Stirring the pot to see what ideas come out ;-)
On 5 Sep 2002, bill traynor wrote: > Read it here: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020905.html > > He does point out though that the Linux/OSS movement isn't really that > concerned with competing with Microsoft. The Linux/OSS movement is much larger than that, and different players have different relationships with other players. The incumbent-player "fence sitters" like IBM and Sun are not competition for Microsoft as they are in different markets. While they have added Open Source software services to their portfolios, they remain firmly in both the hardware and software manufacturing markets. The OSS "get the problem solved with the best tools" folks aren't competing as they are in different market (services vs products), and will often use the tools of Software Manufacturing if it fits the needs of a given problem. When it comes to the advocacy folks (IE: people like me), the situation is quite different. It isn't competing *products*, but competing *business models*. What I advocate is very much competition for Microsoft, and I do believe that for Open Source *business models* to succeed that "Software Manufacturing" needs to be relegated to an obscure business model for extreme niche markets. Just as candle-makers did not just "cease to exist" when the electric light-bulb came on the scene, Software Manufacturing (IE: proprietary distributed software) will always exist but should not dominate the software market. For us, Microsoft and other software manufacturing products are irrelevant, no matter how good or bad it is as a solution for a given problem. It is about the business model and business practices of an entire class of companies, not any individual product from any individual company. We are a small part of the Linux/Open Source movement, but we are a fairly vocal part ;-) > > [Open source is one aspect of a much larger revolution taking place in > > today's information communications environment. Open source combined with > > web services, peer to peer, grids, customer owned networks and the semantic > > web will fundamentally change the face of the Internet and software industry > > over the coming years. For more information please see CANARIE's Third Wave > > conference announcement - > > http://www.canarie.ca/conferences/advnet/index.html - BSA] > > Bill St. Arnaud > > Senior Director Network Projects > > CANARIE Inc > > www.canarie.ca/~bstarn BTW: Again from the advocacy and business models point of view, I will soon be writing an article partly because of some of what Bill promotes. I will call into question not only whether or not "Open Source" and "Web services" are the same thing (Something Bill has said), but whether or not from a business models point of view if they are even compatible. While Web services deals with the vendor lockout thought incompatible interfaces problem of Software Manufacturing, most of the other benefits of Open Source software as well as the benefits of traditional software manufacturing are lost. A critical issue of the creation of extreme forms of artificial vendor dependence with Web Services. Unlike when code is loaded onto ones own PC, and can't be arbitrarily unloaded by the vendor, Web Services changes all of this. At a technical level, Web services looks like a step forward in the same direction that Open Source can bring people. When factoring in past business practices of incumbent players, and the ability to create new dependencies and new forms of monopolies, the situation from a business models point of view can be quite different. --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions Submission to Innovation Strategy | No2Violence in Politics http://www.flora.ca/innovation-2002.shtml | http://www.no-dot.ca/
