Links: OSI Finds Its Spine, 'Open' Core Called Out
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-07-21 16:38:08 UTC
- Modified: 2010-07-21 16:38:08 UTC
Summary: With people like Simon Phipps in its house, the OSI regains credibility
Open core, Open core, more Open core… the debate goes on and on, with Monty the latest to weigh in.
When you get down to it this is a fight over branding – which is why the issue is so important to the OSI folks (who are all about the brand). I don’t actually care that much how SugarCRM, Jahia, Alfresco et al make the software they sell to their customers. As a customer I’m asking a whole different set of questions to “is this product open source?” I want to know how good the service and support is, how good the product is, and above all, does it solve the problem I have at a price point I’m comfortable with. The license doesn’t enter into consideration.
So if that’s the case (and I believe it is), why the fighting? Because of the Open Source brand, and all the warm-and-fuzzies that procures. “Open solutions” are the flavour of the decade, and as a small ISV building a global brand, being known as Open Source is a positive marketing attribute. The only problem is that the warm-and-fuzzies implied by Open source – freedom to change supplier or improve the software, freedom to try the software before purchasing, the existence of a diverse community of people with knowledge, skills and willingness to help a user in difficulty – don’s exist in the Open Core world. The problem is that for the most part, the Open Core which you can obtain under the OSI-approved license is not that useful.
Yesterday on Twitter, I said “Open Core is annoying because the “open core” bit is pretty much useless. It doesn’t do exactly what it says on the tin.”
Recently, there has been debate in the press about "Open Core". I don't care to debate the minor points but make a simple declaration:
* "Open Core" has NOTHING to do with "Open Source". Nearly all proprietary software, at this point, has various degrees of open source-licensed source code in its core.
* "Open Core" has none of the advantages of open source to the user and is merely a proprietary software company.
* "Open Core" puts the software user at a disadvantage in the same way that all proprietary software puts the user at a disadvantage.
While their marketing guy may claim “that overall, Sugar 6 is an open source product from an open source company”, it’s hard to see how they are anything other than a proprietary software company who share some code with a related open source project. Claiming to be “an open source company” seems an unacceptable use of the open source brand to me.
Once more there is a lot of heated discussion about what constitutes a “real” open source business model – that is, one that remains true to the spirit of open source, and doesn't just use it as a trendy badge to attract customers. But such business models address only a tiny part of running a company – how it generates money. What about the many other aspects of a firm?
Imagine a world where code used by the biggest clouds is freely available to any developer, anywhere. A world where that code was a standard used to build private clouds as well as a variety of new service offers. In this world, workloads could be moved around these clouds easily – you could fire your cloud provider for bad service or lack of features, but not have to rewrite the software to do it. Imagine an open source cloud operating system that lifts IT to the next level of innovation, just as Linux drove the web to new heights.
Free whitepaper – 10 top tips for getting IT into your CMO’s good books
NASA is dropping Eucalyptus from its Nebula infrastructure cloud not only because its engineers believe the open source platform can't achieve the sort of scale they require, but also because it isn't entirely open source.
NASA chief technology officer Chris Kemp tells The Reg that as his engineers attempted to contribute additional Eucalyptus code to improve its ability to scale, they were unable to do so because some of the platform's code is open and some isn't. Their attempted contributions conflicted with code that was only available in a partially closed version of platform maintained by Eucalyptus Systems Inc., the commercial outfit run by the project's founders.
I was surprised to see that Larry Augustin had posted to his blog, since he does that pretty infrequently, so I assume all of the questioning about whether or not SugarCRM is open source is hitting close to home. Not as bad as a flawed cell phone antenna design, but I guess bad enough.
While his post is very heartfelt, it is full of misdirection about the meaning of the term “open source”. He refers to the word “open” a lot, but “open” and “open source” are two different things. Heck, one of the most popular network management product suites of all time was called OpenView, but the “open” in the name had nothing to do with open source software.
