Monthly Archives: October 2006

Oracle’s Community

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And another thing! ZDNet’s Dana Blankenthorn points out one of the more interesting issues in the Oracle Linux new world order, the community’s perception. I didn’t comment on this in my previous post on the situation because, although it’s crucially important, it wasn’t within the scope of what I wanted to express. Dana notes that the Oracle support business for Linux “…is aimed, not at competition, but at domination.”

That is the perception one usually gets from reading news about Oracle’s moves. It is the perception selected from sound bites and media clips of Larry Ellison’s talks. Oracle conquers and dominates, it positions itself to have the appearance of shrewd aggression. It’s employees have commented on that feeling pervading their work environment. That has brought Oracle success in a proprietary software market. Can that approach carry it into the FOSS world?

Blankenthorn essentially is pointing out how Oracle will have to undergo some real change to be an accepted part of the FOSS community. What if Oracle chose not to care? Would it be able to pull off its support model successfully? That remains to be seen. Quickly combing through other companies in mind, I cannot recall any that have been successful delivering and supporting FOSS solutions and that did not somehow strive to be members in good-standing within the FOSS community. So when Oracle has initial customers on board with this initiative will it be able to continue and follow through down the road?

Maybe the conqueror will be changed by that which it has conquered.

Oracle–Linux Knight that isn’t Quite

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After persistent media rumours of an Oracle-based GNU/Linux distribution, Mr. Ellison finally announced it. Sort of. It’s offering Oracle support services around the Red Hat Linux distribution. It makes sense–I think companies need to make the entire life of the software solutions they sell a seamless continuum lacking problems and time-wasting intervention from their customers. Yet, a lot of people are writing about how this is a move to hijack Red Hat’s support business or is a forking maneuver. Some are saying it’s a warning to Red Hat, which is true, but I think the warning does not come in the sense of a support business hijack or fork. Oracle must have a more comprehensive picture in mind. Rather, I think Oracle’s move makes sense in order to steer its solutions into a comprehensive and lean offering. So I’ll explain why the fork doesn’t matter and why the support services on their own aren’t the real threat.

I refer to an idea I put forward some time ago for what needs to happen with the Linux desktop to catapult it to widespread adoption. I was asserting that there needs to be a Linux vendor changing the entire OS market game by offering: A full computing solution should come from a company that pre-bundles everything its customers want, consistently supporting it, for the duration of ownership. It should not require anxious intervention from the owner when the owner desires a new component or new system, and the new system should have all data and applications from the old system installed, setup, and accessible upon delivery. I would expect this to apply just as well to business software systems as individual user systems. I further believe that such a solution is only possible to fulfill, in all its complete glory, within a FOSS ecosystem (read that idea link at the beginning of this paragraph for details on why). This latter point can play to Red Hat’s favour. How does this relate to Oracle’s Linux move? Well, let me clear the threats that have been proposed already, which I mentioned were passing around the blogosphere/news article space.

First, if Oracle intends to eventually fork Red Hat’s distribution, so what? It’s been done more than once before. Mandriva is such an example. The GPL licensing mechanism has proven over and over that FOSS forks do not necessitate a negative outcome. Often they lead to a spread of improvements in the ecosystem as a whole and all the companies that continue to participate in that spread tend to benefit. I mean, Red Hat is still around, and strong. Forking in the open source world ought to have earned a default view as growth rather than as problematic division. The freedom of the licensing schemes makes a FOSS fork wholly different than one in which the prongs are proprietary.

