Hiring a man is not buying him whole! (Score:2)
I can either take the original function and code, or waste a morning each and every time I need to use it by re-writing it. Either way, we'll end up with the same result. It's just a matter of how much time I waste doing it.
And the argument that I can't re-write the function won't hold water, either - as long as it contains no proprietary business logic. One can hardly claim that common string manipulation functions are proprietary, now, can we?
-jerdenn
Don't look for the same huge blunder (Score:3)
This has worked very well against other business, because MS has not been held accountable to the laws of the USA for what they do. It has _not_ been effective in a larger sense- to a large extent it is just this behavior that has produced Linux and the open source movement in general. Honestly, if you could start a business making computer software and build a small company that took some reasonable market share, where is the need for open source? If Microsoft did not hold their customers and the rest of the industry (not to mention the judiciary...) in contempt, where would the emotional drive to rebel through open source be? Yet, at this time you can't reasonably expect to run a small business selling many types of software, because Microsoft owns the market and dictates what will survive and what will be destroyed- and venture capitalists will in fact check with Microsoft about whether to invest in your business, on that bases. And Microsoft does indeed hold most of the rest of the world in contempt- so in a very real sense they are forcing the growth of open source, by taking great pains to make everything else's future seem even more nasty, brutish and short.
This is a very real error, though they are not likely to be able to turn on a dime and fix it- their ability to whirl about and kill unexpected commercial competitors simply makes the case for open source and 'amateur' development stronger. The less opportunity there is for pro-level developers to practice their craft commercially, the more of them there are to practice it as 'amateurs', and the more likely they are to do that. It's much like a present-day rock band choosing to release mp3s instead of seeking a record deal, _knowing_ that the present-day record deals are so horrid that they might as well 'stay in the garage' because their future is a wasteland should they try the traditional, major label way. It's similar in some ways for programmers- the only people with _any_ credibility for making a competitive office suite, browser etc are those willing to do it for free, because Microsoft will obviously destroy anything resembling a commercial venture, and this certainty is enough to freeze up financial support from potential investors.
Only Microsoft could possibly force open source, developed-for-free software to take over- and they are rapidly causing just that to happen, by the utter thoroughness of their destruction of the commercial sphere. Every time they destroy an entire market segment they produce the conditions for open source projects covering that market segment, produced by people who desire a choice and won't get that choice in any other way.
Poetic justice... and hubris, ate
Let's take a slightly broader view. (Score:2)
Performance (even realworld performance, let's not get into benchmark fun) isn't the only criterion. One must look at the conditions under which you are allowed to use the product. This, in the age of UCITA, is where Microsoft will hurt themselves the worst. Given a weapon, they attack. This time they are busily attacking their own customers and setting more and more restrictive rules on their customers, as well as more and more harsh penalties for rulebreakers. At some point you end up going 'hell with this, let me find something lame but harmless'.
Forgetting something.... (Score:2)
That has already been established. There is one thing however, that will keep commercial software alive for a long, long time.
People who don't want to wait for it, will pay for it.
I'll just quote this w/o commentary (Score:3)
"Apparently, for the last couple of years, a band of open-source developers have gotten together for target practice at many of the major Linux conferences and events. To quote Eric (Raymond),'Hackers love anything where you get to tinker with complex hardware that makes loud exploding noises.' It sounds like fun, but we suspect some competitors would be a bit wary."
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Damned...I am not a genius. (Score:4)
Uhh....I must not be a genius then.
Can you kindly show this dumb-ass how to "leverage" 80% productshare in a volatile marketspace to 20 years?
Last I remembered, Apple has a 80% market share on PCs about 15 years ago, and they died 10 years ago.
Microsoft will survive.... (Score:2)
There lies the answer to your question. MSFT has more cash (not assets or market value but cold hard cash) than any other company in the world. With their assets they have bought their way into almost every possible field of computing: Operating Systems, PC Hardware, Game Consoles, Online Web Content, Internet Service Provider, Database software, Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Desktop Publishing, Games, Interactive TV, Online Banking, Diagramming Software etc. If one aspect of computing stops being profitable they can drop it and buy their way into a profitable market ad infitum.
