[Penguin] Bahana Pengkomputeran Perisian Tertutup/ The risk of Closed Source Computing

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  The Risks of Closed Source Computing
  
   One large vendor likes to talk about the risks of Open Source
   software, but the strange thing is, the risk is actually in closed
   technologies. This article looks at the real risks in following a
   proprietary software path.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   In the commercial world it is important for companies to reduce risk.
   One traditional approach to this is to use commodity parts and to
   demand that vendors work to those standards. In a mature industry
   there are standards, standards bodies and interworking. If a company
   like Dell has problems with a hard disk supplier they shrug and use
   another one. They are protected from vendor lock-in and other related
   risks.
   
   Over the past twenty years the computer hardware industry grew up. It
   became a commodity business. The IBM PC and the clones wiped out the
   minicomputer industry with ease. To business the case was simple. If
   you buy a minicomputer then the vendor gets to screw you for as much
   as they think you can pay for any upgrades. If you buy a PC you get to
   dictate terms to your suppliers.
   
   The minicomputer vendors tried very hard to stop this commodity market
   from eating them alive. They called the PC a toy, they claimed it was
   only suited to low end tasks, that it would never be able to replace a
   real computer. They were wrong. They were stomped into oblivion by the
   power of competition, volume savings and commodity pricing. [1] You
   might of course recognise the rhetoric. They even published figures of
   dubious value showing that minicomputers were so much faster than a PC
   that the PC was dead.
   
   Why is this relevant to Open Source? Well it is the same situation. No
   company now would commit to a closed hardware strategy. It would cost
   them more than using commodity components. Just as importantly, it
   would commit them to a single source for support and parts. Why then
   do they commit to a single software supplier ?
   
   A closed source strategy exposes the company to serious business risk.
   As many telephony companies have discovered, your OS supplier might
   suddenely decide to be your competitor. It would be naive to think
   they pay the same price internally within the OS supplier that they
   levy for licensing in a competitors telephony products. No company can
   survive with a critical component totally controlled by a competitor.
   They will be systematically bled of money, and them stomped.
   
   There is also no comeback in a closed source environment. Big name
   software vendors fill their licenses with clauses that both deny
   anyone else the right to deal with their software bugs, and deny the
   right of the purchaser to expect problems to be fixed. Absolute power
   is exercised over bug fixing. Are you now a competitor, did your CEO
   say something critical about the vendor ? Maybe that is why you can't
   get a show stopper bug fixed.
   
   You may think this is a scare story but unfortunately it is not. Ask
   the companies who committed to Windows NT on the Alpha how they are
   feeling right now. Look at your own Y2K spending and see how much was
   caused by upgrading forced on you because you did not have the rights
   to fix just the Y2K bugs: a cost that would have been happily shared
   across thousands of companies, all of whom could have avoiding
   upgrading to bleeding edge products that demanded much more powerful
   hardware.
   
   In an Open Source environment the software comes with rights to
   modify. The source code is not actually the important bit. It is a
   tangible artifact of the openness. The really important rights are the
   rights to modify and to see the workings of the system. If your vendor
   doesn't support you, then the rules of traditional business apply. You
   go to their competitors. If the software doesn't interwork with
   another package then all the information to resolve it is available.
   You are not locked in by a single supplier who refuses to tell you how
   to interface to a competitors product.
   
   In a serious production environment every component is dual-sourced.
   Nobody running a production line can afford to risk their only
   supplier phoning up one afternoon and saying "Hi, we've doubled the
   price", or worse yet "XYZ bought us out, so we won't be supplying you
   in future". They have several suppliers or potential suppliers. If one
   demands too much money, they change. It may appear possible to have a
   single supplier and a tightly worded contract. Companies go bankrupt
   however. If a contract argument goes to court you may well be out of
   business before you supply of parts is resumed.
   
   Similarly, in a production environment, downtime is unacceptable.
   Companies need guaranteed, strong, support. But they need something
   else: they need multiple sources of support. If the vendors recommend
   a maintenance engineer who is incompetent you have to be able to go
   elsewhere. If you buy a car and the local garage is useless, you take
   it elsewhere for repairs.
   
   In many ways the motor car is a very good example of the fact that the
   open source model is not something revolutionary, as Bob Young is so
   keen to point out - it is the model we use in almost all serious grown
   up industry.
   
   You can buy a car from several vendors. They are all basically
   similar. You get particular features from some vendors, and these
   vendors use perceived quality to persuade you to buy their car over
   another. In other words they have brand names and they have to offer
   something.
   
   You can drive any vendor's car on any road. You can switch to another
   vendor's car without much relearning, as you can with a change of
   Linux vendor. There are no huge artificial and intentional barriers.
   
   You can also fix your own car. As an individual you may want to do
   this and find it cheaper. You might also fix your own car and tinker
   with it because it is fun to do so. In a company environment you use
   words like "total cost of ownership" and you pay people to fix your
   cars. You can however choose just who you have fixing your car; or to
   buy a different sort of car in future without problems. If you have
   problems you move on to another supplier of the service - just like
   Open Source.
   
   Another interesting parallel is that of accreditation. Most people do
   not know a good car mechanic from a bad one. Most non-computing people
   don't know a good software engineer from a bad one. Car manufacturers
   accredit companies and individuals they feel offer a high enough
   standard. They put their own name on the line to guarantee the quality
   of those they certify. If an official Ford dealer lets you down, you
   blame Ford, not just the dealer. In the Linux world you have things
   like the Red Hat Certified Engineer and you have approved support
   partners.
   
   If you happen to know a good cheap mechanic then you can use them.
   People who find a good local car repair will often remain very loyal
   to it. If you happen to know a good local Linux support company and
   you prefer the local touch and being able to talk face to face with
   someone who actually remembers your case history you may well prefer
   that option. In an open source world they can do far more than just
   talk - they have the same access to source code and rights to fix it
   as the large vendors.
   
   Many people talk about the Open Source advantages of price and of
   reliability. They actually miss the biggest advantage of all by doing
   so. Open Source is about commodity product in a grown up market. It is
   about competition, choice and putting power in the hands of the
   consumer.
   
   In an Open Source world nobody gets to hold you, the customer, to
   ransom.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   [1] As an aside to the main discussion, one reason that the Beowulf
   clusters have been so dramatically successful is that it is a set of
   open source software that allows the replacement of proprietary closed
   mainframe hardware with standard PC components. The Beowulf thus
   delivers a double blow against proprietary competitors. It breaks the
   existing mainframe lock-in and it breaks software lock-ins.
   
  Credits
  
   Much of this article arises from thoughts after listening to Bob
   Young's views on commoditization of software and discussions with
   Jamal Hadi Salim on the risks to large corporations of committing to a
   single source software product from a potential competitor.
   
   Both Richard Stallman (who I hope will forgive me for using the words
   `open source') and Eric Raymond have put forward aspects of these
   ideas. Eric tends to focus on the risk aspect and puts forward a model
   where open source is a matter of mutual self-interest. Richard puts
   forward a model where the focus is much more about co-operation. Which
   of the two is right (and indeed whether they are the same thing) is an
   interesting question, but not one relevant to this article.




writer/penulis = Alan Cox

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