Second, I don’t see why this should be viewed as Oracle just trying to hijack just Red Hat’s support business. Maybe I’m missing something but that’s only one aspect of what is at play. The fact is that Oracle offers products that run on Linux. Red Hat offers products that run on Linux. Some of these compete (application servers, database servers, etc.). Furthermore, competitor Microsoft offers enterprise solutions and the OS. These companies are getting their tentacles around more comprehensive offerings for their customers. At least that’s what the advertising is always promising. So what is going to be the easiest, most painfree choice for a customer? Getting pieces of a solution from a combination of vendors? Or getting something from start to finish that eliminates

  • further evaluation time and effort
  • additional sales points-of-contact
  • extraneous support sources when trying to solve problems
  • integration woes

It seems to me that all of these eliminations would result in a much more attractive choice for the customer. It would save a lot of time and cut down on the efforts required to get well-designed and supported enterprise systems. Consider how Oracle has positioned this move, reiterating its “unbreakable” theme and stating that

“Oracle validated configurations provide easier, faster, and lower-cost deployment of Linux solutions in the enterprise with pre-tested, validated architectures–including software, hardware, storage, and network components–along with documented best practices.”

If this support move is Oracle’s warning shot, then I think it’s a shot of the lean and comprehensive solution nature. Their phrase, which I quoted above, is spot-on with the model I outlined for a real year of the Linux desktop, it’s just focused on the enterprise software space instead.

Considering Oracle, Microsoft, and Red Hat, who can actually do this? The all-proprietary vendor, Microsoft? The mixed proprietary/open source vendor, Oracle? Or the all open source vendor, Red Hat? Based on those three options, only Red Hat is actually in the position to fulfill this comprehensive model because it’s the only one that operates entirely in the FOSS ecosystem and for that, again I refer to the comprehensive and lean model, which I outlined previously.

I’ll leave this post with a question. Where is Canonical in this? Every blog and article talking about Oracle/Red Hat seems to ask or fantasize about Canonical and Oracle teaming up. Thus far Canonical is publicly touting only support services. Will it catch up on the OS market game change to offer the sort of solution Red Hat currently has the potential to? That Oracle seems to want to do? That Microsoft tries to do but limits itself under pounds of proprietary rope?

Dissecting Proprietary Doublespeak–ISC Letter Criticism Part 2

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Now to continue what I started yesterday–criticising the letter (PDF) from the Initiative for Software Choice‘s (ISC) Hugo Lueders. Why bother criticizing this? Is it of any consequence? I think so, if not because the letter itself may actually influence policy, but rather because this kind of thing is visible to many people and can spread opinions based on poor reasoning or misleading statements. I think it’s useful to debate such things openly and at least offer alternate lines of critical thought.

Really the last thing that I wanted to comment on was a point in the ISC letter, which discussed fiscal stimulus for R&D in relation to FLOSS/proprietary models and it went a little something like

“Government support that rewards the most innovative and appropriate technological solution without discrimination between different models/standards is the most effective way to stimulate innovation.”

At first glance this sounds fair. But in the context of FLOSS versus proprietary development models, I think sound policy requires deeper and more encompassing thought. From the proprietary perspective in which the statement originates, it neglects the issues involved insofar as who is rewarded and from whom does the reward money originate?

It is after all government support that is in question here so I suppose the money is the money of the people. In FLOSS development terms, any support of FLOSS projects, by default, is freely accessible by anyone and thus the possibility of continued, further innovation is guaranteed. In proprietary development terms this possibility is at best questionable. The government rewards would go into software development without guarantee that any further innovation stem from that development, nor that any part of the public (who’s money went into rewarding its development) would necessarily be able to gain access to the source code. How is that fair to the people funding these government innovation rewards? It’s not.

That’s all I was going to say on the issue. Except then I noticed in today’s news, Wendy Seltzer published an insightful analysis of Microsoft’s new Windows Vista license (oh model of proprietarians). She highlights seven points. To summarize:

Vista’s use is limited unless you agree to the vendor’s proprietary rules. The software checks up on you every now and then to make sure you’re still agreeing, and if you don’t continue playing by the vendor’s rules, it starts cutting off its own functionality. The vendor gets to revoke your rights to your media. You’re not allowed to fix bugs or develop work-arounds to certain problems you may encounter (this is an anti-innovation red flag if ever there was one). Even though you’ve paid for the software it has an artificially imposed life limitation for two instances of use.

