Does Open Source Separate Business From Technology? 109
hornerj asks: "I've noticed quite a few pundits commenting on how the Open Source movement goes against the standard business model. I've come to believe that it not only goes against it, it rewrites it. Could it be possible that, with the shift from marketing software to marketing services, the business suits are being forced out of the technology pipeline? If IT businesses shift to providing services, will the suits, which historically make software releases buggy, bloated, and premature, be taken out of the decision process? Without a suit forcing an unready software release, it only makes sense that software will get better and better."
Re:Open Source (Score:1)
Take for example (possibly a poor example, but nonetheless...) the RHCE
Either way, demands for technology are increasing. Technology generally seems to respond to demands with increased complexity.
This cycle has been occuring for 20 years now...I mean. For example, it was only about 1994 when it was perfectly normal to have a flat HTML web page, but look at it all now
- server & client side scripting/dynamic content
- server side (and with XML
The bottom line is
0. Technology responds to demand with complexity
1. Someone has to learn how to operate areas of this monsterously complex world we geeks created
2. People are assured by the officiality of some form of qualification
3. Money can be made on
a) training that person to give a service and
b) giving that service
Andrew Halliday andrew_halliday@iname.com
Science had it long ago (Score:2)
In the Middle Ages in societies with limited literacy, high cost of information distribution and overwhelming politically-backed power of religion science was in the situation, similar to what commercial software is now -- consisted of "secrets" (like modern secret algorithms), obscure terminology (like modern secret data formats) pieces of religious texts and ancient books, quoted everywhere, distorted and taken out of context (like modern botched and mutilated standards and marketing buzzwords), religious "laws" severely restricted what can be done (like modern patent and copyright laws), and were vague enough to support arbitrary witch hunts against anyone (like modern frivolous lawsuits). This allowed "scientists" to produce huge amount of "work" that has little or no relation to reality, and people who practiced activities that required scientific knowledge either did their job poorly because of lack of one (engineering, like modern AI), used huge amount of resources for nothing (architecture, like modern bloatware) or turned their work into complete quackery (medicine, like most of areas of software design now).
Improvements in the information dissemination technology and weakening of the grip of religion over society caused science to become more open, and openness with wide peer review allowed scientific methods (that were known long ago yet were ignored in the absence of openness -- this is why it was called "renaissance" and was percieved by people as return to earlier, better ways of science, engineering and art) to weed out the bullshit and keep the true achievements, hidden under piles and piles of "mental masturbation". The use of this open science in various kinds of trades/businesses improved, so the job of scientist switched from "secret lab" of what amounted of skilled craftsman or "library" of religious philosopher to education institutions (that also sponsored research and books publishing) and "service" work for large engineering projects. Secrecy remained only in military-related projects, and those never amounted to much before being opened or reproduced.
As the result the progress in science went on with reasonable pace, results became openly accessible and reliable (as scientists had to make them possible to reproduce), quackery was reduced to fringes of society (some modern societies have large fringes, however this is a different problem).
When software design, the area that has properties of both theoretical science (practiced by scientists) and engineering (handled mostly by businesses) appeared, more appropriate science-like model of development was very soon replaced by business-driven model of secrets, commonly used for engineering, and it ended up at the same place where science was many centuries ago. And the same processes that opened science will open the software design/development -- the key ingredients such as widely accessible education in the area, means of dissemination of information and large amount of freely-distributed information are there.
Nope (Score:2)
While I work in a closed source shop, we are service based. We may sell our products for millions of dollars, but the real money is in the services.
Our customers have to work 24x7. They are not really satisfied with 99.99% reliability (You can figgure it out for yourself, but that only allows about 2 minutes of downtime in a year - way to much) Management has learned that with these customers you demand 100% relability. We have suits. They only stop harping on relability after several rounds of testing, and then only if all known problems are just minor. That is they know the process of fixing bugs often introduces new ones, which could be worse then the old one.
Suits will have to change as they realise that servies makes the most money when the department is filled with only bill collectors, and the least when the department is flying from customer to customer on technical problems. So by expending more effort upfront they save money in the long run.
Re:Don't be so sure... (Score:1)
Personally, I don't think what's being shown is a fundamental weakness of capitalism so much as a fundamental weakness of western business training.
Business training is important, but a lot of programmers don't get it at all, and the management models the "business majors" get in college aren't helpful in the modern age.
Why are two of the more successful computer companies (M$ and Apple) being run by people without business degrees (Gates and Jobs)? Could it be that what they teach in business school is as much a liability as an asset?
What does that mean? (Score:1)
Look at RedHat (Score:1)
While I could go out and find all the versions of all the software I need as tarballs or whatever, download them one at a time and resolve all the compatibility issues between them, I haven't the time. On the other hand, this activity has massive economies of scale. RedHat can do this task for me, assemble the results on a CD and sell millions of copies.
However, this brings the suits back into the loop. Sure the developers of package X have nothing except artistic pleasure and a desire for kudos to consider when deciding what features to add to version n+1 of their program, or when to release it, but RedHat suits will decide whether to put version n, or version n+1 or version n+1 pre 17 with a few of RHs own patches onto the CD, and they have marketing considerations in mind.
On the other hand, it's a BETTER market. There is less lockin, because all Linux distros are drawing on the same body of programs; the programs are ultimately better because people are working on them for love; and there is more information around to assess the suits' decisions against.
Re:You will never get rid of suits (Score:1)
Like a wolf chewing it's leg off to get out of a trap, most techies will grudgingly dress up a bit to afford more Mt Dew and name-brand Mac and Cheese (yuck store brands).
Open Source model against the convention? (Score:1)
Most suits are driven to make money on about nearly anything. And anything that threatens that model is "BAD". Basically 'cause I tend to use Open Source software rather than paying huge amounts of money for a close source alternative I got ripped on my performance review. I guess because I used BigBrother to monitor my network rather than HP's OpenView. But honestly we don't need the power or complexity of OpenView...we just simply need to know whether a server is up or down, and if down, page the admin. I also know that BigBrother doesn't meet the DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines), but it's more a of a non-free package anyway.
Most managers want to have someone to blame when there is a problem. I guess the best demonstration is when I had a hardware failure with my workstation...I put it together, troubleshot it, and found the faulty part, asked for a replacement, and volia fixed. My laptop on the other hand came from Dell, and I wasted about a week of time with their tech support people (on speakerphone so others could hear the idiocy), and of course my laptop was out of service for over a month being shipped back and forth between work and Dell. Granted I call Sun or HP and they'll show up according to their contract and replace the faulty part. *sigh*
If the suits would leave the techies alone, things would just work, and we wouldn't be forced to use some software package from a commerical vendor that doesn't meet all of the users needs, and costs soo much that the suits tell you to make it work. I'm not saying all commerical software is bad, but there is a lot that leaves much to be desired. I like safeword for example, it's a commerical product, but for unix they also give you the source code (under NDA of course), so if there is a problem with it you can dig in and fix things.
Smart suits (those with a full house) (Score:1)
One said, If IT businesses shift to making money by being seen as the most effective service channel, they then have a vested interest in having service people who understand the code, the problems and the people.
One said, Unlike the current situation, where you're either a monopoly or can blame your failure on one.
One said, And it will dawn on one or another bright cookie that having support people contribute changes on the spot, and idle people working to make the supported code better as a kind of pre-emptive support, makes good press.
One said, Unlike now, where the same bug might be reported a thousand times before it graduates to the top of the list.
One said, And starting new and innovative projects would provide more support fodder.
One said, If I were a suit, and lazy or efficient, I would just let my people run riot. It's almost too obvious as a solution!
One said, You spoke in the first person.
One said, Damn, and vanished in a puff of smoke. Octarine sparks coalesced into another One.
