Faster Innovation: OSS vs. Proprietary Software
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| Author | Content |
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| jwbr Dec 19, 2005 11:49 AM EDT |
The following statement by Karl Freund, an IBM vice president, indirectly cited in this report regarding advances in software, is simply not correct according to my experience: "IBM isn't following the lead of Sun Microsystems Inc. and making AIX open-source, as Sun did earlier this year with its Solaris operating system. Freund ruled out open-source as an option and said he thinks open-source products tend to mimic advances made in proprietary ones." On the contrary, Open Source allows innovation in software to thrive like nothing else does! In the relatively short time I have been following OSS, I am continually amazed at the leaps and bounds by which innovation finds it's way into OSS software ranging from operating systems to desktop environments to user applications. With so many individuals with so many different backgrounds and experience doing whatever they want in an environment with a high level of interaction and communication, idea leads to idea, each of which leads to new ideas. It only grows from there. In a closed-source software company, burdened by marketing plans, budgets, and intracorporate political agendas, true innovation occurs at a snails pace in comparison. Some people may come up with a good idea and that is the only idea. The company then needs to get as much return as possible on their investment, and so they will stifle innovation for a bit to devote energy to something else deemed to bring value add. One may argue that OSS evolves too fast, but then again, who needs to make use of every innovation? That is what choice is all about. |
| cabaniss Dec 19, 2005 1:29 PM EDT |
Perhaps the real dichotomy is not open source versus proprietary, but small scale (even individual programmers) versus corporate programming. Many of the best innovations in proprietary software (some later incorporated in open source) began with individual programmers and small companies- I am sure you can think of your own examples. Of course, we cannot expect IBM to downplay the contributions of corporations, and large enterprises (corporate or not) have other off-setting advantages. It is the genius of the international FOSS movement that it seeks to combine individual initiative with some of those advantages- the army of testers, the ability to solve large problems via delegation, rapid communication and distribution, etc. |
| number6x Dec 20, 2005 9:28 AM EDT |
Small or large scale, Open source seems to be the best bet. The pure 64-bit Linux version for the IA-64 "Itanium" chip was released before Intel even produced a chip. The Linux coders usedthe emulator that Intel and HP released, along with the specs Intel released. The Linux community had the Linux kernel ported to the IA-64 architectecture before the first Itanium chip even came off the assembly line. Did the IA-64 port of Windows even reach alpha before it was dumped for the 32/64-bit hybrid that runs on amd64's? Microsoft is one of the largest software producers in the world. Microsoft has billions of dollars in cash reserves. Microsoft recruits some of the best and the brightest in the computer industry. Microsoft could not do what a bunch of Linux hackers could, in a timely and efficient fashion. The tinfoil hat crowd believes that Microsoft intentionally delayed the IA-64 version of Windows in order to cripple HP, sgi, and Intel keeping them "in their place". HP, sgi, and Intel were the major financial backers of IA-64. They all invested heavily on its success. Microsoft promissed to have a version of Windows ready for the release of the chips. The demand for a more powerfull version of Windows would have resulted in larger sales for the Itanium, leading to lower production costs, and lower Itanium prices. Given Microsoft's recent string of complete and utter technical failures, I don't agree with the tinfoil hat crowd. I think Microsoft has lost its way. The company is too top heavy and can no longer compete on technical merits. A bunch of Linux hackers did, in less than a year, what MS could not do. There are plenty of failed OSS projects. Just search SourceForge for text editors. Of course there are already plenty of text editors out there. The big projects like operating systems, DNS, web servers OSS dominates. |
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