This is the sort of example of what a proprietary vendor does. Does it sound like a license that promotes further innovation? It sounds to me like all it does is spread restrictions and limit users’ freedom. What’s worse is to think that anyone could argue this deserves consideration for public funds equal to the consideration given to FLOSS development. What shameful distortions you present, ISC.

Dissecting Proprietary Doublespeak–ISC Letter Criticism Part 1

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What would we do if George Orwell hadn’t enabled us to come up with doublespeak neologisms? Matthew Broersma of Techworld.com wrote about a “leaked” letter (PDF) from the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) regarding a UNU-MERIT study on FLOSS in the economy. Broersma describes the ISC as a “Microsoft-funded pressure group” which sounds like an appropriate description to me. Essentially the letter presents proprietarian interests as the software underdogs who will be cut from fair consideration in software purchasing and implementation choices. The reality is that FLOSS ecosystems are often a reaction to the unfair restrictions engendered by proprietary software. The ISC letter is a real piece of work. I’ll criticize it in the following.

In the interest of understanding what the letter was a reaction to, I tried to find a copy of the UNU-MERIT “Study on the Economic Impact of Open Source Software on Innovation and the Competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Sectors in the EU” but was not successful. I did however, find the university’s policy brief (PDF) on a similar subject (Open Source and Open Standards: A New Frontier for Economic Development?), which I suppose would present a consistent point-of-view. I only mention that because it offers a few good points that I’ll bring up.

The author of the ISC letter, Hugo Leuders, says early in his mucking about, that

“FLOSS is merely a business model for distributing software, just like many other software business models including hybrid and proprietary software.”

Why would he say this? Strategically this is fantastic. He’s set the stage for his doublespeak by wresting control of the issue and taking ownership of it by phrasing it for his own goal rather than the actual situation. The real issues of FLOSS (free/libre and open source software) are multifold. But initially the point is either one of the freedom to copy, modify, study, and distribute software, or one of the pragmatic benefits to this manner of development (depends on whether you’re considering the Free Software Foundation’s philosophy or the Open Source Initiative’s). No doubt there are business models centered around FLOSS, but as I just stated, the FLOSS philosophies themselves are not business models. So in reading Leuders’s letter, we have no choice but to kick him off the stage right away. It’s hard to blame him though, he tells you shortly thereafter why the ISC proprietarians are worried in reiterating the report’s results:

“…open source software has been actively adopted by European firms over the last two years so that by the end of 2005 the overall share of companies using such systems amounted to 40 percent… the report predicts that the annual expansion of FLOSS participants will be around 20 percent per annum.”

Based on that success he argues that there is no need to offer further support to the FLOSS business model. The problem is that argument makes sense only if FLOSS is itself a business model, which I just pointed out, it is not.

Next, Leuders attacks the report for not acknowledging his proprietarian brethren. saying

“…it acknowledges other models in a denigrating manner, that they only contribute ‘headaches to FLOSS’ instead of informing the competitive dynamic.”

Hasn’t one of the more recent and notable impacts on the software industry been the loosening of proprietary monopolies by FLOSS movements? I’d argue FLOSS growth has done more to counteract the competition killing environment bolstered by proprietary vendor strategies than even government regulation has.

Today’s Market and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
With the ISC stage for business models in place, Leuders presents a fable of today’s market. He claims (with his emphasis on proprietary software) that

“…the software market that exists today works extremely well in developing innovative solutions for all spheres of business and governmental operations.”

But is that true? If it was working so well, how can he reconcile that with the FLOSS growth statistics he stated at the beginning? Clearly something is changing and I’d suggest it’s because the model hasn’t been working very well. In particular I’d address the notion of government operations.