East of Eden (Score:1)
System, do you think this would work well in the bazzare enviroment?
That's "bizarre" environment, as in "the catheter and the bizarre behaviour". (-:
Well, it seems to work fine for simulators [sourceforge.net], so stand aside and let's have a go at the real thing!
Works fine for me, Coward (Score:1)
My Sony DSC-F505 whizz-bang USB digital camera works just fine under 2.3.99pre6, thank you.
localised Linux-distributions
And which rock are you hiding under? You have choices of Chinese, Korean, Russian etc-ad-nauseum localised distributions, and all of the majors (Mandrake, Debian, e-a-n) speak more languages than you've got extremities to count them on.
I must admit that RedHat has deleted the RedNeck installer option (I want that back, along with jive, cow and a few others).
Re:Open Source (Score:2)
Not completely (Score:1)
Besides is it more likely marketing that trys to push for certain release dates, Xmas, etc., and those guys promote the business, so that it makes money and you get paid. If anything there will be a push for a more technically inclined manager who can understand OSS software and the problems and delays and be able to talk to upper management in a clear semi-technical way to make them aware of realistic deadlines and release dates.
Re:you can bet your ass then do!!! (Score:1)
Oh yeah. I was wandering around Xerox Parc's website, and found something which illustrates this beautifully: http://www.parc.xerox.com/i stl/groups/nltt/default.html [xerox.com]
Notice who's at the top of the hierarchy? The administrator and manager sit above the researchers, in a research center!
Re:Open Source (Score:1)
It ain't the marketing suits that are the problem (Score:1)
So the suits are becoming analysts who are expected to be progressively more involved in charting the technological direction of a company or department within a company. Certainly, this tilts the business model away from "what can I sell?" to "how do I most profitably serve my important customers?".
As other posters have noted, the idea that "the Suits" are the cause of all software/IT problems isn't accurate. Poor project definition, scope, and follow through testing are what causes buggy, bloated software, and those are the responsibility of the tech leads and IT managers.
If a tech lead assigns an underskilled coder, allows code to get through into a release without thorough design and testing, allows milestones to be missed, etc., or if an IT manager agrees to a feature which can't be produced with any kind of quality in a timely manner, the "suits" won't know it until it is too late, so it's kind of hard to lay the blame anywhere but on ourselves when it happens.
Where Open Source changes the model is that with a "release early, release often, open up the development process to early review" type of mentality, better decisions can be made up front -- resulting in less bugs, less boat, and there's no such thing as a premature release. Witness Mozilla, for example. Anything before Mozilla declares itself as a "gold version" is premature in some ways, but I've been using the browser component to do some of my work for a couple of months now. But the "suits" in charge had to change how they thought of things in order to let Mozilla happen.
One poster noted that "As a programmer, my natural inclination is to reject management forces. But I have come to the inescapable conclusion that software development is a process that must be managed, on some level, as an organized task." Exactly true.
But the result of the OSS mentality has another more profound and valuable side effect: once management has a good experience with "release early release often, review early," they start looking at their own business processes -- and when the mentality really takes hold, all company processes become open to peer review and the cruftiness in the company structures and business models get exposed and eliminated. Result: a quicker moving, effective, and efficient business unit which is ready to respond proactively to emerging market forces instead of just trying to react to them while under fire from better equipped competition.
I stand corrected (Score:1)
Re:Don't be so sure... (Score:1)
One thing I told my co-workers is that everyone who has a job has to be a businessperson. I think that holds especially in programming.
Re:Don't be so sure... (Score:2)
If there are two things needed it is:
1) That business and coding respect each others spheres of knowledge and decisions.
2) Suits learn more about programmer and programmers learn more about business.
The Suits are not the entire problem. (Score:3)
But as a programmer I've also seen coders and developers screw up projects as well. I've seen people assign underskilled programmers to vital projects so they can do "fun" things. I've worked with coders who have no sense of design or deadline or responsibility shaft customers and employers.
Open Source is definitely going to require a rethinking and rearrangement of current business structures, and I think it will be for the better. A service (ie results) approach is definitely needed in IT. Just don't expect an overnight cure, though it's my hope that the service approach will work its way to all levels of IT.
Fool's Gold (Score:2)
To hornerj:
Just because OSS moves into the enterprises doesnt mean business people are replaced. Contrary to popular opinion, other people with different skills must be used inside the business to make it work. When is the last time someone audited the books for their company and it wasn't their job or they owned the company. *Wind blows, tumbleweed blows by*
To all:
I have seen this argument about OSS converting companies into service-driven enterprises and getting rid of software products all together. I think this is a fruitless cause. Yes, some organizations may make it by selling support and services, but most will not. Here is why:
First and most important, good people are tough to find and even more expensive to hire and retain. If your trying to hire both support/consulting personnel and programmers, your doubling your workforce when only half of your workforce, the support/consulting personnel, is contributing to your bottom line.
I will concede this feature at the enterprise-level has been one that's paid for, but I will address that in a minute. Support/consulting for general consumer applications will never be a large money-maker and the product must be sold. Their is simply no way a company will keep itself in the black selling support for an email application.
Ahhh, the channel. It was your friend for a number of years picking up where you left off by integrating applications and providing support, while getting closer to your customers. Now you won't to horn on there turf? Even if the company and application are new, the channel will go after it. Why? Because their is money to be made there. Your moving into territory where you have few friends and three strikes against you, no customers, a stronger competitor, and its not your core business.
Kinda same with the channel. If your building applications, your core business is not service-based. Trying to run outside of your core-business is not impossible (look at IBM Global Services), but its much more difficult.
Will the OSS and service-based business model work. Well it hasn't yet but that doesn't mean it won't though. Support/consulting has been a small money-maker for some traditional product selling software companies. However, those companies had two advantages, they knew the source code and it was a sideline business. None of the Linux crowd has turned profits yet and business models are not yet fully developed.
Who here has bought support as a consumer and not for or as a business? Not too many I would imagine. In the case of Linux applications and distros, its tough to support a business model when you eliminate 40% of your customers because either they're smart enough to figure out or can find the answers easily.
/me gets off his soapbox
Hangtime
"If you continue to think the way you have always thought, you will continue to get what you have always got." - Anonymous
Re:Frequency & Pricing of Releases (Re:Open Source (Score:1)
>such a frequent release schedule is that it
>doesn't have a marketing behemoth behind it. It's
>target audience is largely comprised of
>technophiles who can pick up a new release, apply
>it correctly and troubleshoot the possible
>interoperability problems that arise with
>existing installed software. The Windows family
>is largely aimed at users who can't.
>The vehicle for distribution is different, too.
>The fact that Joe Windows User buys a box of
>software means that he does not want to have
>to buy another box of software in six months when
>the "new release" (read: service pack) comes out.
>Linux is mostly downloaded. Download the product.
>Download the updates. Because Windows is
>packaged, vast amounts of money would be wasted
>on repackaging for every service pack while older
>"releases" sat on the shelf never to be bought.
>(Example: do stores stock Windows95 next to
>Windows98 boxes? If they did, would anyone buy
>95?)
You're right of course, it's a big cost for the manufacturer and distribution channel when those boxes sit on the shelf and never sell. Red Hat etc. get burned by having surplus inventory as well, I still see some RH 5.2 boxes sitting around the local computer store.
One of the great things about FreeBSD is that there's a new release every 6 months. Most of the time it's just new drivers and teeny bug fixes, i.e. there was nothing too dramatic between 3.3 and 3.4.
But these new releases give me a bootable install CD that includes ALL of the latest h/w support, which greatly simplifies installation. No more piddling around adding SCSI drivers half way thru an NT install, or trying to build a custom install diskette, etc. etc.
Of course FreeBSD doesn't have any retail market to speak of, so a new rev doesn't cost them anything.
