A case for Commercial Software:
As I was reading the latest buzz in my class groug-emails about the 'hottest' browser of our times 'Firefox' and i can't stop myself from expressing what i think about this. Remember what i am expressing here are my own questions. Questions which trouble me because i don't know thier answers and also because the answer fundamentally affects many of us. Please don't think that i am posting this article because i am the last standing knight of my company Microsoft. I am not here to protect the commercial interests of anyone. I am here to clarify my own mindspace. And i want to tap the Internet for this cause.
Before anyone thinks he is an open-source advocate, please read this article http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_3/raymond/ which talks eloquently about how the open-source 'bazaar' model is better than the closed 'Cathedral' model. This article talks about how the bazaar model is procedurally better than the closed on. At every point the claim is substantiated by the experience of the Author's pet project and all of them are technical in nature. What concerns me is that not a single word was written about the commercial viablity of the open-source source model.
I recall one of my friend telling everyone in the group that he was so amazed by the quality of the browser that he is contemplating on helping the foundation by buying a T-Shirt. Well, I am not blaming his gratitude but what disturbs me is that software is being left to the mercy of the gratitude of its users. Right now, a revolution is happening right before our eyes. Thorughout the history of mankind, every activity was driven by simple economics. Every activity was driven by simply money. If there is one thing humans have discovered unconsciously over ages, it is the simple harmony of trade. The undeniable fact is that Trade works. Because of this every human activity is irrevocably linked with money. Then there is Software. Now Software is given away free. Not only is the product given away free so is the code. This is akin to spending hours and dollars into a research project and throwing the results in the air. The irony is that I don't know whether this is good, bad or simply inevitable. When you strip a commodity of its commercial value, the people associated with that trade will become redundant. Or better put, these people will be put to the mercy of the gratitude of the users. I don't know of any industry which has put itself to this and I don't know whether Software industry is to take honor or blame. Right now, it is the browser, the operating system, editors etc. These are the generic products which are used alike by everyone. Some people say that this grade of software which adds no value to a particular user specfically cannot honorably make a claim to trade. According to these people, the fact that these are one-product-designed-to-fit-all makes them unmarketable. I beg to differ. I think in a very absolute sense of the word utility. I believe that the reason why a product deserves money is simply because of the value it adds to its users.
My whole point is that if open-source software is so good, then what about the open-source programmers. I cannot but agree with the claim that technically speaking, the open-source development process is hard to beat. Bugs are discovered and are removed soon. There is quality because there is constant scrutiny. But it is missing one necessary condition that is required by every self-sustaining process. What about money, dude? My two-cents. Any ideas?
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
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3 comments:
Prasanna's reply:
Hi Anto,
To be frank, I was jumping in the air on reading your blog....
because it was great reading it , and, perhaps primarily, beacause
I have answers to all the questions that you had sought answers for!!
As I understand it, Most part of the blog was written under the
assumption that the value of open-source software comes from the fact
that it is 'free-of-cost''. It would perhaps be too offensive to call
this flawed, especially in light of the fact that this is what most
people assume, and that is how I had initially thought of it. In
reality the value of open source software stems from the fact that it
is OPEN source.
Any Market has a maturity period. Crudely, a market is mature if
price is the most telling factor that determines the demand of the
product, I mean the part played by tech-diffs, marketing strategies
etc will be virtually nil , as against its price. By law of economics,
Any market WILL mature! In most cases it will be atleast characterized
by, if not due to,a large number of players openly competing. But in
the case of properietory software products It looked like the markets
would never mature and these markets were a new phenomenon to
economics. It was as if the momentum and the velocity that these
market, largely monopolies( I couldn't resist using this term, sorry
if it has become too commonplace these days :-) ), initially gained
was more than the escape velocity required and people thought there
was no way of bringing them back down to earth ! The innate stupidity
of some IP laws almost destroyed any last hopes.
Open source was the answer that my dear friend,'Laws of economics',
came up with!
With open source, the source is open and the standards are open,
therefore the 'support' market for the software is as easy to be
commoditized as easy it is to use WINDOWS(just to add a populist tint
:-) ! The relation this business model bears to the properietary
software model resembles the relation that the post-paid mobiles bear
to their pre-paid peers. In properietory software, like windows,
software is sold and support ( for a period of time) given out for
free. In OSS, like linux, the software is given out for free and the
support sold.
I think that the 'sell-support' model will win because, 1. prices
will ultimately come down due to open-competion( right now I am told
that theres nothing to choose between TCOs of windows & linux), 2.
customers don't need to be locked in a single vendor/supplier, and 3.
the world is sane enough to make all this happen!
I think that the last two paragraphs will answer those people ( read
as SVK ) who say that there is no 'accountability' in OSS, in fact the
whole business is around accountabilty.
Also Anto, did I make it clear that there is no need to fear that
software is free of cost and as an implication , software people are
being devalued by open-source. In fact open-source worships its
development community as its almighty!
I intentionally didn't use the term commercial software for prop.
software because, all software is commercial !!U can't have free lunch
anywhere, not even in heaven.
I do have other interesting perceptions/observations about
open-software and in case u are interested, do contact me in person.
Thanx,
Baghu.
P.S :1. the support market is not the only business model that
open-source can take, but it still is the most popular and successful
one, thanx to Linux.
2. There is only one eternal monopoly and it is the set of laws
of economics.
Hi Prasanna,
Thanks for your comments. Let me clarify some of my
assumptions. I am NOT assuming that the USP of
open-source software is its cost. Everybody knows the
quality of open-source products. I used Mozilla for a
lot of time and frankly it is too good.
My reply to your argument is that: Yes, there is a
market for support business. But in doing so, (giving
the product and source free and charging only for the
service), we are commodizing the cool features in the
software. And that's risky for the industry. It is
more than obvious to people that the only safe thing
to be commoditized is service and not the core
features. We are seeing the reverse in open-source.
This esentially means that when a programmer thinks of
a briliant new feature and adds it to an existing
open-source product, he gets little financial reward.
This is because everybody will do it and the service
companies will benfit organically. The result of this
is that the initiative to innovate in the industry
will reduce. And when that happens the industry will
become a level-playing ground for everybody and hence
be stable. And as I have told Arvind Sharma, Stablity
is a euphemism for stagnation. This is where IP laws
come to picture. I accept that there are some IP laws
which are plain bad, but in a market economy, it is
very neccesary.
Any comments,
Thanks,
A.J.Anto
Prasanna, you mentioned WINDOWS in all-caps, but even the first letter in 'linux' is not in caps. ;-)
Hi Anto,
OSS devs code (add features, fix bugs) only for mere fun. If it comes to money, they already have their own job (which is mostly proprietory). :-)
hey, btw we have a blogroll for DCSE (former SCSE) - http://srid.bsdnerds.org/ceg/
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