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| Sun's Schwartz Defends Open Source |
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Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 02:44 PM EST
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I don't know if the world is coming to an end or what, but I'm going to have to say that Sun Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz has come up with the best analogy I have seen yet to counter the FUD that open source is less secure. On his blog, he writes this, in an entry on "Scare Tactics in Open Source":
In my view, the economics of free and open source software are identical to the economics of free search, TV, radio, checking accounts or mobile phones - the money's not in the access to the product, it's in the services and value delivered around the product. The vendors of those products have a huge interest in eliminating the divide between them and their customers, one typically based on price - as a means of enabling higher value opportunities. It's a basic concept, and if you've read this blog for any length of time, you know my views on how networks and subscriptions (whether to handsets, software updates, roadside emergency services or sell-side analyst reports), over the longer term, can change price and value equations for businesses that know how to exploit them.
Now just this morning, like me, I'm sure you got an email entitled "Know the risk. Compare the protection." from Microsoft.
In it was embedded a link to an independent analyst's report, provided by the Yankee Group - which I've provided here.
I'd encourage you to read this for a view on how "open source" is misunderstood. Reading the report, you get a sense that open source is somehow irresponsible compared to Microsoft's products or approach. And moreover, that customers have to choose - open source, or safety.
Nothing could be farther from the truth - any more than "free checking" is more dangerous than paid checking, or free TV is more dangerous than cable.
The link is to Laura DiDio's November 2004 "independent" report on indemnification, which we covered at the time. I seriously question the word "independent" when used to describe Ms. DiDio, but I really like the free checking comparison. Maybe now that I've quoted him favorably on Groklaw, Jonathan will finish his answers to our questions and send them along, eh?
: ) Seriously, the problem Microsoft has with its FUD is this: it waited too long. Too many solid, upstanding, capitalist corporations now believe in and depend on open source. They are making money, and they aren't going to allow the anti-FOSS FUD to stand unchallenged.
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| Authored by: Hiro Protagonist on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 03:14 PM EST |
Corrections (if needed) go here please.
---
I Grok... Therefore... I am.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dodger on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 03:16 PM EST |
I have always thought Sun was an friend of open source. The problem is that
after the drastic turn of events of 9/11 and the crash of the stock market, Sun
has floundered around trying to find its direction in this every more chaotic
market place. And they have held their tongues for a while in their
'partnership' with M$. I believe they will find their way and continue to play a
significant role in support of open source, open standards and freedom.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Jude on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 03:17 PM EST |
| Let's keep Groklaw tidy. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Power of the pen - Authored by: bsm2003 on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 03:25 PM EST
- Microsoft helps Europe - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 04:39 PM EST
- Toqueville spreading more FUD - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 05:13 PM EST
- Florian Mueller writes a letter to the Inq. - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 05:27 PM EST
- p2p - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 06:48 PM EST
- p2p - Authored by: wvhillbilly on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 12:29 AM EST
- p2p - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 04:36 AM EST
- p2p - Authored by: wvhillbilly on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 10:29 PM EST
- Science too hard for juries - Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 08:47 PM EST
- "Free as in Checking" - Authored by: Darth23 on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 01:44 AM EST
- Linux magazines? - Authored by: bradley13 on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 02:17 AM EST
- "Whizz-kid takes Apple to court over website " - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 06:44 AM EST
- User Friendly moves - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 08:48 AM EST
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| Authored by: klog on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 03:45 PM EST |
"Know the risk. Compare the protection."
Protection? as in racket?
Oooooooooo - does not sound like something respectable organizations want to get
into.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 03:52 PM EST |
Recently I realized something. I love FUD. I love the outrageous studies, the
fake analysts, the zany 'don't look at what it costs, look at what it TOTALLY
costs' arguments.
I've read the halloween documents. I've listened to the troll's chorus of Lyons,
Enderle, O'Gara, DiDio, and Balmer.
They crafted such a culture of disbelief among the IT world that even honest
studies that favor their products are dismissed.
It's wonderful. :)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 03:57 PM EST |
There are some points a bit wrong. FOSS/OSS isn't really
comparible with free TV, Cable, radio, blah, blah.
The difference is FOSS/OSS is open for all to see and hack
and make better (as you all know). That is what make open
source better, more stable and more secure than any closed
source code ever will.
BUT, trying to remove the FUD is the hard part. Only
geeks and their ilk read geeky articles. Use geeks here
know the facts. Fred Bloggs/Joe Sixpack/Harry Homer who
buy computers from PCWorld etc. don't. I have users at
work that think MSWord is the 'standard' and you can't
tell them otherwise.
There is the battle.
Nick [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 04:07 PM EST |
I liked the comparison too, to a point. But the analogy - and the rest of the
article - is all about free beer, not free speech. Any article which frames the
discussion that way is suspect; the author - assuming that he has read
Stallman - is either careless or deceitful. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 04:39 PM EST |
From her 'Yankee Group" report ...
"Microsoft's more comprehensive and specific indemnification provisions may
tilt the total cost of ownership (TCO) equation in Windows' favour, making it
more economical than Linux".
## The best she can say here is 'may' because any other claim could be shot down
without too much difficulty.
"Organisations that are drawn to Linux and open source by the allure of
modifying the core operating system kernel will not be indemnified by their
vendors in any lawsuits brought by third parties over any intellectual property
(IP) claims involving copyright infringement, patent infringement or theft of
trade secret claims. No vendor will warranty or guarantee non-standard
software".
