When Convincing Management to Open the Software? 8
Andrew writes "I work for a medium to large sized software company. I am working on a project to put one of our best products in the Open Source market. (It is a product that many people would love to see open sourced) I need help. I have to give a presentation to the Board to convince them that Open Source is the only way to suceed. Keep in mind that this is an established company that has been around for a long time. It will take a convincing, fact-filled argument to convince them. I am a believer that Open Source is the answer, but I am having a hard time finding concrete proof of this belief. I cannot convince them on theory alone."
What you should do.... (Score:1)
Is stand well back so the semtex charges you put in the box earlier don't get you as well.
Some ideas... (Score:1)
What about additional tools/utilities/functions that could be added to the open source product? Could a "Professional" version be an upgrade? Or could this product be open-sourced as a means of advertisement for other products?
Another success story (Score:2)
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#include (Score:2)
Good question (Score:2)
1. Bugs can be found and fixed by a large base of people, however, the company does need to make a serious effort to find the bugs first.
This will result in a large number of knowledgable people that will be referring your product to others as something good/safe to use. You should still be able to sell plenty of product, if you want to, because most folks that a re "just users" prefer a package and some sort of company backing, as well as easier install, etc.
2. Gratuituotous (hell, I can't spell stuff like that) reason: Open Source is a hot buzzword now, but show them that even if the source is open, joe-schmoe user is not interested in compiling for his own machine, so that takes you back to #1 above, you will still sell plenty of product even if it is OS.
Conclusion should be something to the effect of getting lots of community support and assistance that you would not normally have, as well as being able to sell plenty of product.
Give examples of hardware/software that is commercially packaged even though it is available free: Cobolt machines, Linud distros, *BSD, etc.
Sorry if it was not more in depth, I recently picked up a similar dilemma at work and this is all I have come up with sofar.
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Some case studies. (Score:3)
Two main case studies spring to mind of people Freeing up previously comercial products.
Netscape Navigator
But the future looks promising. It will probably become the standard browser every where but Windows & MacOS, and may well make inroads there. And in this I am including a big embedded (eg WebTV) market. Once There is an actual code base out there, and people are using the software, people are more likely to contribute.
But As Sun accept Gnome as the next window manager for Solaris, any help for Gnome Office is support for Sun workstations. UNIX, not just Linux, will probably end up with a strong office suite out of this, and that helps Sun make money out of hardware.
I'm sure that Sun would like to make money out of support, but like I say, they really make their money elsewhere.
G
The problems. (Score:5)
This will be easier if:
If the product isn't pulling in much revenue, open sourcing it won't drop revenue by *that* much, and you may have a revitalized market for related products if the open sourced version of the product takes off.
If support is where most of the money is made from the product, then open sourcing the product means more demand for support and more revenue.
If hardware is where most of the money is made from the product, then open sourcing the software will encourage more software to be produced for the platform, driving up demand for the hardware and revenue.
You have a hopeless task if:
Under these conditions, there is no benefit at all financially to making the product open source, as a very substantial revenue stream will vanish in a puff of smoke.
Any benefit provided by open sourcing has to outweigh the following automatic drawbacks:
You may be able to sell CDs, you may not, but whatever you do, you won't be able to charge hundreds or thousands of dollars per software license any more. Direct revenue drops like a stone.
Software does not exist in a vacuum. While your competitors could reverse-engineer how all of your features work by disassembly or by keen observation, it will be much easier if you hand out sample code for them. Your company will have to work a lot harder to maintain a technical advantage over its competition, and any such advantages will be short-lived. This worsens your product's position with respect to your competition and thus lowers your sales.
Also, in case you were planning to tout the benefits of opening up the Linux market, bear in mind that that market is still very small compared to the Windows market. Ditto BSD and MacOS X (though the MacOS X market isn't *that* small).
Both open source and free software are wonderful ideas, useful for a great many things - but they are not a magic wand that benefits everything. Your company might be substantially _harmed_ by switching over. Make sure of the benefits of your proposal before pitching.
What you should do... (Score:5)
Talk about geeks, and passions, and free speech in the post columbine era. Carry on like open source is the only way to go. And compare the company to microsoft; making references that they would be evil for not releasing the software as open source.
Above all, ramble on forever and confuse them. Do not be afraid to contradict yourself.
Now go get 'em!!