Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Open source needs more competition

May 21, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Open source needs more competition

TAGS: Open Source

Jose Mourinho is quoted today about how pleased he is that the best striker on this planet - Thierry Henry - turned down two record offers of nearly $90M from Barcelona and Real Madrid to stay with Arsenal. Why would the coach of the world's most competitive team (in the transfer market, anyway) be happy that Arsenal will be stronger next year?

Because competition is good.

Who cares if Chelsea wins if they have no competition? Indeed, Mourinho has bemoaned this fact lately - no one takes him seriously as a coach since he has billions to spend on buying up every good player on the planet.

It's the same in the open source world. First, it's becoming a bit distressing to me that the proprietary players have come up with such anemic rationales for why IT buyers should choose them. Innovation? Open source has that in spades. Or how about this one from Microsoft, arguing that open source is not reliable or dependable? I think Redmond has failed to notice the mass exodus away from its rainy shores for stable, reliable, dependable open source in the form of Linux, MySQL, Apache, etc. etc. etc.

In short, I hope the proprietary vendors learn to put up a real fight. Right now, they're looking pathetic.

Of equal importance to me is that open source breeds an increasing number of quality projects. We need more, not fewer, Alfrescos, SugarCRMs, MySQLs, etc. Too often we think that because one has been funded or grown in popularity, that it's time to move on. The proprietary world doesn't think that way - why should the open world fall into this trap? Where would Oracle be without DB2? And Sybase, Ingres, etc.?

Competition is good. Lots of competition is better. Even for you, Jose "Big Bucks" Mourinho.

Posted by Matt Asay on May 21, 2006 08:14 AM

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