Re:Open Source (Score:2)
>to apply to WinNT4 server and IIS4 before they
>are secure enough to use?
Exactly, in a sane world we would have had NT 4.1, NT 4.2, etc instead of downloading 80MB+ service packs.
A lot of stuff changed with those service packs, it would have been worth spending $$$ on NT 4.1 just to get documentation that was up to date.
Re:Open Source (Score:2)
The current systems and processes for software development are revolting, but that doesn't change the need for organization. Existing processes are modelled on old engineering practices and driven by corporate machines. Open Source development is changing the underlying models, and we can expect processes to follow suit as the effectiveness of OS organizational models gains recognition.
The important thing is to continue developing and practicing those new organizational models, and to continue pointing out those models which bear fruit. The Linux kernel and the Apache Web server stand as monuments to efficiency and quality, and they are destined to be among the forefathers of whatever processes we use in the next decade.
I just hope that we don't reject corporate development models by rejecting the entire notion of organizational intelligence. Next-generation management models would be a giant step forward for software development; management-annihilation would be a step backward.
MJP
Plus fairies and unicorns! (Score:2)
Reality Check: If there is money to be made, there will be scam artists. This is a fact and no amount of putting programmers on pedestals and demonizing business people will change it.
Take, for instance, RedHat. They are a company in the "new model". Do they have non-programmers working there? Yes. Do they ever release buggy software? Yes. Well, there goes that argument.
This is not to say that OS software is "as bad as" the other kind--but it is to say "OS is no panacea".
A much bigger revolution (IMHO) is the sudden restoration of freedom that OS (or FS [Free Software]) brings. Suddenly we can share software! We can modify our own software! The pool of talent expands by orders of magnitude once you can include people who can't code but CAN document, bug report and test.
BTW, new
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Re:Bullshit (and I'm not trolling) (Score:1)
I'm not even sure if a good app makes the life of a suit easier. But I am pretty sure that bells and whistles does make their life easier, and that is why Windows, witch is lousy software that happens to be good enough for a lot of people, is so full of those.
As for following demands, it is my opinion that a good seler creates a demand and not the other way. "oh you don't know how easy your life will after you company gets the new XYZ2000+ new edition"
--
"take the red pill and you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabitt hole goes"
Re:The Suits are not the entire problem. (Score:1)
The problem is the objective evaluation of a person's skills. It isn't that hard to determine the skills of an applicant for a techincal position. The reason suits tend to be morons is because they are more likely to be hired by their friends (good ol' networking), or have their qualifications based more on "leadership" or business skills than technical or financial knowledge. Not to knock people skills, I know how important they are in a managerial position, but when it comes time to make hard decisions, you better know what you're freaking doing, and I think a lot of MBA grads don't.
But then again, I'm biased. I can't wait for the day when we are all managed by AI constructs.
Re:The Suits are not the entire problem. (Score:1)
I used to feel that way about tests, but then I started grading them at my company. Let me tell you, for entry level positions in the current market, nothing cuts the wheat from the chaff more effectively than a simple programming test. It seems like every small college has become a diploma mill for CS degrees.
Suits are and always will be part of the process (Score:2)
Software isn't made in a vacuum, it's made to fill some need. In the case of free OS's like GNU/Linux it was created to fill the needs/wants of the people who put it together. In the case of a system for verifying bank deposits made at an ATM (I work at a bank) it is created to fill the need of a suit. So the impetous and the requirements don't come from the programmer but from the suit who happens to be the end user.
Outside the internal software situation impetous and requirements still often come from suits. Take wordprocessors: while many text editors have been created by open source methods they don't match some of the features of commercial packages - and if they do the features appeared in commercial packages first. The requirements of the suits caused the programmers to go beyond what they themselves needed or wanted.
And when you have a suit funding a project they will - with good reason - want a timeline and project deliverables. While the timing may often be unrealistic, the concept is reasonable.
IMHO, as per.
J
From your lips to God's ears. (Score:2)
forcing an unready software release, it only makes sense that software will get better and better."
Would that it were so!
I think OSS will make software get better, but not for the reason you suggest.
The problem isn't the suits -- it that the economic incentives in a pure proprietary software market are screwed up. Remember James Fallows' article on his brief consultant stint at Microsoft? The engineers make the decisions about what goes into the product, based on the need to maximize their stock options' value.
The problem with all the classical economics-ish arguments that favor proprietary software is that they assume that software is a commodity, that consumers have fairly good information, and freedom to instantly redirect their purchases. These assumptions work well for simple commodities such as sausages. Sausage company A introduces a secret spice to their product. Sausage company B figures out how to produce their sausages cheaper. The consumers then simply decides whether they want a spicier, more expensive sausage or a cheaper, blander one.
Software presents several unique problems. First, it is hard to measure software -- it is uniquely complex among all products and cannot be quickly easily evaluated. How many times have you paid for an "upgrade" that made things worse? Sometimes less is more. Because of this people are poorly informed and rely on what the read in the press, and that is at best a very shallow kind of analysis, that over emphasizes features. That's how we get bloat.
Secondly, current and future software purchases are tied to past purchases. You don't have to retrain all the consumers of Sausage A on how to eat Sausage B, or have to interface them.
This tying goes backwards in time as well. Because software producers can withhold old versions of their software (which users may be perfectly happy with), they can force users to upgrade to maintain internal compatibility with changed file formats and procedures. When sausage company A introduces their new spicy sausage, they can't make you pay to upgrade all your old sausages with a spice pack upgrade.
Proprietary software development has an unique incentive to produce new, more complicated and incompatible products, despite the fact this is manifestly against the consumers' interests. The difficulty of switching also means that they have almost no incentive to maintain the things you like about old versions of the software.
This is why software is so horrible. If the economic incentives were to create good software, the suits would find a way to do it.
Free software (that is software which users are free to modify and redistribute) has none of these perverse incentives. People develop free software to scratch an itch, either personal or for their company -- the production incentive is precisely matched to the need. If you view software as a purely a commodity, rather than a solution to a problem, then in theory free software would lead to an underproduction of software. Clearly this way of thinking about software is incorrect, because there is an abundance of useful and important Free software and it is a rapidly growing field.
However I don't see proprietary software being overtaken by a free software monoculture. I forsee an equilibrium being reached, in which free software forces proprietary software to be better attuned to consumer needs. The equillibrium point will be different for every kind of software, and will depend on a mixture of factors:
(1) How far down free software can force the price of proprietary software.
(2) How much marginal value can be added by the capital attracted by exclusive profits of proprietary software.
(3) The supply of programmers for consulting work and for free software development. Naturally this depends on how interesting the problem is.
(4) The willingness of consumers to cooperate with each other.
I suspect that proprietary software will remain the norm in vertical market type applications, because of the difficulty of cooperating exclusively with direct competitors.
You write too much! (Score:1)
Downsides? (Score:1)
Without deadlines, what's to stop a software project from fizzling away as developers get bored or move on? Who will do the documentation? Will project forks lead to the development of seperate companies? (such as Mandrake/Redhat) How can a company hope to maintain a leading position if other companies can snitch its code and fork like this?
Ok, granted that some of the above may be true about Open Source in general, I can't see management's roll disappearing in the near future - even within these companies. There still has to be leaders on the development level as well as the service level. Developers need to remain focused on the task at hand and motivated. That is a job for management and project leaders. Deadlines will stay because they encourage people to work. While I don't beleive they are the best way to get someone to work since they may encourage sloppy and buggy code, they are still pretty effective.
The effect of open source (in particular GPLed)development is probabily going to be more in regards to better service (through disclosure of source code), faster development cycle (due to code contributions, bug fixes and community involvement in the development of a product) and better overall quality (as users may decide to fork their own version of some software if a company is not living up to consumer expectations).
