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Report on the UK Debate on OSS Between IBM, Sun and OpenForum Europe
Thursday, April 28 2005 @ 11:40 AM EDT

Groklaw's John Collins attended the debate on Open Source Software at the University of Hertfordshire, School of Computer Science, in the UK, between representatives of IBM, Sun and OpenForum Europe on the 27th.

He says it wasn't so much a debate, since they all pretty much agreed on many points, as a discussion. It's gratifying to note that all of them agreed the patent system is broken and needs reform. There's a quotable quote about Microsoft's TCO "studies" too.

Note that if you are one of the three representatives, and you wish to clarify or correct this report, Groklaw is very happy to oblige by including your input. We strive for accuracy above all. For that matter, if you have notes or a transcribed speech or an mp3 or ogg file you'd like to offer, we'd be happy to post it. With that said, here is John's report on the debate.

******************************

A Report on the Debate on Open Source Software
Between IBM, Sun and OpenForum Europe
at the U. of Hertfordshire, UK, April 27, 2005

~ by John M. Collins

The speakers were Mike Banahan (whom I last met about 20 years ago) from OpenForum Europe (and a number of other things), Peter Alsop from Sun and Mark Cathcart from IBM.

The talks were pretty short and Mike Banahan and Peter Alsop freely admitted to recycling earlier talks.

Mike Banahan's main point was that Open Source meant you had Open Competition and the end of vendor lock-in which was so much the hallmark of the earlier days of computing, (when the number one villain was IBM). He presented a couple of cases of an Irish hospital and an English High school with genuine figures of TCO -- in the case of the hospital the €8.5M IT budget went down to about €350K. In the case of the school upgrading PCs with the latest XP was so ridiculously expensive to be impossible and a replacement with thin clients and a Linux server more than met all their needs.

Peter Alsop made a point of saying that the contents of his talk had been cleared with Jonathan Schwartz. He said Sun had always been in favour of what he called "Open Stuff" but Sun's philosophy was that you should have the option as MySQL offer -- of having the paid-for supported product and the Open Source version -- Star Office -v- OpenOffice. He believed that it was a reasonable way to operate and it satisfied everyone (except Richard Stallman).

[pj: I believe he is mistaken or at least oversimplifying Stallman's views. Note Ruby license is not objectionable on that list, despite a dual licensing clause. And Stallman is definitely not opposed to making money from selling programs, as you can see from the GPL FAQ, which says, "The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software." I think it's important to check your facts before you attack someone's views. Otherwise you can end up looking either foolish or mean. It is conceivable that this statement was phrased in context in a better way that night, but I can't publish the report without clarifying the facts.]

Mark Cathcart said that he hadn't cleared anything with Sam Palmisano because he is the one that tells Sam Palmisano what to say.

[pj: joke, joke -- clarifying because I don't want to get him subpoenaed by SCO because of a joke they might take seriously. My brain's joke center does think it might be a way to resolve SCO's motion to depose Palmisano, but I'll restrain myself.]

He pointed out that IBM had historically given out source code with their mainframes -- e.g., for the original OS/360 (except you'd have to pay quite a lot for the mainframes). He gave quite a long history of how much of what he'd done before he joined IBM had been basically open source. When IBM 6 years ago decided to get into Linux and Open Source he was very much involved in the discussion and he said it was very much a "no-brainer". He said that IBM software now uses 27 operating systems, including Windows, Linux in various versions, Solaris, HPUX (I noticed an absence of mention of SCO!). He is totally convinced that the move to open standards such as web services is going to transform the whole industry. His view was that if you think "you won't get fired for buying Microsoft" and you believe the TCO adverts they put out now, come back in ten years time and see if you were right.

The most significant question was on software patents. It was universally agreed that the system was fundamentally broken and needed reform. The view of the speakers was that "a certain company" was "hooked" on software patents but in due course most of them would be declared invalid. Mike Banahan expressed the view that it didn't make sense to allow patents for hardware but not software but the whole system was broken. He believed, to the endorsement of the other speakers, that copyrights provided the appropriate protection for all of these things.

There was a very brief mention of SCO -- from Mark Cathcart -- saying he wasn't allowed to say anything.


  


Report on the UK Debate on OSS Between IBM, Sun and OpenForum Europe | 146 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections Go Here Please.
Authored by: Hiro Protagonist on Thursday, April 28 2005 @ 12:23 PM EDT
Corrections Go Here Please.

---
I Grok... Therefore... I am.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Report on the UK Debate on OSS Between IBM, Sun and OpenForum Europe
Authored by: RealProgrammer on Thursday, April 28 2005 @ 12:37 PM EDT
It's a misconception to think you have to hide your source code to charge for
supporting something.

Sun is to software what Sears was to direct marketing. In the dim times of
early Unix history, they were out in front as an early adopter and champion.
Then the technological paradigm shifted and they couldn't keep up.