Shouldn’t government operations serve their people? After all in societies with democratically elected officials, the government is composed of its people and is, in principle, beholden to their goals. Thus to support that government processes and access to government information and services, ought to be transparant to the citizens. This is certainly a problem with proprietary software, which is solved via FLOSS. Handy real world examples are not difficult to find. Just search for the problems with proprietary voting machine software in the United States, review the way some governments make important beaurocratic forms available on-line yet require non-free third party software to be installed to access these forms. There is no shortage of examples. Even a report cited by UNU-MERIT from the UN Joint Inspection Unit on open source software, recommended:

“All Member States and other stake-holders should have the right to access public information made available in electronic format by the organizations and no one should be obliged to acquire a particular type of software in order to exercise such a right…”

Next, the ISC letter breaks into intellectual property rhetoric. Leuders assumes any change to the fundamentally problematic notion of IPR is negative. He says

“Many of the proposed policy recommendations as identified within the report [the UMU-MERIT report] could further weaken IPR throughout Europe, potentially deflating venture capital levels and EU innovation.”

Leuders and the ISC attempt to paint proprietary methods as the safeguard of innovation and technological progress with broad societal support. I’d reiterate the stats on FLOSS growth at the beginning and note that the wording of most FLOSS licensing practically guarantees innovation. Consider the possibilities FLOSS opens to a wide range of people, as stated in the UNU-MERIT policy brief.

“The opportunity to ‘create and add value’ provided by open source is particularly important for developing countries and other economically disadvantaged communities. Access alone limits them to the role of passive consumers in the knowledge economy; the ability to create transforms them into active participants.”

In the scheme of things, the proprietary software model has only existed as a brief blip in time. It took early advantage of a new industry at a time when few people knew how to adapt to and fewer still, understood the nature of what the industry could grow to offer. It’s unlikely that the proprietary software distribution business model (which I’d argue is flawed from conception, but that’s another article) can stand the test of time as the software industry continues to evolve and mature. The societal experiences that Leuders argues spawned IPR, is far too ambiguous a concept to actually pin to the value such rights might confer on innovation, much less support the questionable notion of proprietary software. Leuders has a lot more work to do in order to prove this value in combination with proprietary software models.

Enough for now. That covers about half of the ISC letter. I’ll comment on the other half tomorrow or the next day.

FOSS Support and Differentiation

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One of the old but recurring fears of those considering an open source try is that there’s nobody to call when they’ve got a problem. Yet, I’d say most FOSS companies are alive for that sake.

I recently read a well-put example of an open source support process from a Sun blogger. In the example, Tim Quinn discusses how a Sun customer went to an open source community for help with his problem and when a clear solution wasn’t forthcoming, opened the issue from the basis of a formal support agreement he had with Sun. That enabled Sun to put its resources into the issue and solve the customer’s problem. So even though there was community help readily available, there was another layer of paid support that the customer could rely to solve his problem.

When one looks at the different companies providing support services, one can see definite similarities. I’m saying that a hallmark of open source software companies is providing support services. What is becoming more interesting is the way in which these services will differ as different industries grow their own open source ecosystems. I expect the services will start appearing with unique characteristics and a comparison of these among industries may perpetuate changes across open source support providers. A Computer World article on open source health care applications makes an interesting point that I think speaks to the support issue. According to the article:

“With open-source technologies, development and adoption go hand in hand. The robust and growing HIT offerings did not emerge from vendors marketing to health care providers, but from HIT teams serving the providers themselves. Therefore, adoption has been organic, based on community ‘pull’ and not on commercial ‘push’.”

It is talking about the way in which open source applications have been adopted by health care providers. What I find interesting is that the development of the applications is driven by what those in the traditional customer role require while maintaining the distinction of a provider. What will those providers (like WebReach or Uversa) be doing down the road? They know there is a solid group requiring exactly what has been developed. Surely they will continue development but they’re also going to need to support all this development output. It looks like the “community pull” is generating more professional support services and thus I’d think those may mimic the pull model of development.