Re:Don't be so sure... (Score:2)
It's not that developers don't care about UI issues. It's that what a developer thinks is a usable UI differs wildly from what an end user would think as a usable UI.
Personally I'm comfortable with command lines. And honstly if I'm going to use a UI for building code, I wouldn't mind having a "Compile and Debug" menu item which essentially forks make from within the editor, or which forks a batch file that runs a bunch of other programs. Furthermore, I have no problems with dealing with 'ps' and 'ls' and 'fgrep' and other such utilities.
Yet I write software for the Macintosh: command lines for end users is not an option. Expecting my end-users to use a computer the same way I do is sort of like expecting an 18-year old auto driver to fly a 747: yes, it's basically about moving a vehicle from one point to another. But operating a 747 is nothing like driving a car.
Most developers I know don't have the touch of graphics design experience combined with an appreciation of the finer points of UI design to make a really effective user interface without some feedback from a good UI designer, or at least without some pressure from a suit to improve the interface. Most of us have too much experience fiddling with the knobs and dials of the 747, and while it's nice to be able to control which fuel tank the left engine pulls fuel from, most end-users just want to go from point A to point B in some style, and would rather us concentrate on getting the color of the exterior paint the right shade of racing green instead of improving the knob placement of the autopilot controls...
Re:Bullshit (and I'm not trolling) (Score:1)
Come on, get real. Business is all about financial success. "Ethics" only counts when it happens to coincide with making money, as with Red Hat at the present time. If a CEO, or any employee, gets a crazy idea in his head that he or she is going to be all sweet and nice, to the detriment of the bottom line, he or she will not last long (except in cases of e.g. nepotism).
And I say this as an anti-capitalist. That's just the reality.
Re:East of Eden (Score:1)
Its amazing how little people understand about what goes into the large systems. Think Red Hat Linux. And I mean EVERY single product in the professional edition. Then multiply the complexity by 10.
Then make it safety critical.
Its harder than rocket science
Re:Another Eden demi-paradise... (Score:2)
If you use Apache you don't have to release your entire project under the Apache license. If you use Linux you don't have to release under the Linux license. If you modify or extend them as software tools you do. Most projects USE these tools, they do not modify or extend.
Another Eden demi-paradise... (Score:3)
Do I feel like John O'Gaunt railing against the tide of change.
Nope. OSS doesn't rewrite the business model it mearly changes part of it. OSS has proved itself to be a wonderful tool the way of developing.... well tools. But most business/software decisions are about updating or creating systems. An area in which OSS has little or no experience and impact.
Take the following example
Company A have received $2 million in first round funding, they have to build a website and get it running in 5 months to ensure 2nd round funding.
Now how does OSS get them to their goal ? They need an intelligent searching agent that works on fungii, for this is fungalinfection.com, this has a lot of spiffy features and is the unique feature of the site. So they approach a company who USES OSS tools, like Apache, maybe Enhydra and a big old commercial database like DB2 for there are many transactional and critical pieces that go into breeding your own fungal infection online.
This is old style but using the tools of OSS.
The examples are endless. If someone can show me why OSS changes this model I'd like to know. Taking the example above. Lets say that fungalinfection.com release ALL of their code. And here comes fungalbreeder.com within a week.
Not enough to convince you that there are many different parts to the software industry ? Okay here is another...
Company A has a legacy system that they want to replace in stages, first to be replaced are the screens with spiffy Java clients. Next up is part of the product catalogue, next up is the ordering process, then comes their warehousing system, and on and on.
These will probably use many OSS or other "free" software products but the final piece of software will have been created closed source. There is the argument that then releasing it would open it to the world and thus mean 10,000 people fixing bugs.
Rubbish. The only people who would care would be competitors, why would 10,000 people look at a warehousing system. There are enough 1 or 2 people projects out there to prove that its mostly the "sexy" ones that get done.
I appreciate OSS, I use OSS, I've even submitted patches to OSS and FSF but while it may make me a Luddite I don't see how anyone is going to build bespoke systems using OSS.
Lets put it this way, it takes 10+ years and 000s of developers to build an Air Traffic Control System, do you think this would work well in the bazzare enviroment ?
Re:It depends on your target (Score:1)
With less & less suits in the process, the changes are that 'bloatware' will more and more be a thing of the past...
I guess you've never heard of Emacs.
open source == harder to lie (Score:3)
Once a product is feature-complete, all that's left is bug hunting. If the bug list is driving the coding effort, the Whole World (tm) gets to see it, gets to knock things off it, gets to verify for itself whether and how bugs have been eliminated.
The only thing that's to a company's disadvantage is that it's harder to make money supporting a high-quality product than by patching up the bugs and selling the fixes as an "upgrade." Nevertheless, the old model is disappearing. Just as Detroit had to abandon planned vehicle obsolescence in the face of high-quality, reliable imports, closed-source companies are being forced to meet the challenge of open, provable-quality software. Some of them will do this by lobbying for absurd laws (see George Will's May 15 Newsweek column [newsweek.com] for a fascinating mundane example). Some will do this by suing us. The ones that survive, though, are the ones that prove they can adapt. They always are.
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Re:Look at RedHat (Score:1)
A new model for OSS. (Score:1)
That said, lets go to the new OSS model of business. First of all there is very little worry about trying to motivate coders. The software project does not start till someone thinks its a good idea and if it becomes widely accepted the number of hackers (Hey i used it right) ready to help improve things will be there!!!
Now by having ppl. code for something just cause they want to will mean that a lot of the motivation and other practices that a normal software house must do are not needed. It is also true that the style of writing software does tend to get the best ppl. for the job! I say this cause like the question asks, you dont have an idiot coding the most important stuff!! THe idea is that each person selects for him/herself the area they want to work on. With this self selection you get arround the problem of delegating responsibility.
Now, what about the business side of things. I agree that at times the businesss side, the "suits" can take things a bit far, but there has to be some money in OSS for things to work. And clearly there is a lot of money... NOT in the price of the software but its the services and suspport that you can setup to use OSS that has the real money. And this is where the businesses are coming along. REDHAT, they are working to provide these services and are giving hte world what it wants, support and some assurance that when things go wrong we will be there for you!!
Now where does this leave the suits and the buggy software.... Well they are still arround trying to make a few bucks out of the whole deal. BUT since the code is not ":theirs" anymore and dont control the tech. ppl. the code will get mroe time to get completed and the releases will be hopefully better!
SO why are the suits now futher away from the tech ? Well there is going to be no money in the software itself! Hahaha, its free.... what are you going to do, make a few bucks on shipping and handling
Re:What does that mean? (Score:1)
Until such time that people are forced to work for free, which is the ultimate goal of RMS by the way - communism, business operational specialists (i.e. "suits") add an incredible amount of vaule and are the single biggest drivers of progress in the technological industry. Coders are the single beggest reason why projects fail, are buggy, over budget, and late.
Stop looking for excuses else where. When coders start acting more like business people, rather than RMS-wannabes, then we'll really see the software industry mature. Could you imagine how far behind the world be if mechanical/aerospace/civil engineers behaved like software people?
Not a new model at all (Score:2)
I question that this business model is much different than those of some of the most successful computer companies. Granted some do not fit that model, but many already do so in one way or another. Take IBM for an example. Yes they market the software, and the hardware. IBM's big $ comes from the services they sell afterward. They may be consulting, programming, or even maintenance. IBM has strategically positioned it's self so that it's service is needed by most of it's customers (more $). Granted some people consider this unfair, but it's a huge cash cow (moo) for them. I should also note that they have plenty of "suits" still.
Outside of my IBM example, I have trouble seeing how much different the world would be if OSS dominated and the "suits" were all but gone. Granted I'm sure "suits" do some stupid stuff. However I'm not convinced that IT Business would be better with programmers or those providing the service running the show.
