Comments on: Leave Virginia Alone: On Open-source and Proprietary Threats

By: Krish

Krish — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:12:31 +0000

Very well said sgtrock. Most of the people who worry about "open source going down" make such mistakes in their understanding.

1) They tend to view the open source dynamics with a proprietary software lens. To understand open source needs a complete mindshift. It is wrong to see the success of open source using the market success parameter of the proprietary world.

2) One has to believe in the freedom offered by open source licenses to overcome any obstacles that is posed by proprietary software vendors who acquire OSS.

I am glad you pointed out to perfect examples in support of your arguments.

By: Links 8/1/2010: New Palm Model, Beta Public of Boxee | Boycott Novell

Links 8/1/2010: New Palm Model, Beta Public of Boxee | Boycott Novell — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:04:28 +0000

[...] Leave Virginia Alone: On Open-source and Proprietary Threats Even Google’s involvement with its own open-source Android operating system could inhibit free development around it going forward. For Google, one of the big benefits that all Android phones bring is steering users into the company’s lucrative search-and-ad ecosystem. With the release of today’s Nexus One Android-based phone — which takes the company’s commercial stake in Android handsets to two (Droid being the first) — could Android itself be increasingly influenced by Google’s proprietary interests? Just as Microsoft leverages Windows for the benefit of its own applications, Google could do the same with Android. The Open Android Alliance is already developing versions of Android devoid of Google applications due to these types of concerns. [...]

By: sgtrock

sgtrock — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:39:56 +0000

Sebastian;

While there may be some validity to what you say, what prevents anyone else from forking a project that gets bought out for the express purpose of killing it?

Take a look at what happened to the XFree86 project, for example. In that case, the project lead unilaterally decided to impose a license that many found too onerous to accept. The end result was that all of the Linux distributions, the BSDs, and even the various flavors moved over to a competing fork. Everyone was up on the newer platform in less than 6 months with little loss of functionality and little to no disruption experienced by their userbase.

Better yet, the forked project saw an immediate influx of developers that have really pushed the envelope with new features (Compiz, for example, came out of Novell's initial contribution to the project).

In sum, I'm not afraid of any company trying to gobble up FOSS projects. The really neat thing about FOSS is if the itch is bad enough, some collection of independent developers will find a way to scratch it. :)

By: 451 CAOS Theory » Don’t fear the reaper. Why FOSS should not fear M&A by proprietary vendors

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:38:18 +0000

[...] vendors Matthew Aslett, January 8, 2010 @ 5:38 am ET A couple of posts have been published recently worrying about the impact of more open source specialist vendors being acquired by proprietary [...]

By: Cloudera – Page One PR – Public Relations and Social Media in Silicon Valley

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:07:55 +0000

[...] GigaOM Leave Virginia Alone: On Open-source and Proprietary Threats [...]

By: Is Getting Acquired Good For FOSS Projects? | JetLib News

Is Getting Acquired Good For FOSS Projects? | JetLib News — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:40:40 +0000

[...] acquisitions by proprietary source companies may cause concern for the viability of projects. Can a FOSS project ’survive’ an acquisition? According to the article posing that question: ‘One has to ask, though, how healthy it is [...]

By: Sebastian Rupley

Sebastian Rupley — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:13:31 +0000

@Justa -- yes, a proprietary parent can have a positive impact on commercial open source companies and efforts but there still are lots of proprietary software companies that have predatory attitudes toward promising open source projects. The power of free, or nearly free, alternatives to costly software can, for example, be an incentive for a proprietary company to block a promising open source project, up to and including buying it to kill it. As commercial open source really starts to get its legs right now, there is a lot to be said for independence and freedom, IMHO.

Sebastian

By: Justa Notherguy

Justa Notherguy — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:43:42 +0000

One has to ask, though, how healthy it is for increasingly important open-source platforms and applications to come under the wing of huge, proprietary software companies.

Well, Sebastian, as with many things in life the answer to that question is, 'It depends.'

If, for example, that proprietor's overarching 'wing' tends to stifle innovation, crush all dissent, and/or quietly do away with products that tend (or even appear) to compete with the proprietor's main business efforts...well, that would be bad.

On the other hand, if their 'wing' tends to spearhead the drive to innovate, push for greater partner-involvement, and/or husband increased output of products which promise (or even appear) to benefit the proprietor's main business efforts...well, so what?

In other words, the real questions should be: (1) Since when is acting in self-interest necessarily bad? and (2) Shouldn't we judge a tree by it's fruits? (Apol. to the apostle Matthew.)