I’ve been staying out of the recent resurgence in the “open core” debate (check out the 451 Group for a summary). If these fauxpen source vendors would simply call their product “open core” versus “open source” there wouldn’t be anything to talk about, but they need to market themselves as “open source” as opposed to “just another commercial software company with a great API” to get any traction.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Proprietary Software is Bad for Your Health, Not Just Your Finances, Privacy and So On
- It would be interesting to see some charts, based on some long-term study, comparing the general health (blood pressure, BMI etc.) of people who use proprietary stuff and people who do not
- Microsoft Admits Business Perils as Windows Continues to Fall
- ‘Microsoft missed the biggest business model…’
- Technical Specifications at Times of Tyrannies
- Specifications (specs) must evolve with the times
- In Case Rust Censors It (Rust Has Long Been All About Censorship), Here's a Critical Look at Rust's Goals
- In the case of Rust, instead of "the liberation of the digital society" we have empowerment of Microsoft GitHub and of GAFAM in general. Guess who funds this...
- Gemini Links 23/02/2025: Respectful Platforms Manifesto and Internet Archive
- Links for the day
- The Significance of the Timing of the Ridiculous Letters From Brett Wilson LLP, Acting on Behalf of People From Microsoft
- A preliminary look at the timeline and what it tells us
- Politicians Ought to Invite Dr. Richard Stallman and Prof. Eben Moglen to Speak About Policies, Licensing, Digital Sovereignty
- Is there something in Europe other than RMS' talk this coming Monday (that we're not yet aware of)?
- The So-called 'IT' Industry Became Somewhat of a Fraud Where People Equate Usage and Power Wasted With "Value" or "Success"
- When did 'IT' become a weapon rather than technology/science?
-
- Links 24/02/2025: Compromised Laptops and EU Shift to the Right (Boosted by Social Control Media Interventions)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 24/02/2025: Politics, Monarchy, and AuraRepo Prism VCS Suppor
- Links for the day
- Links 24/02/2025: Germany Looks to Distance Itself From US, Environment at Risk, Mass Layoffs at Zendesk
- Links for the day
- [Meme] It's Over, Microsoft
- an obligatory meme
- Even Worse Than LLM Slop and Linkspam From UNIXMen
- UNIXMen is basically a defunct spamfarm at this point (the author is "sarwarSEO")
- Gemini Links 24/02/2025: Osiris 0.1.0 Release (File Sharing in Gemini Protocol), NetBSD 10.1 on the Pi
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 23, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, February 23, 2025
- Things to Like About London
- Many important or "powerful" people leave near there
- Links 23/02/2025: Democracy Backsliding and German Election
- Links for the day
- Joining APRIL(.org), AGM weekend, Paris, 15-16 March 2025
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 23/02/2025: Zuckerberg Despised, US Government Does Not Obey Judges, France Grapples With Terrorism
- Links for the day
- Links 23/02/2025: Apple Back Doors, Ukraine Updates, and Gemini Leftovers
- Links for the day
- Recent Improvements in Techrights
- minimalism works fine when the main goal is to relay information
- Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Brittany Day (linuxsecurity.com), and Microsoft Misinformation, False Marketing
- Serial Sloppers
- Censored: Debian Zizian transgender vigilante comparisons in open source Linux communities
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 22, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, February 22, 2025
- Links 22/02/2025: OpenAI Plans to Possibly Abandon Microsoft, Facebook Doubles Execs' Bonuses While Sacking Thousands
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 22/02/2025: Weekend Chill and Programming Thoughts
- Links for the day
- Good Explanation of Why IBM Has Chosen to Conceal Mass Layoffs (of 'Expensive' Staff) as "R.T.O." (Even For People Who Never Worked at the Office to Which They're Ordered to "Return")
- Many remaining IBM (or Red Hat) workers in Europe are in "cheaper" places such as Brno
- Microsoft's Serial Strangler and Matthew J. Garrett Join Forces in Trying to Gag Techrights (for Exposing Microsoft Corruption and Crimes Against Women)
- Whose terrible idea was it?
- Links 22/02/2025: Labour Department Investigates Microsoft Infosys Amid Mass Layoffs, Large Law Firms Caught Red Handed With LLM Slop (Defrauding Clients and Courts)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 22/02/2025: Analog Stuff, Sigil, and SSGs
- Links for the day
- Microsoft's Market Share in Cameroon Falls to New Lows
- This means a lot of Android users (iOS is about 4 times smaller), but Android does not mean freedom
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 21, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, February 21, 2025
- The Streisand Effect is Real
- So don't be evil. Also, don't strangle women.