I'm also not convinced that the "suits" are the only ones responsible for making software buggy, bloated and premature. I know of several game companies that are run by their game programmers and designers realized total crap because they were low on $, or felt they had to release when they promised. I would use Maxis as an example. Just because a "suit" says "release now!" and the program isn't ready, doesn't mean that other non-suits would do any different or better.
Re:Bullshit (and I'm not trolling) (Score:1)
Think of Richard Stallman for a moment. As much as he is a figure who is respected or hated by many who have encountered him, he is a good example of being good at both. Bear with me on this. I think we can all agree that RMS can code. He puts out both quantity and quality.
But what about the suit side of things? I certainly have never seen a picture of RMS in a suit. And his strident positions have alienated people. But he knew what he wanted and what he had to work with. He took a firm position and did not waver from it. He has something that is absolutely essential for a good suit, integrity. When you back him on an issue, you know where he stands, and you know he won't surprise you with an incomprehensible compromise.
He has been successful at winning programmers as converts to the free software community. But he has also had success in garnering corporate support. I'm not at all sure that RMS would like being called a "good suit". It is something that he had to do to further his primary goals. But I hope he will take it as a compliment when I say that suits aspiring to be good and win the respect of programmers should examine his record of integrity. Know what you stand for, and don't ever lose sight of it. Compromise on anything else, but never ethics.
Re:Bullshit (and I'm not trolling) (Score:1)
Yes, business is about making money. Your customers, employees and shareholders need to be able to trust you to keep your commitments. It isn't about being nice. The bottom line can be enhanced by a good reputation. Having a reputation for being a pushover isn't good.
If you want an example of building a good reputation, check the return policy for LL Bean. If it isn't right, they'll take it back, without any explanation. It costs them on the transactions when it happens, but it builds trust.
If you have any doubt about the amount of trust required to make our capitalist economy function, try getting cash in a foreign country two different ways. The first is using an ordinary ATM card. The second, is without any cards as tokens to identify yourself. Ask yourself how many relationships of trust there are in the simple transaction of drawing cash from a foreign ATM.
Yes, competition is brutal. I'll do everything I can to win customers away from a competitor if I can make a profit instead of him. And I will scrupulously adhere to any contracts I may have with that competitor as well. For a good reference on this, see The Economics of Contract [best.com] from David Friedman's upcoming book Law's Order: An Economic Account.
Highly unlikely.... (Score:1)
release timing (Score:1)
the suits, which historically make software releases buggy, bloated, and premature
OK, so if it's the suits' faults that software is released buggy & premature, then somebody please tell me when Mozilla (or other OSS projects) will be ready for my mother to use (i.e. it won't crash)
Re:think about this (Score:1)
True, unix and its variants first appeared on the scene in the 1960s, but kernel development has been relatively continuous since then, as opposed to the closed source systems, which tend to have major releases every few years, and often try to deprecate and supplant older versions. Those major revs create many, many bugs, which have to be fixed by more major patches & releases, etc... If you do something right the first time, you seldom have to do it over.
Suits are like snake oil salesmen...they add a little dye, some new packaging, call it something new, and try to make you pay more for the same product.
Re:Nope (Score:1)
Sorry for the smartassidness
Re:Don't be so sure... (Score:2)
Sure, sometimes it is easier to have a direct connection, but unless you have better "suit qualities" then the actual manager, it gets very hard to get any "real" work done while talking to every damn user there is.
A good software manufactorer has good suits *and* good coders *and* a good connection in between. Of course the connection is optimal if there are hackers inside the suits, managers behind the keyboards (or even the same people in both roles) but unless you are real renaissance wonders, you have traded better communication for worse managing and/or coding.
I am a developer, I love good managers on my projects. They simply makes my life so much easier.
Re:Bullshit (and I'm not trolling) (Score:2)
Nobody buys a program that does not work (at least not twice) Bells and whistles are what sales people use to get more money out of the same product, or make ppl buy *their* product instead of an alternative with the same functionality, but less appeal.
Yes, from a hacker perspective, it would be nice if people bought software simply on its technical merit. Wake up call: they don't.
A good coder makes the life of a suit easier, a good suit makes the life of a coder easier. A damn good salesman can work with inferior products (if he has to) and a damn good coder can override bad management.
In *my* HO a good salesman sees a demand and amplifies it. Creating one out of thin air is too damn hard (if at all possible).
Bullshit (and I'm not trolling) (Score:4)
Good programmers makes really good apps, good suits get those apps sold and are good at seeing what what services (and apps) people are willing to pay for.
Some people are good at both.
You won't make it very far with exellent code without marketing. Neither with exellent marketing of lousy software. (No M$ does not make lousy software. It is not the *best* but for most people it is good *enough*)
Suits follow demand. If they are leaving your area it is a tell tale sign that you will have serious trouble making a living there in a near future.
(That does not mean you should stop coding, just that you'll need a day job)
A reminder. (Score:2)
Open Souce != bazarre development (Score:2)
RMS used to sell emacs tapes.
Redhat sells distributions with Linux, GNU, and other software.
VA Linux sells systems using Linux.
Under the GPL, you are NOT entitled to a free copy. The idea is that if you get a copy, you can do what you want.
Free Software is BEST suited to these sort of custom solutions, it is LEAST suited for general purpose applications. The fact that it has produced the general purpose applications is a fortunate result, but is odd.
Why is this?
If I need a custom solution, I need to pay for it. Either I hire a bunch of coders who right it, or I hire a consulting group to produce it.
It is CLEARLY in my interests to get the code and the right to do with it as I please.
If I want an air traffic system that will cost $100 million dollars over 5 years, I had better be asking for the included source code, right?
That's all that open source requires. If I pay the development costs, I don't want a copy that I can license, I want the work produced.
If I copy it to all my servers, or publish it on my web site asking for feedback, that is MY right.
The systems created are AUTOMATICALLY open source, as I have a copy of the binary and also have a copy of the source.
If I write a general purpose application, it is most likely to succeed in the proprietary form.
Why? Take an Office platform. The cost/copy is VERY low, because the development costs is spread over millions of users. With custom solutions, there is only one user, so they can pay the entire development costs, and they will INSIST on the right to modify and reuse their copy.
They won't give it to competitors, but the creator of the code may try to sell their services to competitors. That is the service model of open source.
Open Source does NOT mean that millions of eyes look at it. Linux, GNU, Apache, Mozilla, etc., utilize the bazarre model.
Why? Because they are creating a product that is too difficult to produce as an individual project. Torvalds could NOT have single handedly written a kernel to compete with SCO, but he wrote one for his own use. He made it open, and other people played around with it. It eventually became competitive with existing products, but only because millions of people kicked in a little work.
The bazarre model kicks in in general purpose applications when authors know that they can't make the product cost competitive with entrenched software, so they solicit wide ranging help.
Open Source doesn't mean free as in beer. You may still have to buy the copy, but you can then distribute it. For general purpose applications, the cost to buy would be low, so you would buy to redistribute... hence the bazarre/free development.
For custom applications, you spend a lot on something only valuable to one person/entity, so they'll pay a lot of money to develop it, but insist of the rights to use it as they please.
Stop confusing the bazarre model with open source.
They are independent events that happen to overlap.
Alex
Suits will always be needed as the interface (Score:1)
Problem today is that many of the suits do not have a good idea as to interface between the customer and the technology. The technology is too new and dynamic to be able to pinpoint a good way of doing this. What OSS does though is accept that fact and focus on the technology. Let the people (not the market) decide what they want on their computers. As a result, you have many OSS projects getting into state-of-the-art stuff before Microsoft et al. Just my two cents...