(I still find it amazing that Sears was beaten at the direct marketing game by
upstarts with an 800 number and a UPS drop)

---
(I'm not a lawyer, but I know right from wrong)

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT Here
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 28 2005 @ 12:45 PM EDT
It's always nice if you could post links as HTML and make them <a
href="http://www.exemple.com">clickable</a>

Preview is good, too.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Thanks, Mr Collins!
Authored by: Simon G Best on Thursday, April 28 2005 @ 01:05 PM EDT

Thank you for that report, Mr Collins! I found the following bit particularly interesting:-

Mike Banahan expressed the view that it didn't make sense to allow patents for hardware but not software but the whole system was broken. He believed, to the endorsement of the other speakers, that copyrights provided the appropriate protection for all of these things.

Before I got to the second sentence, I thought, with a bit of disappointment, that it was the old 'doesn't make sense, so there should be software patents, too' kind of thing. But no! It's so nice to see the 'doesn't make sense to have them for one but not the other' thing turned around for a change.

And the IBM and Sun representatives endorsed this view?!? Could I ask for clarification/confirmation on whether or not these are official IBM/Sun positions? It sounds too good to be true.

But anyway, the growing consensus that there needs to be patent reform is good news (even if there might be ungood motivations behind some such calls for patent reform from some of those who make such calls). With the way the software patentability clarification Directive stuff has already gone in the EU, it would be an opportunity to work towards liberating software authors and users from the curse of software patents generally.

Anyway, thanks again for that report!

---
FOSS IS political. It's just that the political establishment is out of touch and hasn't caught up.

[ Reply to This | # ]

"Hooked On Patents"
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 28 2005 @ 01:26 PM EDT

``The view of the speakers was that "a certain company" was "hooked" on software patents but in due course most of them would be declared invalid''

I hope the speakers got the point across that this is in no way a good thing. It is incredibly expensive for these patents to be declared invalid. In the meantime, innovation grinds to a halt or proceeds like molasses in January, software producers of all sizes need a full-time legal staff to do nothing but watch out for patent problems, and users pay higher prices for software-based products because of the legal expenses that mount for patent-related activities within the software companies.

The sooner Congress begins to understand the ridiculous situation they are putting every American software company in -- having to maintain a large legal staff just so they can have a ghost of a chance of avoiding some patent in the minefield -- the better. What is one of the things business experts are always harping on? Oh, yes: concentrate on your core competencies. For software-producing companies that would be, um, producing software, wouldn't it? American software producers need the added weight of a legal staff to handle patent-related busywork like they need a hole in the head. IMHO, these all amounts to another ``unfunded mandate'' but then Congress has rarely met one of those that it didn't love.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Stallman's views
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 28 2005 @ 05:58 PM EDT
From everything I've read Richard Stallman believes
that proprietary software is morally wrong. This
is consistent with Peter Alsip's statement that
dual-licensing (the MySQL model) satisfies everybody
but Stallman. Stallman would not approve of allowing
source to be licensed in a non-open fashion.

Note that, as reported, Peter Alsip's statements
muddy the difference between dual-licensing and
paid-for support by implying that software under
paid-for support is not Open Source.

Karl O. Pinc <kop@meme.com>

[ Reply to This | # ]

IBM Redbook on Migrating to Desktop Linux
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, April 28 2005 @ 08:13 PM EDT
<a
href="http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246380.html?Open">Red
book on Migrating to Desktop Linux</a>

[ Reply to This | # ]

Report on the UK Debate on OSS Between IBM, Sun and OpenForum Europe - corrections
Authored by: Peter Alsop on Friday, April 29 2005 @ 12:04 PM EDT
Here's a few points I would like to clear up.

Re: "The talks were pretty short and Mike Banahan and Peter Alsop freely
admitted to recycling earlier talks."

...this was the first time I have given this talk (to be pedantic I also gave it
to a colleague as a rehersal) and the content was prepared for this talk only.

Re: "Peter Alsop made a point of saying that the contents of his talk had
been cleared with Jonathan Schwartz. "

...this was an amusing story about geting approval to use a *quote* Jonathan had
made internally. I believe it's good manners to seek approval to use such a
quote. For the record, the talk was not approved by Jonathan. But while we are
on the subject, http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan is worth a look. Check it out.

Re: "He believed that it was a reasonable way to operate and it satisfied
everyone (except Richard Stallman)."

I did not mention Richard Stallman during the talk or indeed the GPL. I guess
maybe thats why that piece was added in parenthesies ?

Re: "[pj: I believe he is mistaken or at least oversimplifying Stallman's
views. etc etc"

...I made no reference to Stallman's views although I beleive I was partially
quoting him when at some stage I said something along the lines of "free as
in liberal not free as in no cost". If you want to read his views go to...
http://www.stallman.org/

[ Reply to This | # ]

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