Also unlike IBM of old they can turn around on a dime if need be. Remember that Bill Gates once called the Internet a fad and said MSFT would ignore it. But guess what, now their browser is the number 1 browser on the internet, they are the second largest ISP (a distant second to AOL), and their software serves up a sizeable amount of web content (at least 25 per cent). All this from a company that got into the Internet game late.
If I had money I'd buy some shares, the stock only has pne way to go (up) once the split is done.
PS: Why do you think they are pushing
(-1 Troll)
The Web doesn't care about your OS (Score:2)
Desktop OSs and computing platforms are fading into the network - within five years it really won't matter that much what platform you are using as long as it has a good browser and is fairly secure and stable.
Most of the applications you look at today that you can't possibly think of as networked, will be. Oracle will seel database storage as a service. You will use Excel through your browser, and AutoCAD and Seibel and anything else - believe it. This stuff is going to get smart - smart enough to play nice with your desktop, cellphone, and wristwatch.
Its all going to talk to each other and mesh around userids, not platforms - companies that build webs of apps around common userids are going to be in control - think AOL and Yahoo, and not IBM and MS
The companies that get networking and devices are going to reap the profits. CDROM-based software is DEAD!
Re:Don't bet on it (Score:2)
The one real problem with the me-too cloning nature of much open source development is that it could be completely wiped out by something really snazzy and unexpected from a company that is doing any kind of R&D (which Microsoft does a lot of). For example, if a future Windows GUI were rewritten to use high-end video cards for *everything* rather than supporting the old GDI, then it would just plow through anything available for Linux. And Microsoft has been talking about this for some time now. Meanwhile, Linux desktops are still trundling toward just being stable and usable (no offense intended; I simply accept the truth).
Well, they may have #1 market share (Score:2)
*g*, thinks of Austin Powers...
"who...does....number....two....work...for....?"
"That's right, buddy, you tell that turd who's boss."
What big ones?? (Score:2)
Re:For all of those who think this is BS, consider (Score:2)
Backing UCITA...
If UCITA becomes law (in more thatn just a couple of states) the only way out of the mess that will be created will be free software. Software companies will be able to charge exorbatant prices, increase support costs at will, and not be liable for anything when there software doesn't work.
They will have look no different from Open Source software, except you will have to pay for them. Eventually people will figure out that paying for software that works the same as free software is stupid.
This will take a while, but if UCITA passes its possible that software companies will get sucked into the same cycle of complacency that killed IBM. So I wouldn't completely rule Microsofts demise out.
Re:Why OSS is _not_ the future. (Score:2)
When someone interrupts that system and says, "No. You can't have this until you give us X Y and Z", then the creative process will halt.
This is true for some situations in proprietary software. In open source, the party making this demand will get screwed. If they're patching a GPL project or using GPL or QPL libraries, they're violating the licenses - if they aren't, someone else will do their job.
tha majority of active OSS projects in the world, right now, are being housed on SourceForge. SourceForge is owned by a company that has yet to turn a profit and is currently teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
First of all, VA's situation is not quite that bad. Second, SourceForge is NOT a single point of failure.
If VA goes bankrupt, someone else (e.g. Red Hat) will take over SourceForge, or at the very least offer a very similar service. (Promised, even if I have to start it myself.)
Since all the stuff is open source, I can legally grab all the stuff from SourceForge and put it in CVS trees elsewhere.
If some accident killed Linus and all his machines, it would of course be a very bad thing - but Linux would go on, because there are many more copies of its source code.
If, on the other hand, some accident destroyed all Microsoft offices, good-bye Windows - nobody has the source, so nobody could continue developing it [and I don't think it's possible to rewrite all its bugs from scratch
No one will work for free, if they know the guy next to them is doing the same work for pay.
Untrue. Take a look at any of the mailing lists on a bigger open source project (e.g. linux-kernel, kde-devel,
Open Source does not eliminate the need for software developers. As you've said yourself, Open Source usually does not have deadlines, sales figures or pressure.
That's where companies come in - they have deadlines, and need their favorite projects to be at a certain point at a certain time, so they hire someone to make sure it happens.