Re:Another Eden demi-paradise... (Score:1)
With OSS coders being geeks, this tends to mean that they go off and code a peice of "cool" software that they want to have. I can't see many geeks sitting down and thinking "Hmmm, i know, i'll write a warehouse management package/call centre management package/stock control software etc". These just arn't "cool" projects, and it's unlikly that many geeks would have a need for their own software to do these things.
When it comes to specialased, mundane software that big businesses tend to use, OSS just doesn't fit unless you have the suits who tell the programers what to write. Without the suits, all the coders would be playing Quake and writing "cool" software...
You will never get rid of suits (Score:2)
Running a business consultancy is not just about technical knowledge. One has to have a customer base to draw from. The hard-core techies cannot and would not dress up as salesman and look for clients. So either you get yourself a suit, or you become a suit.
No - suits doesn't mean black boots, black cape, dark helmet and mean, breathy voice.
A few words (Score:1)
I see companies trying to pull open source projects, and have them work, such as darwin. This is a good thing because these companies are seeing openb source as a possible way to get real work done as opposed to watching their closed source projects slag along into oblivion.
I feel that an open source project, properly run, can create great software. This kind of thing works well in the business model where a large company heads the project (in a way) like Apple with darwin or Netscape with Mozilla. Its a sort of hybrid business model and, IMO, works rather well.
I have a final to go to, and will follow up later.
Software managers (Score:1)
Software developers have just as much responsibility for buggy, bloated software releases.
Re:Nope (Score:1)
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Sigh. (Score:3)
- There is a single business modelwhich will be rewritten and that cant accomodate change.
- suitsdo nothing in an organization except stand around imposing bloatware and quick releases on poor developers?
Should the management and support staff listen to the developers in an IT company? Yes. Are they the only people who should be listened to? No. Successful products are created by an integration of efforts and every other discipline involved in that company (usability expert, marketing guy, account manager, accountant, sales dude) is *necessarily* part of that process regardless of business model.Besides, in my company the suit who causes the most problems goes under the title customer. And him Id find it hard to get rid of.
Re:The Suits are not the entire problem. (Score:1)
I wouldn't agree with that. I know plenty of people that have the technical skills required to do a job but not the social (people) skills. Also, don't forget that people will spin things there own way to get work, or even outright lie. Finding really technically strong developers to work for you is not an easy task. Even using tests and asking for sample code is not all that useful.
Besides, it is not all about technical skills. Most professional software development requires that you interact with others, and I have seen too many technically skillful people fail at jobs because they wanted to do things there own way.
With non-commerical OSS you can do this. If you don't like how a project is going, you can fork it. With commerical projects you can't let your developers fork your projects because they don't like the way that the project is being developed.
Could be but.... (Score:1)
Re:Don't be so sure... (Score:2)
True, look at Gnome, KDE and the 100 other "easy to use" windows managers. Most of these windows managers had little or no suits involved in the process of creating them. But remarkly, they are simple to use, look good, and have good qualities (has ANY EVERY had a non-alpha windows manager crash on them?)
But without the "suits" involved, the developers/coders know that they should "hard code" their windows manager into X and know that X shouldn't be hard coded into the (linux, *bsd, other) kernel.
IceWM looks just like Windows95, but you know what, IceWM is FAST and there is no way IceWM can crash the entire OS
IceWM is also very easy to use and could target a large number of users, for example I am willing to bet that it would take an average user 5 minutes or less to learn IceWM if they are famlair with the windows shell
Re:Another Eden demi-paradise... (Score:1)
I think an important and overlooked part of the "new" IT economy is the customized solutions provider. It doesn't really change on the surface - for only competitors would care about these mundane (but important systems).
These things get designed Closed Source... let me give you an example. Some government agency had a bunch of SMART II apps that were obviously going to go BOOM on 1/1/00. They hire us to recode them using some Y2k-compl. technology that also fits their current systems. Usually they require a particular language - for example, the agency might have a few Visual FoxPro (shudder) people on staff, enough to maintain but not to take away from regular tasks for this "new" development. So we come in, assign Powerbuilder developers to the project, and get it done, with well-documented code to boot. Realize that there are actually 5-10 apps under this contract.
So we are a "service provider", but we don't just support installations and whatnot.
Simple Economics (Score:1)
With demand leveling off in recent years, the slowing amount of real innovation coming from the big software houses, and the number of competent programmers rising, it's easy to see how commercial software would become less valuable. The advantages of buying something (in economic terms the "marginal utility"), when you can download a high-quality equivalent for free, are simply no longer there.
The only way for Microsoft to "beat Linux" is to make something better. But that's also the only thing it will take. This isn't magic, it's Adam Smith.
Free Software is a movement, not a business model (Score:1)
Free Software is larger than a business model; that's why we all call ourselves members of the Free Software Movement or Open Source Movement.
The truth is that people NEED basic social structures to govern them - if a system doesn't work, we need to either fix it or replace it. From this basic truth we have evolved from feudalism to democracy, developed morality and religion, and are now moving towards the ideology that information wants to be free. With the dawn of economical mass information delivery (also known as the Internet), all of the information is out there that you need to conduct your business - it's just a matter of assembling it to your requirements, which is where the cost of ownership comes in and where services are needed.
If you extend this idea by saying that most software is an expression of information to conduct a particular job or fulfill a particular need, then we have now discovered that software generally wants to be free. There are some exceptions, just like we make exceptions with speech (it's free unless you're telling a "secret", however that is defined).
If information wants to be free, then what is worth money in our present economic system? Our time. Thus, service business models make much more sense. It's important to realize that this is a side effect of a greater movement, and not a root cause, however.
So basically the rules that we are being governed by aren't working well with this new era of free information and software, and either need to be replaced or fixed. Society has spoken, and we need new rules for social order. The Free Software Movement is closer in my mind to the Renaissance and Age of Enlightment than a simple business model.
Re:Open Source (Score:3)
Surely code monkeys should be writing code, not running the show? I would prefer a great programmer spent his working time improving the code, rather than running a business. I don't really see how Open Source alters the business model that much - companies sell services rather than systems - well, that's not exactly a world shattering event, theres been plenty of service industry work for years now outside the IT world (even within it!).
Re:The Suits are not the entire problem. (Score:1)
I believe that, while we have some major achievements in the "code" ground, we still lack a whole lot in the "logistic" area. Given the very nature of free software, I believe this happens to be far more important than the code itself. And here may be where we lack compared to "suits", one thing that I think we do not want and can not afford.
I see that something has been done in that respect in the last times, but I believe it's too little compared to the importance of the issue. Which is no easy one, though. I'm currently working on a piece about this that I hope I'll be able to submit to the web soon.
It's not what you have, but what you do with it.. (Score:1)
Open source changes things in a way that reminds me of an old cliche: it's not what you have, but what you can do with it that counts. In an open source utopia, the marketplace would reward companies that can actually add value, rather than those that simply buy and hoard intellectual property. This would create an atmosphere of extreme competition where the only the smartest could prevail, a perfect meritocracy. As a result, we'd see much better software; but the real benefit would be the enhanced productivity in any industry that depends on that software. The entire economy would benefit, and that's really what counts.
If there's a downside to all this, it's that Joe Coder might not make the grade. Without extraordinary talent, there's little chance he'll be able to continue to improve upon what other talented programmers have done before. Without the protection of an IP-hoarding employer, his salary will wither because he's not really adding any value.
How do I feel about this? Burn, baby, burn.
If you want to look at it another way, consider IP to be an economic resource like land or capital. That resource is not doing us any good if it's being hoarded, rather than immediately put to every possible good use. An empty lot in the middle of a busy city is a waste. It might generate a relatively small amount of wealth for its owner as its value apprciates, but that's chickenfeed compared to what it could be contributing to the economy as a shopping mall or office park. In fact, this is one argument for property tax. It prevents people from simply hoarding land, and encourages putting that land to good use (to pay the tax).
