Archive for August, 2008Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker somewhat nonchalantly noted on Tuesday that Google and Mozilla have renewed their vows for another three years. She should have ordered serious fireworks. Why? Because Google’s beneficence has granted Mozilla a tremendous amount of leeway in figuring out a way to sell Mozilla’s open-source …
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2008
 
Could governments effectively subsidize open-source development?Posted by: admin in Business and Politics
The open-source dilemma (Credit: Matt Asay) At the Utah Open Source Conference yesterday I presented a dilemma. Briefly, the idea is that as open-source buyers grow comfortable with open source they’ll stop spending money on open source. This leads to tragedy of the commons-type problems and a difficulty in encouraging the creation of more open source. I therefore asked the question, “Who will pay for open source in the future?” I (and the audience) recommended that the problem may resolve itself over time as enterprises come to recognize that their failure to replenish open-source communities with either cash or code may come to harm the code commons from which they derive increasing amounts of value. I also suggested that Eclipse, Mozilla, and other non-profit foundations provide an answer. Lastly, I suggested that governments might get involved to shore up funding for open-source software development. As I noted, governments derive large benefit from open source (and from IT spending, generally). Why not fund more of it? 
Europe loves open source. Why not fund it? (Credit: Matt Asay) I didn’t, however, have a clear idea as to the right way for this to be done. France, as noted in InfoWorld recently, advocates a way, as does TechDirt, which suggests that military spending could create the next Silicon Valley (so why not an open-source Silicon Valley, given how much the US military is buying into open source?). France, the second largest market for open source outside the United Says, does a range of things to promote open source, but its focus on open source for the rising generation is perhaps most important:
30
08
2008
Novell’s third-quarter loss widens, but Linux booms by 30 percentPosted by: admin in Business and PoliticsNovell beat Wall Street’s estimates with a solid third quarter, but the real story is in its continued Linux growth. Net revenue rose to $245 million from $237 million in 2007, but Novell’s third-quarter loss quadrupled to $15.1 million from $3.7 million in 2007. The company … Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Oracle makes a picture-perfect recommendation as to why consolidation is creepy. I’m not sure whether would-be buyers are supposed to be encouraged or dismayed by this advertisement that I found in the Wall Street Journal: 
Oracle …
30
08
2008
Linux jumps to 13.4 percent of the stalling server marketPosted by: admin in Business and Politics
According to a current IDC report highlighted by ZDNet, Linux is booming. At just 9.4 percent of the overall server market in terms of revenue in 2007, Linux has now climbed to 13.4 percent of the overall server market, with Unix at 7.7 percent and Windows at 36.5 percent. …
29
08
2008
Microsoft surpasses Google…in stock performancePosted by: admin in Business and PoliticsPaul Kedrosky notices an impressive feat for Microsoft: for the first time in a long time, its stock has outperformed Google’s this week, this month, and this year. Allowed, this is like calling Microsoft the sexiest nun in the convent, given how poor its performance has been, but it’…
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08
2008
Could governments effectively subsidize open-source development?Posted by: admin in Business and Politics
The open-source dilemma (Credit: Matt Asay) At the Utah Open Source Conference yesterday I presented a dilemma. Briefly, the idea is that as open-source buyers grow comfortable with open source they will stop spending money on open source. This leads to tragedy of the commons-type problems and a difficulty in encouraging the creation of more open source. I therefore asked the question, “Who will pay for open source in the future?” I (and the audience) suggested that the problem might resolve itself over time as enterprises come to recognize that their failure to replenish open-source communities with either cash or code might come to harm the code commons from which they derive increasing amounts of value. I also recommended that Eclipse, Mozilla, and other non-profit foundations provide an answer. Lastly, I suggested that governments might get involved to shore up funding for open-source software development. As I noted, governments derive massive benefit from open source (and from IT spending, generally). Why not fund more of it?
Europe loves open source. Why not fund it? (Credit: Matt Asay) I didn’t, however, have a clear idea as to the right way for this to be done. France, as noted in InfoWorld recently, suggests a way, as does TechDirt, which recommends that military spending could create the next Silicon Valley (so why not an open-source Silicon Valley, given how much the US military is buying into open source?). France, the second largest market for open source outside the United Says, does a range of things to promote open source, but its focus on open source for the rising generation is perhaps most important:
29
08
2008
Quebec sued for not considering open source. Why this is bad policyPosted by: admin in Business and PoliticsFacil, a Quebec-based open-source organization, has sued the Quebec provincial government for buying Microsoft software without considering open-source software, as CBC reports. The problem, it seems, is that Quebec has an “open markets” policy that it is supposed to follow. In practice, however, the Quebec government IT buyers have been … Dave Rosenberg thought that this press release was a spoof on my affection for Red Hat. Yes, it’s true that I’m a fan of Red Hat’s - I think it does a lot of good for open source - but this goes too far….  I really … Dennis Howlett writes a thought-provoking piece on proprietary maintenance revenue, challenging the value that software vendors provide or, rather, the generic way in which it is provided. Howlett proposes a way to customize maintenance fees to the actual value provided by a vendor:
I’ll leave it to you to read Howlett’s post to discover the three things, but even in the short blurb above Howlett unwittingly calls out a fundamental difficulty in open-source software revenue models, one that Savio Rodrigues has been banging on for a while, and one that NBC iVillage CTO Jon Williams has also called out: Open-source vendors begin making money from their customer base precisely at the point that the customer base is least apt to renew. |
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