[PLUG] OSS Rundown

[Jason Van Cleve]

Below is a brief appraisal of OSS, which I've just written.  It's
completely redundant, just sort of an in-my-own-words type exercise. 
But if you should decide to peruse it, feel free to comment or quote it
according to your own caprice.

--Jason Van Cleve


Untitled:

>From my reading, there seem to be two basic arguments in favor of Open
Source Software, one economical and the other idealogical, and both of
which apply to enterprise application development.  To my own mind,
moreover, the idealogical argument is by far the stronger of the two. 
In fact there is a third argument, that of security, which relates to
the economical one:  but so far, this is rather speculative and
inconclusive, so that it remains to be seen which model results in more
secure software.  (As to that, however, Microsoft have shown practically
that they are not able to fix security defects in a timely manner,
whereas open-source products have shown remarkable agility in doing so.)

The open-source economist posits that there is only one advantage to
closed-source (or "proprietary") software, the ability to capitalize on
innovations through the use of Intellectual Property rights and trade
secrets.  But, he asserts, the financial benefits of OSS--including
improvements to the products from outside parties and the general
sharing of knowledge--far outweigh this marginal benefit (unless,
perhaps, it is abused to the point of anti-competitiveness, which is not
uncommon).  By allowing the world to examine their source code,
companies can expect the lavish rewards of other interested parties
offering their input and enhancements, the result of which is a richer,
more robust system.  I find this hard to accept as an axiom.  Certainly
there are such cases, but they rely on the popularity of the
software--particularly among developers.  If there are too few outside
parties actually willing to improve a given vendor's code, or if that
code is of obviously poor quality, then the vendor may do better to
conceal its innovations (or sloppy craftsmanship) and rely more on
marketing.

(Other aspects of the economic argument pertain not to the development
of OSS but to its use.  If using open-source applications is indeed
cost-effective, which I believe it is, then software vendors should be
motivated to develop such.  But that is outside the scope of this brief
essay.)

Now, the idealogical argument is summarized by the simple aphorism,
"knowledge wants to be free".  This demands that software vendors quit
thinking of their designs and innovations as property.  It suggests that
these things are not products at all, that software is in fact
knowledge--knowledge that ought to be available to all, just as the
facts and methods of other sciences are.  This is a real paradigm shift
from the current status quo, but its potential for benefiting the whole
of technology--and hence mankind at large--is tremendous, even if it
bodes poorly for certain software firms.  Thus, as pertaining to
enterprise development, it is an issue of social responsibility.

In the first place, Open Source software has been shown to promote
standards and interoperability.  This in turn allows users to choose the
proverbial "best of breed" for any particular software task, and that
freedom of choice means real competition among software developers,
products that compete on their merits and not by leveraging an
established user base.  Secondly, OSS promotes real innovation:  when
existing designs can be scrutinized, they can be improved upon, and they
often give rise to new and better designs.

All of which amounts to an improved state of the art; and ultimately,
that will benefit everyone.

However, it must be realized that although knowledge wants to be free,
it is not inherently so.  It is an arbitrary choice that we must all
make.  Existing software vendors will be slow to embrace it, because it
requires fundamental changes to their business models.  They must learn
to make money not by selling copies of their software but by selling its
support and maintenance instead:  and they must do it for the sake of
all of us.  In a capitalist economy, that can be a hard sell.


--
I knit little sweaters for my pet peeves.