## Here she highlights that the real threats of the future are not faulty
software architecture & design (that comes standard with much of Windows)
but from manufactured lawsuits ... DiDio never mentions the damage done &
money lost that companies were never able to claim from Microsoft because of its
known flaws in its DCOM / Active-X design when running over open networks that
allowed a generation of malicious exploits to damage companies investments in IT
...
"etc: etc: lawsuits etc: etc: threats etc: etc: third-party litigation etc:
etc:"
## DiDio now rubs our noses in the legal threat scenarios.
This seems a pathetic justification for having 'Microsoft indemnification'
which is itself, by and large, a fallacious offering.
Doug Marker [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: raynfala on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 05:10 PM EST |
From the article:
His statements beg the question: If IBM believes
the SCO lawsuit has “zero merit,” why
does it refuse to offer its users’—who pay
hefty premiums for IBM products and
services—standard
indemnification?"
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Fifty push-ups, Ms. Didio.
Your style
needs some tweaking...
--Raynfala
PS: Oh yeah, and the apostrophe at
the end of "users" is probably erroneous, too. My gosh, if you're going to try
to sound like a learned authority, at least write like one. Sheesh.
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| Authored by: ssavitzky on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 05:55 PM EST |
An explanation like "... it's in the services and value delivered around
the product" may be sufficient to fend off "scare tactics", but
it still misses the real economic basis of open source software. The economics
of open source are NOT "... identical to the economics of free search, TV,
radio, checking accounts or mobile phones".
The economics of open source are closer to the economics of public
infrastructures like roads, dams, and fire departments. In fact, *volunteer*
fire departments, like the one we had in my old home town in Connecticut, are a
lot like open source: a piece of vital infrastructure that has a clear economic
benefit to everyone in the community, with services freely available to all, but
maintained by a small number of *skilled* volunteers.
Companies and individuals normally contribute to open source, not because they
expect to deliver "services and value ... around the product" but
because they expect to obtain a benefit from *using* a body of
community-developed software that is far greater than the value of their own
contribution.
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The SCO method: open mouth, insert foot, pull trigger.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: iceworm on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 06:15 PM EST |
Alas! What a pity! The FREE as in FREEDOM is the
important part of the GPL.
Yes, it is indeed a pity B.
Perens did not spend half as much effort on
explaining
that FREE referred to FREEDOM as he did on promoting open
source
and ignoring the FREEDOM part. Now we have J.
Schwartz of Sun Microsystems
riding on his coattails
comparing FREE to kostlos, no charge, come-ons like
checking accounts.
In my view, the economics of free
and open source software
are identical to the economics of free search, TV,
radio,
checking accounts or mobile phones - the money's not in
the access
to the product, it's in the services and value
delivered around the product.
The free as in beer economics has to do with the
marginal
cost of reproduction more than a marketing offer
on the part of GPL'd software.
The more and more I read
about OSS (without the FREE), the more and more I move
toward RMS's position. Freedom is very important. Cheap
software is not as
important as freedom.
iceworm - FREEdom [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: gressil on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 06:46 PM EST |
Can someone please explain what the difference is between a paid and a free
cheque (note the spelling colonists).
Thanks :-)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 07:54 PM EST |
If Scott McNealy said that I'd say it was a good thing, but coming from Shwartz
I figure its only good for thiry minutes at best. Then he'll sneeze, lose track
and go off on another tangent.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- True - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 08:31 PM EST
- Ok Boss - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 09:44 PM EST
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| Authored by: Icicle Spider on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 10:18 PM EST |
Anybody else notice the following at the end of Schwartz's blog
entry?
ps. stay tuned for news on Java's open source
accessibility, too...
Pat[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bobn on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 10:34 PM EST |
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IRC: irc://irc.fdfnet.net/groklaw
the groklaw channels in IRC are not affiliated with, and not endorsed by,
either GrokLaw.net or PJ.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 04:06 AM EST |
| Some neonazis here in europe would like people to believe the holocoust had not
happened, or had not happened in the form it actually happened. For this purpose
they create would-be scientific "studies", in which they quote each other. These
"studies" are written to cause uncertainties and doubt about wether the
holocaust has happened, building up a network of lies which gives a consistent
version of history as long as you do not look for information outside of that
network of lies.
The same method is used by microsoft and the industry
profiting from a microsoft monopoly. DiDio quoting microsoft's studies, and
being quoted by later microsoft studies as independant analyst. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 08:49 AM EST |
In spite of an excellent blog entry, I'd say sunw has very weak management at
the top. Those who follow sunw know that sunw changes their direction, and their
position on major issues about every two months. When sunw runs into trouble,
instead of taking decisive action, sunw management decides to run around like
chickens with their heads cut off.
Unless you are dealing with sunw software, running on sunw hardware - you
absolutely can not trust sunw.
Sunw loves linux, then they hate linux, then they love linux again, but only for
this - not that. And they call linux "java."
Sunw's "support" for the x86 platform has been equally schitzo.
And sunw has been claiming that they will open-source solaris for the last seven
years. They esspecially like to claim that when their competition has a strong
offering.
Just my observation.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 31 2005 @ 01:25 PM EST |
You missed his point. Yes there was praise for open source software. But being
compared to a free toothbrush is what I would call faint praise. Jon jon's real
point is that there are no "indemification issues" when big
corporations use open source licenses as a marketing gimmick. Not a word about
Free Software.[ Reply to This | # ]
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