Jobs And Gates Together - What A Waste
I recently took the time to watch Steve Jobs and Bill Gates sit together for an interview at the D conference. You can watch it here. It was all very nice and cordial and at the end they had some very nice things to say about each other. You really get the feeling from the interview that although the two companies compete heavily with each other, on a personal level these two guys really don't hate each other (anymore). In fact, I think they rather truly admire the work that the other has led over the past 25 years.
However, I couldn't help approaching the interview from an open source perspective and in the end I walked away thinking "What a waste!". Here are two very smart guys who have competed in business for all these years when they could have been cooperating and sharing all this time to create even more great things for their users. Just think of all the time, money and resources spent on marketing and developing products that in the end are very similar.
Some who read this article might make the argument that without a competitive market there would not have been the drive to develop some of the software and hardware that Apple and Microsoft have come up with. This is a valid point. But I would also point to all the flops that been produced along the way (Lisa, Newton, Zune, etc., etc., etc.) in their zeal to out-do each other. Perhaps by working together and not against each other some of these could have been avoided.
I wonder what would have happened if the open source and free software models that exist today had existed to the same degree back then. What if these two guys had come together at the very beginning and put the same amount of effort into creating software that was available to everyone to share freely and improve upon when needed? What if all there efforts could have been tested and validated by the community before they were officially released? What if they could have devoted all that time spent on stifling leaks about upcoming products back into product development? What if they could have diverted all that money that they paid copyright and patent lawyers toward ANYTHING ELSE?
I think all developers (especially those just getting started) should watch the interview if for no other reason then as an example of how NOT to do software development. Instead, realize the benefits of following the open source way. Large companies like Sun Microsystems and Google are finally "getting it" and you should, too. In another 25 years I hope the people that share the stage are men and women who are just on there way back from sharing a drink and discussing their latest development plans and not two guys who make news because this is the third or fourth time they have ever been in front of an audience together.
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Yeah right...
Sun and Google 'get it'? Sun makes almost no money from software and has a sales force that knows nothing about software, open source or otherwise. Google uses open source software to the maximum and contributes a *pittance* back.
One could easily say that Sun should've been working hard from 1999-2005 instead of constantly bitching about Microsoft.
"Google uses open source
"Google uses open source software to the maximum and contributes a *pittance* back."
I wouldn't call the millions of dollars Google has fronted for their Summer of Code program a *pittance*. Also, the whole point is that software shouldn't be sold anymore. It should be given away. Make money on your knowledge of how the software works and not the software itself.
Thanks for your comments.
Aaron
...the whole point...
"the whole point is that software shouldn't be sold anymore. It should be given away."
If it should all be given away free, why does Google have their Summer of Code, shouldn't all the participants contribute for free without Google needing to contribute "millions of dollars"?
"shouldn't all the
"shouldn't all the participants contribute for free"
Hmm, no I dont' think so. Just because a lot of open source developers don't get paid directly for writing open source code doesn't mean that's the way things should be. But we need to find ways to change the model. Likewise, just because the code is free doesn't mean that they can't make money indirectly instead of just from the sale of software licenses. MySQL and Digium (the for-profit side of the Asterisk project) are two good examples of how you can make money without having to lock down your code so no one can see it.
Aaron
"Also, the whole point is
"Also, the whole point is that software shouldn't be sold anymore. It should be given away."
Really, is *that* the point? No, that is your opinion, your religion, and you seem to want everyone to do what you do even though your own company isn't able to make money directly due to open-sourcing.
And, "Google has allocated funds for up to 200 participants in the program, which, together with the mentor organization outlay, could total a $1 million dollar cash infusion into the open source community." So for 2005, Google maxed out at around $1million. Yes, I'd call that a pittance when compared to how much money Googles makes from open source.
A waste? Work together? How
A waste? Work together?
How many open source projects are competing against each other instead of working together to achieve "one-fits-all" product?
it's a bit different
in case of opensource competition is good - the solutions from one app can be 'snatched' into another due to availability of the code and lack of legal problems involved.
that's why the competition is good in opensource, because it's not destructive - the competitors can reuse their "opponent's" code, and in the end merge with the one that emerges as a better fit for a need.
"You get what you paid
"You get what you paid for"
http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070531/stephen-colbert-comedy-central-intro-f...
In theory, open source
In theory, open source projects can learn from eachother, snatch some useful things etc.
The reality is somewhat different, there are lots of redundant projects and forks, they all have a *good* reason to exist. Problem: it's not that easy to snatch some features from one app to an other, as an example i'd like to point to the war of the instant messengers: there is some application named "aMSN" which has a very cool featureset, but is written in Tcl/Tk. No problem, cross-platform is a nice idea, but an interpreted application feels not that good as a native app (this is subjective, I know, but I'm not the only person on earth to have that opinion). There are other instant messengers, who work native and even cross-platform (yup, Pidgin for example). Why does Pidgin lack the features of aMSN (a/v, new msn stuff)? Because it's not that easy to port code from one language, in a specific application to an other language, in an other application. Programming is a creative act and every programmer has his own way of solving problems.
Commercial software has an other developing model, it's working untill you have a stable version which is ready to ship to your customers. The open source model is somewhat continous, there are milestones, but there is also less milestone-rush I think. The most of these programmers are working in their spare-time, as a hobby so they should not stress, they should enjoy it.
Why on earth should software be free? Code is written by programmers, programmers need to get paid. If the programmers don't get paid, they don't have spare-time and cannot work on open source projects. Yeah, there are companies who pay programmers to work on open source projects, but seriously, they implement features who are needed for that company, not for a non-tech savvy home user.
Commercial software is not a crime, it's a business attracting people. If these people really like programming, they can start in their spare-time working on some open source projects, or persuade their company to use open source at work and develop upon that instead of creating new stuff from scratch.
Just my 2 cents..
This is exactly what I am talking about
Here is a post by Jonathan Schwartz that illustrates a lot of the points I am talking about.
http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/one_plus_one_is_fifty
Aaron
As a relative outsider
First of all let me compliment Aaron on his well thought out views on the open source community.
Secondly as a relative new comer to Linux I feel that the community around open source, while second to none, is exceedingly selfish and critical of companies in there approach to open sourcing there product or providing open source solutions. Does open source have a better way to do things? Yes. However these companies have long histories in a market place that has not yet accepted open source. To simply change the paradigm over night is too risky for these businesses and to criticize them for, "dipping there toe", as it where, in the open source market is detrimental to all parties. What drives people who use and develop open source to want these companies to open source there solutions is selfishness. Its a "we want what you've got" attitude. The market of open source is yet untested to the point that would drive huge shifts in private business to open source all of there work. The shift is defiantly happening but you can't criticize the pace. Credit is due to companies like Apple and Microsoft because there innovation in personal computing is what allowed the early development in open source. But they lost there soul in the process and this is where open source flourishes. Linux and GNU was a joke to these companies in the beginning and it has taken almost 20 years to position it in the market place and earn the leverage it has. Open source was a pebble rolling down a hill, now its a freight train, soon it will be a juggernaut. But this process is going to be slow unless Linux and GNU drive innovation. The community still lack that one thing that drives it to the main stream over night. Remember Apple was a almost a dead company that wasn't fully resurrected until the success of the iPod. Will the idea of open source die? No. But progress is going to be slow and small wins with companies like Sun, Dell and others should be praised not criticized.
interested
good information, thank you
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