Submitted by Open source behind closed doors: in the first of a two part series (part II) ZDNet looks at why some open source projects remain secret. “Lots of companies are using our products, they just aren’t talking about it”, is a popular excuse from software companies, particularly those that offer open source software and services. Deployment of open source software, particularly in the private sector, often appears to be a clandestine activity, with few companies prepared to discuss their involvement.
I’m using GNU/Linux at home and work, but is there a particular reason to advertise using it? I see that article as an advertisement for some F/OSS projects. Organizations think about publicity of their own products, not tools that they use to produce them. Anyway, our university uses Linux extensively, but it does not advertise it because there is no reason for it. It’s fine.
Why advertise it? In hopes of gaining more support from vendors (hardware and software). I suppose, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got everything you need working though does it.
I agree that it’s a silent war, mostly.
We vote with our acts, for example. People want to see big fortune 500 companies adopting Linux, but the truth is that many many many people are using Linux, and not just trying to make money from it.
Microsoft has the “pros” (the profissionals) and the mindset of the managers. Linux and Open Source have the “rest”.
For example, I prefer Linux, but I intend to support Windows with my tools. But if I can use Linux, I will, though I won’t try to push it throw the asses of the clients. I will let them choose, unless they pledge ignorance and let me choose.
Most importantly, people are getting independent from the Microsoft tools. That’s part of the silent war.
The only war is in peoples minds. I can’t stand zealotry in any of its forms. It’s dangerous, limiting, and more energy than it’s worth. Fear of Windows does not mean there’s a love of Linux. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.
The best manager will get informed, weigh the risks, and make their own decision. Thieves and scoundrals wear many faces. If they forget that while they’re dealing with a Microsoft salesman or a Linux biased consultant, they’re as good as dead.
To be honest, this is why I think this topic is as dead as a doornail. Whatever the posturing of the Windows and Linux fanboys, you can’t get around the cold hard facts that if something doesn’t support their business plan, it cuts no ice with business.
Imagine just one commercial for say.. Novell SuSE linux that just talked about how it can revolutionize the desktop. All it would take would be one vendor and a single commercial, and the name would be stuck in people’s heads.
Current heavy computer users who aren’t geeks probably wouldn’t flock to it, because they care about the software, but new computer buyers would take the price:performance ratio very well.
Linux desktops are failing because nobody knows what they are.
How many times can you copy and paste this from article to article? I just read it in the “Windows kills Linux” article…
I posted afterwards. It was a mistake.
So to answer your question, once.
That post was for the wrong article.
Sorry.
<quote>
But it’s not only the press that organisations are wary of. Some companies even choose to hide open source migrations from their own employees. “Most employees these days are used to proprietary software such as Microsoft. If you tell them it’s different, they can get put off without even trying it. I’ve met CIOs who have said ‘this is the new version of Word’, when they’ve installed OpenOffice and people have swallowed it.”
</quote>
Funny. Good idea, though. 🙂
I’m eager to try that out: “this is the new version of Windows.”
Linux desktops are failing because nobody knows what they are.
Funny, I thought they were failing because people were all too familiar with them.
Funny. Good idea, though. 🙂
Anyone who lies, obfuscates, or dodges doesn’t survive around me for very long.
Honestly, if this sort of foggy view and logic is going to be the norm around here, I’m out of here.
To be honest, this is why I think this topic is as dead as a doornail. Whatever the posturing of the Windows and Linux fanboys, you can’t get around the cold hard facts that if something doesn’t support their business plan, it cuts no ice with business.
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Doesn’t really apply in most cases, because BOTH solutions can often “support their business plan” but one could do it better (or worse).
As an aside:
Perceptions are very important. The “What are they using?” or “What are they doing?” is very important for the 99.9% of people with no clue yet who need to make software/hardware decisions. That includes MANY decision-makers in companies (with their own biases, for whatever reason).
Like it or not, MANY decisions aren’t based on cut-throat business logic. They’re often based on laziness, the status quo, and who can convince them the best.
To under-estimate the pull of marketing, laziness, incompetence and cluelessness in all levels of management is to miss out on many an opportunity.
Excuse me.
Lets say you make a product based on Astarix, an Open Source VoiP PBX for example. Lets say you then market this product against Verizon or Siemens.
The software is free.
The hardware / services are what you charge for & monthly maintanence fees.
If you proudly broadcast what you’re doing and how you’re doing it you’ll be put out of business in a hurry.
This example is why open source based PRODUCTS don’t get much attention, BECAUSE THEY DONT WANT TO STIR UP COMPETITION.
I have an important announcement to make. I recently project-managed a rollout of Linux, OpenOffice.Org and Open-XChange to over 80K desktops at an international finance corporation, replacing Windows, Office, Lotus Notes, and numerous other commercial packages. To all of the Free Software community, I’d like to say this- Thanks! Thanks a million!
In fact, thanks 13.3 million, because that’s how much we saved! This year alone!