This is exactly what happens with IP, too. If someone is hoarding the source code, someone else with a better idea is prevented from putting it to good use. And that hurts everyone.
Re:Bullshit (and I'm not trolling) (Score:1)
That's called "marketing". It consists of getting people to believe what you say. RMS chooses to conduct his business in hippie-chic rather than Armani, but it's still all about mindshare...
RMS even has his own catchy jingle...
Same Old Business, New Character Classes (Score:1)
It seems to me that there may be a problem here in the framing of the question: "Is This The End Of The Suits?". What's wrong is that this assumes that anyone involved with the development of a software product (OSS or CSS :) must be either a Suit or a Techie. I think that what we're actually seeing here is the rise of a third class of software type.
Your choice of name for this - Architect, Engineer, whatever - but there's actually a new skillset being spawned in the technology industry; it is that of someone who can schedule, design (sometimes), and manage a project according to a valid timeline, but who has created that timeline based on the requirements of the software rather than the preferences of the sales department. Someone who manages, but isn't "Management"(tm).
The Suits will stay; they will run the companies, and will do marketing and sales and such. They will remain, by and large, idiots from the point of view of the Techs. The Techs will stay; they will write the code and understand the infrastructure of the product rather than the business. They will remain, by and large, obstinate and incomprehensible to the Suits. And neither one will have to deal directly with the others - the Architects will provide the "interface layer" between these classical and mutually conflicting protocols.
And the corollary of this theorem is that in short order, there will be a desperate need for this kind of person, and there'll be some serious money to be made my being one.
Re:East of Eden (Score:1)
>That's "bizarre" environment, as in "the catheter and the bizarre behaviour". (-:
I think the intended meaning was 'bazaar', as in "a fair for the sale of articles especially for charitable purposes" or "an oriental market consisting of rows of shops or stalls selling miscellaneous goods" ...
fwiw, I think the only thing we can say about ATC software is that it took 10+ years and ever-how-many developers to do it last time using (what are now) traditional methods.
That does not mean that such an effort must take that long or use that many developers.
I can easily imagine an ATC system created by "intelligent" software which would take a week or two to develop, and maybe 1 developer.
That's the way we were supposed to be doing things in the 21st century, right? What, are you worried about job security, or something?
the old business model, perhaps (Score:1)
one trend in current-day capitalist economies is a switch to the services part of goods and services - this doesn't mean that goods don't underly the economy (try running that open source server without hardware), but look at companies like the post-AT&T phone companies, the overnight shipping industry (UPS's big IPO), and the computer book industry (although you could say Amazon sells goods which are essentially an information good, or perhaps a service).
there are so many players in the "goods" part of the computer economy that the obvious niches are rather full, there are opportunities for services related to all of those computers floating around now - open source merely fills a need (although it's one that some older players neither understand nor want).
over time, economies change (anyone remember feudalism? serfdom?), hopefully for the better, and that's what we're seeing. specifically new yes, but the meta-economy is the same in that it is still changing, adding "new" pieces and discarding "old" ones.
Win 95 to 98-suit driven development showcase? (Score:1)
I'm not saying that this is what would happen if you gave a non-coder control over parts of software development. I just want to show that some companies use marketing tricks that could make the software seem less important.
A good piece of software doesn't need to be hindered by suits. As long as they are good, and realize that the development has to come first, suits are not (necessarily!) a bad thing.
If all suits disappeared tomorrow .. (Score:1)
Re:You will never get rid of suits (Score:1)
Mr. Bill was always a suit FIRST, and a techie second. He is in the same mold as Henry Ford.
Sure, Henry actually designed, built, and even personally raced his early cars, but he wasn't really an engineer. He was a suit with engineering skills. The second he could he hired others to do the engineering and put on the suit full time.
Bill dosn't care about and think technolgy any more than Henry did. It is just a means to a suit end.
Once you realize this Microsoft becomes a lot easier to understand, and much of their product falls into the "Venti-Port" and tailfin catagory.
Can we say planned obsolesence boys and girls? I knew you could! Frankly, the parralels between Microsoft and the auto industry are scary.
The Suit of the Finch (Score:1)
Even IF all suits became "extinct" in the short term, this would leave an open niche and a new "species" of suit would just evolve to fill the niche.
The suit is here to say. Only the place and way he inserts himself into the process will change.
That having been said I must note that most of the criticisms of a "suitless" OSS business model presented by posters here have the fundamental flaw of not really "getting it." You can't refute an OSS business model by giving examples of how it will fail * in the commercial propriatary model.*
True, OSS will not be able to get "product" out the door for the Christmas season, but the Christmas season isn't RELEVANT to OSS! Christmas sales are a strictly commercial business phenomenon. If Christmas or any other business sales season ceased to exist OSS wouldn't even NOTICE.
True, OSS will not have the suits to interface with the customer and find out what he wants, needs, and can just plain be convinced to buy whether it will do him any good or not. Instead the customer will interface *directly with the programer.*
I could go on and on, point by point, but I'll get right to the general argument. OSS fails to meet dozens, perhaps hundreds, of neccessary criteria for a successful commercial product, but, you can't criticise OSS for not meeting a critical part of a business model *which it isn't part of.*
This is, after all, the very core point of the question that started this thread of posting, is it not?
Typical. (Score:1)
First: whose fault is it that software is buggy? Management plays a role, yes. But, last I checked, management wasn't writing the code. If you touch it, you buy it, and if the programmers in the trenches are smart enough to predict a new business model, then certainly they're smart enough to not screw up pointer references.
Second: no matter what the primary product of IT businesses become, they'll still be responsible for writing and releasing code. (I doubt managers will persist in waiting for the open-source development cycle without throwing their own programmers on the job.) The same forces are still at work, and software will be released as before, just with more opportunity to see the code that causes the problems.
Open Source ... a long-time business practice (Score:1)
As a normal business practice, it's important to have the source code. If a vendor goes out of business, your business could be in jeopardy. Even an unresponsive company can cause expensive problems.
The modern reasons of sharing the work load with others and the higher quality customized code that is possible are fairly new ideas -- and largely beside the point.
The goal of keeping the company going with servers that must continue to serve, with clients able able to get/share stuff, and that the data must be usable by the auditors and the board of directors quickly, haven't changed in decades. Without the source, your ability to make those critical changes that allow the tickets, transactions, bank reports, and accounting systems working is reduced or even prevented.
This is an entirely selfish business practice, long understood and part of many contracts in the past.
For example, one shrink-wrap/retail software company I worked for had to agree that if fixes to thier flagship product didn't appear within a certian period of time, that the source would be given to the customer so they could "fix it". This was a legal contract, and had formal, specific, was to execute that requirement.
Since I rarely hear this reason, I must be an old geezer -- even though I have plenty of hair, and none of it grey, oddly enough!
* * *
(Side note: With the buy-MS attitude -- they won't go out of business -- there's the idea that this is no longer necessary. Any techie knows this is bogus, and that getting remedy from MS or any other big player isn't a given. The majority of work is customization, and a tool without source isn't as flexible. High reliance on third party tools to patch MS's problems should be an issue but it seems to be taken as a necessary part of business.)
Frequency & Pricing of Releases (Re:Open Source) (Score:1)
Having spent the money for NT 4, I rather like that I can download the most recent service pack and its release notes for free. Granted, I would prefer not to wait until the third service pack for a stable product.
I think, though, that the reason Linux can have such a frequent release schedule is that it doesn't have a marketing behemoth behind it. It's target audience is largely comprised of technophiles who can pick up a new release, apply it correctly and troubleshoot the possible interoperability problems that arise with existing installed software. The Windows family is largely aimed at users who can't.
