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Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

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Re: Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

#61

Post by whoitwas »

pjmlp wrote: post #58
whoitwas wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

License does matter. Without OSS, computing as we know it doesn't exist. A better analogy would be if roads and utility cables were built as open source, everyone used them for free, then they were acquired by giant companies who charge for their use.

It would exist as I knew it until 2000's, and hence why I see a parallel where current non-copyleft adoption has taken us back to.

That's the point. It wouldn't exist. It's not possible without research and OSS. You can't write off the entire foundation of CS before a date. Well you can, but it's ignoring history.

Re: Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

#63

Post by ekianjo »

pjmlp wrote: post #58
whoitwas wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

License does matter. Without OSS, computing as we know it doesn't exist. A better analogy would be if roads and utility cables were built as open source, everyone used them for free, then they were acquired by giant companies who charge for their use.

It would exist as I knew it until 2000's, and hence why I see a parallel where current non-copyleft adoption has taken us back to.

The whole internet is running mostly on OSS so not really

Re: Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

#64

Post by lifeisstillgood »

bruce511 wrote: post #29

I think the key point is this; >> (By the way, all new software without accompanying support & guidance is doomed to fail. And if that software comes from a dominant player, you’ll just have to deal with that by the way.) There's a temptation to conflate the software license with the software business. This is natural, but places software as the primary value in the chain. From a business perspective the software tho…

Years ago I tried to build a certification / service team out of independent software vendors and open source systems - ie you could buy 1 years of support for Apache httpd from any certified vendor (ie they knew enough about httpd)

It’s hard but I still think that’s the way to support OSS

Re: Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

#65

Post by DeathArrow »

sph wrote: post #52
DeathArrow wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't pick say accounting software based on price. Or access to the source code. I base it on effectiveness. So you would pick a software costing 1 million over a software that is 90% as effective but costs 1 thousand?

Weird question. There is no 100% effective software, there is no way to measure effectiveness (what sells in enterprise is marketing and a good sales team, not "effectiveness") and it all depends on the budget. If it fits your budget, and a commercial product has a good sales team (vs a cheaper opensource one with zero marketing), the commercial product is gonna get chosen even if it costs infinitely more. That's bas…

I haven't make any claim about 100% effective software. However, one software can be less effective than another. Saying that one is 90% as effective than the other is just to help visualise things.

> what sells in enterprise is marketing and a good sales team, not "effectiveness"

I work for a SaaS company. Our marketing and product teams work hard to convince potential customers that our software fulfills their needs at a reasonable cost.

When we buy services and software we don't look at any of the marketing materials, there are very trough analysis of costs/benefits being made, dollars and even cents are counted. Every cost that can be cut while we can still deliver something to our customers will be cut.

Re: Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

#67

Post by eru »

bruce511 wrote: post #29

I think the key point is this; >> (By the way, all new software without accompanying support & guidance is doomed to fail. And if that software comes from a dominant player, you’ll just have to deal with that by the way.) There's a temptation to conflate the software license with the software business. This is natural, but places software as the primary value in the chain. From a business perspective the software tho…

> In truth the license doesn't matter. My accounting software might be open or closed. My supplier doesn't sell me based on the license. They sell me by convincing me that everything just works, and when it doesn't they'll be there to fix it.

The license matters indirectly: if it's open source, you know that as a fall-back other suppliers might be able to step up and take over, if your original guys fail or get too insufferable.

Re: Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

#68

Post by ekianjo »

pjmlp wrote: post #55
keelhaule wrote: post #19

I think the author is not learned in the technology economics. IBM to save it's business had to merge with Red hat almost 50% 50% in 2018. Microsoft it's security and cloud offering had to, open source it's .net framework, aquire GitHub, ditch Visual Studio fot Visual Studio Code, ARM is eating the world, it over hauled the x86_x64 architecture, and became the Defacto architecture. We can go on and on and on and on,t…

Nice explanation, except IBM has been one of the largest Linux contributors since forever, they saw it as a means to reduce Aix development costs. Linux only took off during the dotcom days as IBM, Oracle and Compaq started adopting it into commercial workloads, back in 2000. Visual Studio Code isn't in the same ballpark as Visual Studio. It was already an Azure project, as the Monaco editor, and it was a way to kill…

> ARM is only successful on mobile devices and Apple hardware.

Your "only" is funny. That is by far the biggest computing market worldwide.

Re: Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

#69

Post by repelsteeltje »

auggierose wrote: post #59
bruce511 wrote: post #29

I think the key point is this; >> (By the way, all new software without accompanying support & guidance is doomed to fail. And if that software comes from a dominant player, you’ll just have to deal with that by the way.) There's a temptation to conflate the software license with the software business. This is natural, but places software as the primary value in the chain. From a business perspective the software tho…

So if Adobe open-sources all of their software tomorrow, that would not impact their business? > In truth the license doesn't matter. Come on. What matters is the way the business extracts value from you, and the license is part of that. Especially when the software you produce is so great that nobody needs to be called, because it just works.

I think the OP framing is about the enterprise / government framing, so Adobe maybe isn't the best example.

Still, the licence doesn't matter - while probably being a bit of an overstatement - is somewhat true. If my enterprise relies on an Adobe service, it's primarily about my relationship with them, not the product license.

... But of course, product price and therefore revenue will decline if competitors can sell my product too or customers can download and use it for free.

Re: Open Source on its own is no alternative to Big Tech

#70

Post by jillesvangurp »

DeathArrow wrote: post #60
jillesvangurp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more of a symbiotic relationship. The open source community depends on commercial support. Essentially all of the bigger projects indeed get a lot of their contributions from the companies that use, build, and depend on these projects. It's how the software world can collaborate with their competitors on the things they don't compete directly on. This isn't charity, they are literally using more OSS software tha…

> Open source without commercial companies contributing would be much more of a fringe thing. My conjecture is that open source is polished enough for most customers to use when there are commercial interests implied. Linux on the server is a resounding success, Linux desktop not so much.

Even on the server, the commercial distributions dominate. Probably because of things like support.

And I wouldn't agree Linux desktop is unsuccessful. It's actually growing quite a bit in the last few years. And of course ChromeOS is also Linux based and capable of running Linux software. Likewise, MS bundles Linux with Windows and it is widely used by developers using Windows that way.

But even without that Linux Market share is now 4.5%. Quite a few gamers are discovering Linux works pretty well lately. With ChromeOS included it's closer to 6-7%. Linux on the Desktop is bigger than ChromeOS. I'd say it is getting better.

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