COMMENTARY--My recent commentary on the limitations of open source spurred hundreds of responses from open source fans in ZDNN's TalkBack forum, the O'Reilly Network and Slashdot. One of the O'Reilly Network's rebuttals, from Linux consultant Derek Vadala, opposed the notion that open source programmers aren't compensated
for their efforts, and thus rejected my premise that
proprietary software provides the financial
compensation that attracts new developers into the
market.
As Vadala noted, IBM maintains a team dedicated to assisting the Apache project. I have worked with Apache's SOAP server for Java, a product originally written by IBM and donated to Apache.
I question, however, whether IBM views investment in open source projects as a profit center. Think about the types of open source products IBM spends its money on: Apache's Web server, the Java SOAP server, and for a time, the Mozilla browser project. I would categorize these as software "plumbing," like TCP/IP stacks are to Web applications. It is base level infrastructure whose importance is derived from the kinds of software you build on top of it. Some companies make money from software "plumbing," but most don't (including Microsoft) simply because there is so much of it already in existence that hoping to sell it would be an exercise in futility.
Many of the most popular open source products fall into the plumbing category, and most of the companies hiring developers to work on it never had plans to make any money from the application domain covered by the open source product. Rather, they derive revenue from their proprietary offerings, using the open source products as lead-ins to sales of these offerings. Think about the amount of money IBM spends on Lotus Notes or DB2 versus the peanuts spent on development of open source infrastructure. These open source products are like marketing expenses, and the investment is recouped through sale of proprietary software offerings (or in IBM's case, hardware).
In other words, proprietary software revenue wags the open source tail, not the other way around. The fact that IBM hires people to work full time on open source is less of an indication of open source's inherent profitability than a demonstration of the freedom available to companies with business models based on the revenue generating power of proprietary software.
Vadala mentioned that IBM hired Steve Best as a way to boost their credibility as a provider of open source consultants. I'm sure Steve Best is paid well, but then again, the rock stars are always paid well. Most people aren't rock stars, and I wouldn't base the claim that open source programmers can make money from open source projects by pointing to Steve Best. People like Anders Hejlsberg (inventor of Borland's Delphi language and Microsoft's C#) and James Gosling (of Java fame) make a whole lot more money than most proprietary programmers. I'm not going to point to them, however, to guide expectations of financial compensation among proprietary programmers.
Vadala repeated the claim made by many open source advocates that consulting and support services will make up for revenues lost from software sales. That argument has been deflated somewhat be recent events in the industry. Support is the essence of RedHat's value proposition, and they are still not profitable. Larry Augustin of VA Linux fame (the company that started the whole Linux IPO craze) is taking his company down the proprietary software route.
IBM certainly has talked the open source talk more than most, and actively encourages open source product competency among its consultants. However, don't ascribe too much credit for IBM's recent success to open source. IBM still makes its money from proprietary hardware and software. Providing a team of consultants that help customers to install open source products is like sending out contract farmers to till the field in preparation for the sale of seed, tractors and harvesting combines. IBM views open source as a low cost means to lead companies into its revenue-generating (and proprietary) stable of hardware and software products, all of which are compatible with the open source products that they emphasize in their projects.
Lastly, given the track record of pure open source plays, I wouldn't consider Marty Roesch's successful hunt for venture funding as evidence of a trend. The venture capital industry is understandably shy about investing heavily in companies that see a pot of gold at the end of the open source rainbow. For every Marty Roesch I can name a thousand wannabe Larry Ellisons whose business model is predicated on keeping the source code private.
In closing, a lot of people came away with the impression that I dislike open source. That couldn't be further from the truth. As I noted in the original article, open source products have advantages simply not present in closed source alternatives. However, that doesn't means that I must accept that open source products are of necessity better than closed source ones, nor that business models based purely on open source are as viable as proprietary ones.
If Hegel were a programmer, he might say that the ideal lies in a synthesis of the "thesis" underlying proprietary development with its "antithesis" in open source software. Such a hybrid model harnesses the productive potential of two different segments of the developer marketplace, those who produce code for no direct compensation, and those that do.
Use the open source development model for what it does well, which is create flexible, widely used software whose popularity is driven by its low cost and transparency. Use closed source software for its consumer orientation, its speed of development, and to generate revenue. That revenue is indispensable if one hopes to attract the developers and entrepreneurs who wouldn't enter the market if "fun" were their only return.
John Carroll is a software engineer who lives in Switzerland. He specializes in the design and development of distributed systems using Java and .Net.
