In the year 2000, some pundits suggested the growing enthusiasm about open source was destined to give out. Once economic conditions returned to pre-dot-com levels, they reasoned, open source would be seen as a fad, just like the pet rock. The editorial at InfoWorld concludes that “the hype surrounding open source did not survive the year. But open source itself not only survived, it began to thrive in the business world.”
The Year the Hype Died (but Open Source Thrived)
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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This editorial reflects my experiences this year, and I’m so glad! My theory is that the majority of the computer world are now experiencing the linux hype in a delayed fashion – one year behind the rest of us. That they outnumber us by ten to one is only all the more reason to nod
I found, in the last year, that the same old arguments for open source were less played. Like anything, people had to find fresh reasons to like open source. But for me the same old arguments that still ring true. That you can (theoretically) fix any bug is a big win. What’s laughed off as tired old slashdot rhetoric is fresh and exciting to the business world. Especially outside of America where the Linux hype hasn’t really hit home.
This next year will be great fun. BBC are trialing Vorbis. OpenOffice will get past 1.0 and stabilise. KDE will further mature and Apache and AOLServer will run rings around IIS (and Zeus will go open source – we can only hope, eh?).
Good luck.
This year I will put more money into open source. I will
I think the key to open source is that if you want to program and give away your apps for free, don’t try to design a business around it.
Some people say that open source will never last because it is difficult to impossible to profit off that kind of business model.
They may be right about the money part, but not everyone who programs does so with dollar signs in their eyes. Of course, some people do and there’s nothing wrong with that (as long as quality doesn’t give way to greed, which is often the case), but it’s stupid to think that everyone who programs does so to line their pockets and therefore, open source will not survive.
Some of us write code simply for the joy of writing code and creating something that other people might like to use, and money is just not part of the equation.
As I said, if you program only for the money and your programs are of good quality, then great! Just don’t assume that everyone has the same motivations as you
The Problems with Open-Source:
1. There’s no money in it… when somebody tries to put money in it, their business fails because there is little money coming out of something people can get for free. (But RHAT is doing pretty well)
2. Nobody _has to_ do anything… something as important as there job doesn’t depend on whether they get a piece of open source code done.
3. No experts… if Berlin needs a graphics EXPERT, where are they going to go?
4. If people lose interest, the whole thing fails… it is centered around a hobby
-j
2. Nobody _has to_ do anything… something as important as there job doesn’t depend on whether they get a piece of open source code done.
This really can be an advantage. If you need to write code you’re not interested and enthustiastic about it will in 99% of the cases not be as good as if you really feel good about it.
3. No experts… if Berlin needs a graphics EXPERT, where are they going to go?
4. If people lose interest, the whole thing fails… it is centered around a hobby
The amount of hobby-coders have always risen and I don’t see any reason to why it shouldn’t continue that way.
Leadership, QC, testing, user input, clear goals, milestones. Maybe this is why Apache and a few others are such solid successes, and why other OSS projects can’t get to 1.0 or are still so buggy at 2.X or later. Maybe it is even why some closed source projects (some of which are given away for FREE) produce great apps and why others produce junk! Good closed-source apps?? Blasphemy!!
<blockquote>3. No experts… if Berlin needs a graphics EXPERT, where are they going to go?</blockquote>No idea. But experts need to scratch their itches too.
I really wish you’d of given a more concrete example so I could track someone down
<blockquote>4. If people lose interest, the whole thing fails… it is centered around a hobby</blockquote>True. BeOS failed though and it was like they were beaten and gave up. I don’t see that OSS (as opposed to closed source) is more susceptible to the this.
Although a lot of OSS is hobby-like there is software in Redhat, Mandrake, Apache, and large parts of the Linux kernel, that are OSS and provided by companies.
I wish there was a disclaimer in open source software that everybody and anybody can use and change the code as they wished – everybody except Microsoft… because MS seems to steal off the poor and give to the already rich. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
Most people seem to forget that the computer produces absolutely nothing. You cannot eat, wear, or drive anything produced by the computer. Now before you start telling me about cars being built by robots, I’ll point out that the robot is producing the car, not the computer. It is possible to give a person a joystick and train him to build the car. The computer cannot produce the car.
If computers cannot produce anything, then why has all of this time and money been spent? Computers are efficient and accurate. The person that was trained to operate the robot will tire and make mistakes and generally operate it slowly. That will never happen with a computer. Your address book is nothing more than a Rolodex that can do searches on first name, last name, or any other criteria that you choose, and it can do the search in nanoseconds. You personally might take a full minute to find the proper address. Though the computer does not produce anything, it can provide you a wonderful savings in time, and accuracy.
However, there is a point where you cannot save anymore. No address book search engine that I know of will allow you to travel backwards in time. The cost of the computer system, including the software, must be less than the total amount saved. Otherwise, it is not worth the effort. I believe this is why there has been continuing growth in the open source movement.
Few businesses have the time and resources to build each computer system from scratch. More importantly, does the system save them enough to make it worth the effort? In most cases, the answer is no. However, each business can provide a little effort to a common, beneficial goal. A good example of this is Apache. Most of the people working on Apache are directly supporting someone’s website. The support could be in the form of a donation to the Apache foundation, or it could be a system administrator trying to advance his company’s web tools. Each individual adds to the whole. As long as they have use of the code, they do not care about the code. Why, because they are not in the business of selling web server software.
This idea is slowly beginning to catch on in other areas. If I am creating animation, do I care if my competitor is using the same coloring software that I am? No. If I run a manufacturing plant, do I care who provides the inventory control program? No. All I care about is increasing my profits and improving my business. Though I am unlikely to contribute money to a specific project, I am likely to look at the project contributors and contract with one of them to make changes that interest me. If the software is important enough, I might permanently hire some of those people, or host the project myself. My business isn’t software. I produce something that people use.
Computer systems are worth only the money and time that they save. When the cost is greater than the savings, it’s a big hunk of metal and sand that makes pretty lights.
Simon wrote:
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I wish there was a disclaimer in open source software that everybody and anybody can use and change the code as they wished – everybody except Microsoft… because MS seems to steal off the poor and give to the already rich.
<p>
If you don’t mind generalizing a bit, the GPL does just that… anyone who is willing to share their own code gets to use or change GPL code for free–anyone who is “greedy” or for some other reason doesn’t wish to share, doesn’t get to use the GPL code. Of course, if that’s not good enough for you, you can write your own license that specifically excludes Microsoft…