I think right now, we're at a point where Linux would go on even if all hobbyists stopped working on it -- as well as if all Linux companies suddenly went bankrupt.
Both of these things would slow down, but not stop, development.
Show me this type of safety in any other development model...
Re:For all of those who think this is BS, consider (Score:2)
The reason why IBM screwed up dominating the PC market is a lack of focus. What is a better way of making money, a $5,000 pc or a $5,000,000 mainframe (plus lucrative consulting and service contracts)
When Compaq came out with the first 386, IBM lost it's dominating role in the PC marketplace. Once the dominance was lost, Microsoft could push its licensing agreements to all of the clonemakers.
Microsoft is insulated from it's mistakes by the massive number of Microsoft Windows and MS Office installations. Users are not eager to learn about a new operating enviroment and IT folks do not have the time to migrate.
The whole compatibility issue helps MS immensely. In 1991, why would I want to switch is OS/2 to run MS Windows 3.1 Applications? Why buy another OS to do things that you already do!?!
Today we are seeing the first true threat to Microsoft in several years. The ease of pirating MS Windows and Office in this age of cable modems hurts MS on the home front. The rising popularity of licensing fee free Linux hurts MS on the business side. Even Microsoft salespeople will have trouble selling MS Datacenter Server with 10,000 licenses as Linux and other unixes move into the enterprise market.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:For all of those who think this is BS, consider (Score:2)
About the only huge blunder on Microsoft's part was not recognizing the impact of the Internet, and we all saw how quickly they turned that around.
Yes, and just exactly how did they do that? Well, by giving away free software of course.
Like it or not, this may be the one thing that plants the seed in general consumer's minds that 'good software can be free'. Tell them they should pay for a browser now, and they may laugh. How long before they start expecting their whole OS, or their office suite, to be free as well? At least hardware manufacturers still have something manufactured to sell.
MS may get undone by their own favorite tactics. Assimilation of competition's features, and giving stuff away to set 'standards'.
Rash Headlines (Score:4)
Just as provocative blanket statements like "KDE SUCKS!!!!" or "GNOME SUCKS!!!" starts flamewars and piles up the comments, provocative stories about how MS is going to completely disappear draws readers like flies to a pile of shit.
But that doesn't mean that it has anything to do with reality. I'm no Microsoft fan, but they do have one of the best PR and sales forces in the universe, and I really doubt that they're going to fade into oblivion. Maybe, just MAYBE in a few years linux could grab the majority of the market, but to say that MS is going to become a legacy vendor is well...
Moderate this post down. (Score:3)
Any student of computer history (or anyone with a book with a chapter on computer history such as this one [amazon.com])can tell you that the IBM PC was released in 1981 and by the end of that year was outselling Apple machines. 15 years ago [1985] IBM compatible PCs were already the dominant player in the desktop market. Thus the above post is either a troll(very likely from it's insulting manner) or was written by some prepubescent teen who thinks that just because he and his friends had Apple ]['s in 1985, they were somehow the dominant desktop platform.
(-1 Troll)
Don't bet on it (Score:4)
Once you get past the annoyance of a daily reboot (which most users have been conditioned to accept), Linux doesn't offer much competition for MS on the desktop - and no, trying to turn the clock back to 1996 by building Office rip-offs isn't going to change that. Anyone who needs an office suite already has one - MS Office.
Linux is getting there - the core OS has great stability that MS products lack, but GNOME/KDE, multimedia support, browser technology, etc still has a long way to go until it even gets to Win95 levels.
Re:Don't bet on it (Score:2)
Sure Windows 2000 (and Windows NT 4.0 for that matter) are stable enough, but Linux isn't competing with Windows 2000 for the desktop. It is competing with Windows ME.
After all, how many people actually use Windows 2000? I would bet that Linux is already competitive with Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 on the desktop. Sure, Windows NT probably has a fairly substantial lead, but it is not anywhere near the astounding lead that Windows 9X has over Linux on the desktop.
