Re: open source IBM i. was Re: From RGP to ¿Java?

From: James Perkins
I don't necessarily think enterprise OS's should be open source.

I appreciate your response to Steve. Asking IBM to open-source an OS is roughly like asking Coke to open-source a soft-drink formula, or asking Proctor & Gamble to open-source a formula for detergent. It appeals to people who demand something for nothing, but is not usually in the interest of the original innovators, except in a few rare cases where competitive barriers prevent a good product from taking off.

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Open source appeals not just to "wanting something for nothing", most companies that use it heavily do not use if for "nothing", far from it. But the more important observation is that ==> Open source appeals to millions of developers worldwide who produce it, modify it, fix it, keep it, provide the downloads, and lots of tech people make a living supporting it.

I'm really not aware of anyone using open-source as a means of gaining market share for a fully-developed, legacy commercial product.

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That's kind of a limited statement of the scope of open source offerings, I think, but IBM itself has made HUGE contributions to open-source projects, Linux being one of them, Eclipse another, and has invested in making it available on the "i". Most companies pay for support for it on partitions, so it's not exactly "something for nothing" either, but it works.

Open-source is often misrepresented by promoters. I'm aware of a company that formed a non-profit consortium to receive & pool funds to develop a software product for members under the guise that the software would be "owned" by members. Promoters told prospects that the software would be open-source, and free. Of course, membership in the consortium was fee-based. And only members would get a license.

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That's not "open-source", that's closed source.

A very confusing business model, to say the least. A good-faith, long-term business model? Or bait & switch? Or a smoke-screen used for picking pockets? Or only time might tell who might be winners and losers? In this particular case there was one individual owner of the non-profit entity that held the copyrights - the only one having distribution rights. So who really owned the software?

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So you used the worst example you could find of somebody who gave it the wrong label and confused things. Why don't you use the best examples? Do you use Firefox or not? It's real good and you can tweak it. Thunderbird? OpenOffice?

It seems that a lot of organizations these days are promoting free & open-source software, citing the Apache legacy; but looking behind the curtain, and reading the fine print tells a completely different story. Nathan.

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To each his own, but the one that stands most to lose is the one that has to make the decision in the first place, and they are in all their rights to open-source their own stuff.

--aec