I say “we”, I mean the shareholders, of course. So a big thank you from the shareholders, for the extra $13.3 million on the bottom line this year (minus my hefty bonus payment, of course!) you can be assured the extra cash will be put to good use in the international financial markets.
Thank you for all your hard work. We know how hard it can be, slaving away into the early hours, on a caffeine-fuelled desperate search to catch that last bug. We know, because our vendors used to tell us each year when we renewed our license and support contracts. But now, you guys do this for us! Thanks, guys! You can be sure that the champagne will be flowing freely at our profits announcement pre-briefing meetings (open to all senior managers at Associate-Director level and above), thanks to your hard work!
I personally will be thinking of you this summer, on board my new luxury yacht, during my extended vacation in the Mediterranean this year. The world truly is a different place, due to the power of the internet and collaborative free-software projects. Without them, I couldn’t even afford a yacht! Thanks guys!
The open-source revolution is just beginning. I’ve learned a lot from free software, and I’m grateful for that. I’ve learned I have the freedom to not pay anything for our for our software! That’s right, nothing! Not a dollar, not a euro, not a pound! The great thing about ZERO is it’s the same not matter what currency it’s in! I can assure you that’ll be a hot topic at our post-implementation party in the Cayman islands next week!
Of course, I can’t disclose the actual company I work for, because, you know, it’s “commercially sensitive” and all that stuff. But just remember, next time you make an interest payment on your mortgage (Ha! I remember when I used to have one of them!) that it could just be, that because of YOUR work, a little bit more of the money YOU pay ends up with OUR shareholders! (and me, of course!)
If that seems a little harsh, I say this: think of the children. No, not your children, MY children! They’ll be attending a much more exclusive private school, thanks to your hard work! Now isn’t that thought enough to warm the heart of even the most ardent critic of free software??
I hope you are a millionaire already, because you sound business savvy enough.
Cute. I have to respect you though, it’s terribly difficult to write such a creative set of drivel from your mother’s basement
.
I’m not a very good creative writer, but I think I can recognize the talent for it when I see it!
Jeez …
Good post, very funny and quite accurate in it’s own way … totally misses the point of course.
OSS projects exist for many different reasons, and people contribute to them for many different reasons. In 90%+ of those cases … it’s not about money.
For OSS people, who cares whether your comapny has saved zillions, who cares whether you have received a humungous bonus … well done, you did your job and you’ve shown that OSS works for the end-user … thanks, that’s what we WANT TO HAPPEN.
Hell, most OSS people don’t even care about MS making money … what gives us all a pain in the ass is that they play dirt and try to stop OSS and stifle the free -flow of ideas.
If MS didn’t do that BUT still made money, then the OSS crowd would get off their back.
(And YES, I’m ready for the 300-posts showing how MS encourage new ideas, are source of much that is good blah, blah)
I have to admit, I just don’t understand the morality behind free software.
I understand the freedom part, just not the gratis part, and I don’t know why OSS advocates always insist that software has to be gratis.
I read explanations about it, and at the top of the document they say “beer and speech are completely different and not related at all”, and then later on say “oh but by the way, to have freedom it MUST be gratis”. The EXACT opposite. It makes no sense at all.
Why is it OK for other companies (like banks) to charge for their products but not OK for software?
No-one has ever answered that question, other than with meaningless stuff about “oh you can charge to distribute it…” but you still have to make it available for nothing AS WELL, why does anyone think that can possibly work?
Answer: It can’t.
It seems to me, there’s a whole “Emperor has no clothes” thing going on and nobody wants to admit it. It’s foolish to think it can work.
It’s just a different perspective. 99% of the developers are employed to work on code. They work with services, selling their time and expertise to their employers and clients.
With FreeSoftware the efficiency is greater, because one does not need to be paranoid like the commercial guys.
Open source is healthier for the users and the developers. To own a business and to grow it is difficult enough already. Less paranoia can only help.
Now that you mention it, I think it’s a recipie for MORE paranoia. If you (as an individual or company) put in some paid work on behalf of a client, that’s fine if it’s just one, single, client (you don’t have to release the modifications)
But… you probably will want to re-sell your work to someone else, and if you do, you have to release your modifications.
With closed-source, this doesn’t come up at all,
because it’s illegal for anyone to copy your work.
With free software, someone else can come allong and re-sell or even give away your work.
So, you’re better off keeping quiet about it, not atracting attention, and hoping nobody else notices, so when you find your next client you still have an exlcusive product.
Instead of “security through obscurity”, you have “exclusivity through secrecy”. And LOTS of paranoia.
I have seen paranoia by the commercial guys too many times to forget about them, unfortunately. SCO, Microsoft, Sun, and lots of little sharks who put time bombs on their softwares, or who add little tricks like spyware or “phone home” technologies.
Yeah, right. It’s too late for you. You have read too many Microsoft FUD material.
> Yeah, right. It’s too late for you. You have read too many Microsoft FUD material.
Now, how’s that for paranoia? Any critic of free software must have been got to by Microsoft, the ultimate source of all evil.