Windows NT advocates don't get this, but when it comes to most people's desktops price is a more important factor than stability. That is why Microsoft can't get people to buy computers with Windows 2000 installed, the added stability does not justify adding $200 to the price (or whatever it is that Microsoft is charging nowadays). This is especially true since most software and nearly all hardware drivers are written and tested for Windows 9X. If you buy Windows 2000 you end up with some of the same problems that Linux users have (though not to the same degree).
And with the rapid improvement of the Linux desktop it is soon going to be possible to ship a fairly competitive package for Windows + MS Office + MS Visual Interdev for the astounding low price of absolutely free. With the rapid decline in the price of hardware OEMs are balking at Windows ME's prices (especially compared to Linux), you can bet your bottom dollar that they aren't going to be interested in selling sub $1000 PCs and then turning around and giving $200 to Microsoft for Windows 2000.
So unless Microsoft drops Windows 2000's price so that it comes in line with Windows ME's price (or lower) don't expect it to become a desktop standard anytime soon. Sure, some large corporations will undoubtedly pull out the big checkbook and write checks for 2000, but Windows 2000 is not going to become mainstream until your grandmother is using it to store her recipes. And Linux probably has a better shot at that market than Windows 2000 does.
It'll make life easier for you... (Score:2)
Aside from them, I don't think there will be many changes for developers.
Anyone stating they'll instantly get fired is spreading FUD. Companies will always need developers to make sure their programs develop in the "right" direction, and using those that have been on the project forever is plainly logical; anyone from outside would need quite some time to get familiar with the code.
Re:/. no likey Bowie (Score:2)
When you are considering someone's argument, it's really quite important to not simply buy into their default assumptions- if you do, you might even feel that Twinge of alarm, the disconcerting feeling that something's broken somewhere in your worldview. What if he is right? O_O
When you _do_ look at their default assumptions, it gives a much better foundation for understanding the validity of their argument. In Bowie's case, these default assumptions appear to include things like this:
- Nobody does something for nothing
- Everybody only acts in their own self-interest, always
- If someone isn't, it must be because they have been TRICKED!
:o
- Once the people who are doing this 'free' stuff realise that other people are paid MONEY to do it, they will all stop, as...
- what other motivation is there?
*hee, hee, hee...*Now really, can you take this line of reasoning seriously? If so, aren't you a rather cold, unpopular person without friends, scheming and plotting to further your personal wealth? :D
Honestly- there _are_ other values. Go look at a sunset for five minutes without attempting to figure out how to sell it. Get a pet that is not an investment. Get laid without paying for it, if you can! Do something that sidesteps the neat little dead-end of power and wealth your head's stuck in. You might just like it! ;)
"In five years..." (Sept. 1998) (Score:2)
Shameless self-promotion:
My pithy closing quote on this subject:
In five years, OSS will have changed the commercial SW and IT industries beyond all recognition.
In five years, the commercial SW and IT industries will have changed OSS beyond all recognition.
InfoWorld Electric Forums, September 4, 1998 [infoworld.com].
After this summer's LWE, I'd say the second half of that comment is largely true.
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
Given a choice... (Score:2)
No :)
IBM dominant in PC software? When? (Score:2)
Microsoft established control of the PC software market fairly early, and I don't think there was ever a real solid challenge from IBM in this respect.
I would have given your argument more credit if you discussed IBM's dominance in computing before the PC - post PC, IBM's control eroded rapidly.
Re:Changes for Today's closed source developers? (Score:2)
Re:Don't bet on it (Score:2)
Exactly what might replace Windows is unknown. Currently Linux is the main game in town, but who knows? What is known is that now is the time that Microsoft might lose it's lead. Most of the marking ploys Microsoft has used are now frowned upon, and therefore it may be harder for Microsoft to use it's advantage to crush competitors. Also, It is not clear that Microsoft can integrate Internet functionality into Windows quickly enough to make a difference. It took them 10 years to kludge a workable GUI into DOS. If it takes them that long to get the Internet strategy together, they will be left behind.
But, as always, it is about money. Windows 2000, though a useful product is extremely expensive; both in terms of cost and the equipment needed to run it. Windows 95 and NT 4.0 is still plenty good for most people and companies. Microsoft is using some strong-arm tactics to try to get users to upgrade. This is not making customers happy.
