Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Still fretting over mudbloods

March 07, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Still fretting over mudbloods

TAGS: Open Source

Gianugo is on one again. Now, how he (or anyone else for that matter) can think of something as trivial as open source software and world code peace is beyond me when there's a good chance that smug Jose Mourinho will be humbled today by mighty Barcelona, but we all have our priorities.... :-)

Gianugo's complaint? Mudblood open source. He writes:

I have a growing feeling of discomfort when I sit and look at the current scenario of OSS-related business. I think I've been through enough winters to understand that the world is a competitive pool full of sharks and deal with it, but still I'm disturbed by the number of people trying to exploit the Open Source wave with little to no clue. I think that the final catalyst of a growing bad feeling has been this recent quote from the Splunk CEO about their stupid business model: It's the classic commercial open source strategy: entry level open source version and an enterprise version that mixes open and closed source. Seeing that screwed baitware model labeled as a "classic commercial OSS strategy" makes me sad and considering carrot farming as a good alternative.

I'm feeling more and more uncomfortable in providing advocacy and activity for this kind of people who are just trying to use Open Source either as a bait, as sales tactics or as code dumps. Free rides are fine, but just to some extent, and I'm feeling ankward [sic?] in being considered in the same gene pool as these people. My main reasons for falling in love with Open Source a dozen of year ago were really about the values coming from cooperative development in diverse communities: I just happen to resonate fully with Ted Leung's idea of commons-based peer production of software, and I know a whole lot of you are as well. We all know that software without community is of little to no value, but I'm wondering if we're really able to put this message across.

...I'm more and more convinced that someone should do something to clarify the situation, stating loud and clear that a license is a necessary yet not sufficient condition to achieve the status of what most of us perceive as the "real" Open Source....

Now, is it just me getting old and grumpy?

Yes, Gianugo. It is. Splunk aside (my real complaint with the comment is that I don't think there is a "classic" open source model yet. I'm still experimenting, and assume everyone else is, too. No one has found The Right Model yet), I'm not sure what "real" open source means.

What do you think of Red Hat, Gianugo? Its model is almost exactly the same as Splunk's - free code but not free access to the enterprise product. I'd consider Red Hat the paragon of open source business, but I wouldn't classify them as free love and beer. They're a savvy business making money on open source software, and are net producers of free code (just as Splunk is - why complain about the 10% kept back when they're releasing 90% of it into the open source wild?).

I do think that the "real" open source community tends to view itself through an elitist frame sometimes, and fetishes over what's being kept back rather than what is being given away. The upshot of even the lamest of open source companies is that a huge amount of code (much more than if the "real" community were left to its own devices - just take a look at the growth in Sourceforge since the mudbloods invaded) is now free. This is a positive thing, whatever the negatives (and I've written similarly to Gianugo's comments before.

Are there negatives? Of course there are. Of course there are freeriders. But that's a small price to pay for the new code we've been given. In the end, Gianugo, take comfort that these emperors without clothes - companies without community - will wither and die tragic corporate deaths. Surely the sadist in you loves that? :-)

Posted by Matt Asay on March 7, 2006 07:27 AM

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