At some point, users are going to have to decide to pay Microsoft's price, or go to another vendor. Currently the only simple option requires the user to buy another machine, which is the same problem as with Windows 2000. If Linux had an office product that was capatible with the legacy MS Office product, users would then have an option that will run on their current machines. It is at this point that Microsoft will lose customers.
However, if the Linux people make the same mistake that DEC made, then all is lost.
Re:Changes for Today's closed source developers? (Score:2)
Mostly systems software (Score:2)
Re:For all of those who think this is BS, consider (Score:2)
Part of what weakened IBM and strengthened Microsoft is the fact that the IBM PC platform was open and clone-able. Thus, you didn't have to buy a computer from IBM, but you still had to buy the software from Microsoft.
Personally, I believe that the PS/2 was the beginning of the end for IBM dominance. The ISA bus was reaching it's limits quickly (I remember well the IRQ/ioport HELL of trying to actually fill all the slots).
While IBM came out with the VERY closed Microchannel archetecture, the rest of the industry went with EISA, VESA, and finally, PCI. In spite of the multiple competing standards and limited cross compatability, IBM's market share steadily shrank while the PC industry boomed.
If you chose IBM, you would pay more (in part due to lower volume) and keep paying more (Those MCA cards were expen$ive). If you decided to change vendors for an upgrade, all your MCA cards had to be replaced. Unless you were a big customer, the hardware 'support' from IBM wasn't actually there.
On the other hand, if you went with ANY other PC vendor, you got a lower cost, the parts were plentiful and interchangable, and the hardware 'support' varied depending on the vendor (but, often, it still wasn't actually there). If you didn't like the support, you could believably threaten to change vendors.
These days, the standards war has shifted to software with MS and co at the proprietary extreme and Linux and other Free software at the open extreme. I can get my OS from MS and be locked in, or from one of MANY Linux distros and mix and match the software to suit my needs. It's much cheaper (or free). With MS, I can get their software and freely interact w/ the rest of the MS world, or choose something else and be off in a corner by myself.
If anything, the contrast in MS vs. the world is MUCH sharper than for IBM vs. the world in the '80s. IBM never had to compete against FREE PCs and a modem in a PS/2 could talk to other modems. Also, PS/2's were good machines, just overpriced.
Right now, we are in the same place as the mid '80s where non IBM PCs were being taken seriously by large business for the first time, and you actually COULD get fired for buying IBM. MS is just coming out of the denial stage and cranking the FUD up to full volume.
Keep in mind that IBM didn't loose out to MS alone, it lost out to all of the PC vendors.
Umm, teetering on *what* edge? (Score:2)
Re:Rash Headlines (Score:2)
For Those Not Willing To Register (Score:2)
username: slashdot
password: slashdot
It's registered to a certain Anonymous Coward
(karma whoring? nah
"Blah-blah-blah... we will take over the world..." (Score:2)
Speaking more generally, why would any real professional who spent years mastering their art want to give it away is beyond me. I don't see lawyers or doctors offering their often much needed help for free(yeah, I know, they sell "service", the classic example of OS advocates). I don't see established artists giving away their paintings(PR stunts a-la "feed the hungry", "save the children" don't count).
For all of those who think this is BS, consider... (Score:4)
No, one, I mean NO ONE would predict that they would just be a bit-player in the PC world 10 years later. OS/2? When released in 1987, everyone predicted it would replace DOS and Windows within a few short years. It couldn't fail, IBM was behind it. When PS/2s came out, everyone jumped and tried to catch up.
Microsoft blew that out of the water, as we all know now. Brought down the biggest computer company in the world and made IBM listen to THEM.
So I've been telling people not to expect Microsoft to be nothing more than yet another software vendor 10 years from now, and everyone thinks I am nuts.
I'm sure this subject will erupt in another OS flame war, but I still see it happening.
Will it be a good thing? I don't really know. At least when IBM was "in control" standards existed and they could change them. Almost over-night, 3.5" floppies replaced 5.25" floppies. To this day, we're stuck with the same 3.5" drives and a plethora of competing removable disk standards that don't have the backing of any major hardware vendor, so none of them become standard.
Will the software market fragment too? Will nothing go forward because no dominant player makes the standard?
Then again, the fact that Word .doc files are the defacto standard in document sharing now is a horrible travesty. XML as a standard at data representation is very exciting.
I just think Microsoft now is just too big and stuborn to adapt quick enough. Then again, they didn't think the Internet would be that big a deal (witness first version of Windows 95 and the hoops you had to go through to get it onto the Internet. The then-non-Internet MSN was the way to go...). Microsoft certainly moved quick enough to embrace, extend, and capture much of THAT world...
I still think they are in trouble. If I had any of their stock, I'd be selling it...
Methinks they're going a little overboard... (Score:2)
But there will be two classes of software that will always support a healthy percentage of proprietary software, at least as long as capitalism is around:
1. Anything that requires some sort of rare, specialized knowledge. High-end scientific software, high-end accounting software, etc. The pool of developers that would be able to contribute to something in this category is just too small to make a purely open-source model workable.
2. Games. Users demand the latest and greatest and have repeatedly shown that they are willing to pay for it. As long as this is true, and game companies can keep up with those demands without going open-source, they're not going to do it. What's more, the usual open-source-related revenue streams just don't make sense for game companies (who's going to pay for service and support on Starcraft? :-). I wouldn't be surprised to see some companies releasing games commercially for a while, then once sales slow down, open the source. (Especially to gaming engines, since the company has as much or more to gain from advances there than anyone else.)
Re:The Web doesn't care about your OS (Score:2)
This will change - it has to change. And yes, the European model for charging for online access will certainly be dead and buried within two years - the cracks in this strategy are already obvious.
Bandwith rates wil normalize internationally - the Euro model of nationalized monopolies controlling phone access with metered rates is basically dead already. To maintain will be to drive business away in droves.
but I do think they don't like the idea of typing up highly confedential material over a WEBplication.
Ever sent your credit card over the web? If its secure enough for this, I'm sure its good enough for your love letters. Frankly, I find that people who cling to these archiac attitudes are the people who know the least about encryption technology (this isn't a personal swipe, just an observed trend).
OSS and the little guy (Score:2)
The closed source model allows small time vendors like Opera to kick big-time vendors like Microsoft and Netscape in the face and get away with it. Under an OSS world, Opera's developers wouldn't make any money off their product because who needs tech support, etc for a web browser? Sure they might occassionally get a few dollars from helping a guy fix a registry setting that is messing up Opera, but the point is that their main revenue stream would be destroyed.
Open source the foundation, ie the OS and development tools so all companies and people have a level playing field. However anything beyond that will only make it unprofitable for people to write software because there is no way you can provide tech support for most software.
MacOSS (Score:2)
Considering the total cultural chasm between traditional Unix hackers and traditional MacOS hackers, this is a huge development. Plus it includes some of the greatest titles ever to break sales records on the Mac (most notably, the game Marathon).
I agree that MacOS is moving on to better things. It appears to be moving on to Open Source. :)
Pardon me, but this is FUD (Score:2)
Truth: VA is consistantly beating analysts' predictions about profitability. Their revenues are growing quickly, as well.
and is currently teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
Truth: VA has millions in the bank. It made this money on the most succesful IPO _ever_
The company is backlogged,
Truth: being backlogged means you have more orders than you thought possible, and you can't fill them all right away. Being backlogged is either a sign of poor management, or stratospheric growth. What do you think is going on here?
and incurring a huge amount of debt in an attempt to spread out resources.
I'm not sure, but I beleive they are still spending inventor's money rather than resorting to bonds or loans (ie debt).
The lush green pastures provided by companies like VA tend to evaporate overnight, once all the money that can be made has been made. Its just a matter of time before the process is fully milked and depleated.
Sure, this is an opinion, but now you've lost the evidence that backs it up.
Nothing separates VA from any other company out there -- Statistically, they stand a 93% chance of failing within the next 5 years.
I disagree - there are things that separate them from other companies. They have first-mover advantage in open-source hardware/software solutions. Most firms which fail don't have first-mover advantage. VA's newness allows them to do things other players can't - they have no channel to piss off, so they can sell direct with more freedom than Sun or IBM. They have R+D and services division, so they can offer solutions that Dell can't. Most firms which fail can't differentiate themselves enough from established players. VA has enough customers for them to be profitable (they choose not to now because they want to grow) - most firms which fail don't. They have the backing of big venture capitalists. Most frims which fail don't. Their revenues are growing quickly - most firms which fail don't have this
.Re:Forgetting something.... (Score:2)
People who don't want to wait for it, will pay for it.
Given MS's history of vapor, they will pay for it and then wait anyway.
Re:Why OSS is _not_ the future. (Score:2)
> Corporate development is driven by competition ..OSS development is driven by cooperation, not competition.
This really pinpoints the underlying difference in your position vs. that of open source advocates. One of the things that some companies seem to be starting to recognize is that there can be value in cooperation, with respect to open source software. This especially applies to corporations which are currently locked into a single vendor's product strategy. Using open source potentially gives a company much more control over its own destiny, since it will no longer be at the mercy of the deliberately anticompetitive lock-in practices that all large vendors indulge in, in their (probably misguided) attempt to maximize short-term revenues.
Using and developing Open Source in corporations is about striking a balance between cooperation and competition. There are many ways in which this can happen. You're effectively suggesting that there's no possible intersection of the approaches. The Forrester report is saying that there is such an intersection, and furthermore, that intersection is going to be a good place for a company to be. They're likely to be right - to a large extent, this is about enlightened self-interest, the idea that cooperation in some areas can help a company to compete in other areas. If cooperation replaces competition in a particular area, the competition merely shifts to other areas, such as a shift to an emphasis on service revenue over license revenue, for example.
Ughh. Hiring a man is not buying him whole! (Score:2)
IOW, the stuff that defines his coding style. The stuff he can either rewrite over and over again, debug over and over again, or just do once and gradually refine it, making him a better, more productive prgrammer.
There's nothing I hate more than that "Gimme, gimme, gimme! Mine, mine, mine! I hired you for this job, so I own everything you produce in the course of doing it!" attitude.
It's bullshit. Do you claim to own the skills he learned while working for you? He developed them on working time, just the same. I say a programmer's private toolbox is part of his skill set. He has a right to improve the parts of it that are used in the line of his current job, on paid time.
This code itself is nothing but a convenience, to the person who wrote it. He can recreate it easily, but it wastes his time. Insisting on the IP ownership of the company that he was working for at the time he wrote it helps no one, and is a purely hostile act.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Why OSS IS the future: (Score:2)
It is in their own best interests. [boswa.com]
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
I too (Score:2)
And this will be the fundamental shift. Instead of selling the software, you sell the services that companies need to run the software. And you still have to have someone developing the software. Open Source or not, there's still value to putting bodies behind desks working on the code. At least, RedHat certainly thinks so, and I tend to agree.
Bear in mind that I make these comments from behind a product that is still closed source and has no plans to be any other way. Despite that fact, we're already making the changes that will keep us strong when the source code is no longer a product. After all, like most eBusiness vendors, all our metadata (the real meat of the product) is in the database, and is therefore "open source" already. So how will it change life? For me, not much. My employer will remain in business because quite simply there is no open source product that can compete with us, and it's not likely that there ever will be, until the day that we finally succumb to pressure and open our own source. The reason is simply labor: We have roughly 700 developers, and they've been working on this product for more than 10 years. It's an incredibly intricate system, and unless development tools take a quantum leap (something I can't rule out), it will be hard bordering on impossible to ever put together enough concerted manpower to produce a software product like this "in the bazaar".
I only wish it were possible, so my employer would feel that pressure to open the source today - would make life a lot easier for me.
The article says to expect lower prices... (Score:2)
Or they will have to lower their licensing costs.
It's far more likely that they'll simply lower the cost of their product, than start giving it away for free.
Besides I don't see any competition for either Oracle or Microsoft on the database side of things from Open Source. Well unless a miracle happens and IBM GPL's DB/2, but that's unlikely.