The vehicle for distribution is different, too. The fact that Joe Windows User buys a box of software means that he does not want to have to buy another box of software in six months when the "new release" (read: service pack) comes out. Linux is mostly downloaded. Download the product. Download the updates. Because Windows is packaged, vast amounts of money would be wasted on repackaging for every service pack while older "releases" sat on the shelf never to be bought. (Example: do stores stock Windows95 next to Windows98 boxes? If they did, would anyone buy 95?)
Getting back to the original post, yes, I believe Open Source could shift things in the business world. I agree the "rewriting" bit was a little disingenuous. Open Source could affect change in the quality of released software. If distribution of the product involves less marketing (packaging, sales, etc.) releasing new versions would be easier and more frequent. The suits' attention would then shift to handling the marketing of services and put pressure on developers for new features to be added as their clients' needs changed. Because releasing new versions is made easier by less marketing hokey-pokey, those changes can be implemented (and then fixed, then re-fixed) faster.
Service vs Product (Score:1)
Iridium could have used some good suits (Score:1)
They engineered a product that worked perfectly -- that no one *wanted*.
While I'm sure that they had some sort of marketing dept., obviously no one sat down to determine the customer base, break down the demographics, and select and poll a target audience.
My point being, it may seem like you could keep a company going w/o non-engineers, but *trust me*, they fulfill a definite role in the "new" business model as well as the old.
Sid
It depends on your target (Score:1)
How to make a sig
without having an idea
Suits manage projects, Techs manage development (Score:1)
Some Techs are sometimes stooges in Labs, Test-beds, Universities, Caves, Bars, Coffee houses,
Suits and Techs work best together when they recognize the fact that they have little hope of understanding the ethos of the other, but still are sincere in their display of respect for each others' skills and personality disorder/character. We is all a little different and hard to understand, you just ask my maw.
Currently and in the past, I believe, suits have/had a parasitic relationship with techs. In the future suits must evolve a more symbiotic and synergistic relationship with techs. Techs' owned companies may eventually develop a business model that eliminates the importance of suits by defining specific positions for finance, marketing, logistics,
One of the big hedge fund managers one time said; "I buy companies that any idiot can run, because eventually the company will probably be run by an idiot." Maybe the idiot he was talking about is the CEO and other lower-level suits that believe techs are just pack-mules and worker-bees and only require lip-service patronization for retention and corporate success.
Anyway, yes, I believe the standard business model is in the process of a rewrite and symbiotic and synergistic relationships will evolve between suits and techs or the company will die a slow lingering death. Suits will hold on to power and position any way possible (the nature of a typical suit), but unless companies have a CEO, COO, and CTechO on equivalent levels of the decision making process, rewards for company performance, and suits and techs working together, as one suite, with a sincere respect for each others' skills and personality disorder/character, then failure is assured by the rules of a dysfunctional team/family.
NOTE: Megalomaniac suits at a failing company will blame, fire, and layoff the pack-mules and worker-bees while rewarding/keeping the decision-making management suits that are the real cause of corporate problems. Shareholders/owners, in their contracts with CEO/C..., should demand that when 5-25% of the pack-mules and worker-bees force is laid-off (in a given time period) that the CEO automatically submits a no-reward resignation letter, and that all levels of management suffer an equal level of terminations as a top priority of the new CEO/C.... US Companies and the Government would be helped by such a regulation/policy/contract/....
If you are the piss-poor coach, don't ever blame the team and additionally prove you are a piss-poor person.
Re:Open Source (Score:1)
Maybe I should have said look how much more Linux has evolved in the past 5 years than Windows has in the same time.
Re:Another Eden demi-paradise... (Score:1)
Re:You will never get rid of suits (Score:1)
What do you mean clay models and stereotypes? Gates is the most sucessful software engineer of all time. I know he is a stereotype but he illustrated my point nicely thank you.
Re:Another Eden demi-paradise... (Score:1)
Thanks.
Re:You will never get rid of suits (Score:2)
Re:Open Source (Score:2)
Re:Open Source (Score:2)
For a start I could not afford UNIX in 1989 and Linux is free.
Open Source (Score:3)
The suits will get left out of the loop because thay slow things down. If they have any sense they will step back and let their code monkeys run the show.
Nope. Same Old Same Old. (Score:2)
The strength of Open Source is in things that are outside of the core business area. If your company needs a program to frob wampuses, and frobbing wampuses is not part of your core business, they'll put a couple of programmers on it. The way these things work, they'll come up with a clunky, limited program that does the job strictly as specified.
Fine. Now what do you do with it? In the "conventional" business model, the suits clutch it to their collective breasts and cackle "Mine!! All Mine!!!" like a miser in a bad movie. The software sits there and festers. It can't be sold (it's outside of the core business, remember) and the programmers move on to other things. Bit rot sets in.
However, suppose the company releases it as open source. Now, anybody else that wants to frob wampuses can grab a copy and hack on it. One guy needs a better user interface. Another needs to handle other types of wampuses. Yet another wants an interface in Turkish. Now, you've got a classic Open Source project, a la tC&tB [tuxedo.org], and all you have to do is ride it. Your programmers get recognition in the Open Source community and you get a better program, all for less than you'd probably spend on maintenence of the original.
Trying this in a core business area is a recipe for disaster. Mozilla is *how* late now? Why should Joe Programmer spend his spare time hacking your software just so that *you* can make money off of it?
Re:Not completely (Score:1)
Right on! You've just outlined my career goals in just one sentence. Thank you! :-)
Re:What does that mean? (Score:1)
Hell no... (Score:1)
Re:Quite right -- a reality check (Score:1)
Quite right -- a reality check (Score:2)
Presumably this means that customers for software projects will look over their wire-rimmed glasses, see that the person talking to them is wearing a sweat-stained Quake t-shirt rather than an Armani and suddenly be overcome with the milk of human kindness. No, no, dear boy, they will say, take all the time in the world over your project. Make sure it meets your full artistic vision. Take it easy. Play some QUake. Don't worry your head about that silly "penalty clause" -- we put that in when we were dealing with suits. Now that we know that the code-monkeys are in charge, we're happy to sit here with fifty container loads of oranges in an unrefrigerated warehouse, waiting for you to write our ordering system.
Bankers, too, will be infected with this Open Source Flower Child ethos. Hey, man, they will say, it's OK, man. Take a toke on this. Your software isn't ready yet? Because you were playing Quake? That's coooool, man. We'll just extend your loan facility by another month. We're not breadheads here .....
Software is rushed because bills need to be paid, and people cannot, typically, be convinced to part with cash unless something is delivered to them. That "something", so far in history, cannot be a sweaty Quake player's promise.
Bills will need to be paid on time, for the forseeable future. People are unlikely ever to provide the wherewithal to pay them without being given software. Therefore, from time to time, software will be rushed, and developed badly because of it.
Do bears sh!t in the woods? (Score:1)
Do bears sh!t in the woods? Business drives technology, each is separate but innovation of technology is brought about by the competitive business environment. Take a look at the level of technology in countries that did not have business driving them.
'Could it be possible that, with the shift from marketing software to marketing services, the business suits are being forced out of the technology pipeline?'
To a 'suit' marketing services or software is no different. Sure the pitch may be altered somewhat but in the end it is just the same. In the current market the cost of purchase is often irrelevant when compared to the cost of support. Annual support contracts have been a long time staple in lots of business sectors not just the IT sector.
'If IT businesses shift to providing services, will the suits, which historically make software releases buggy, bloated, and premature, be taken out of the decision process? Without a suit forcing an unready software release, it only makes sense that software will get better and better.'
The 'suits' provide the capital to setup and run IT businesses, capital or ownership is where the root of all decisions, or the ultimate point of control.
The blame for bloated buggy and premature software cannot be placed solely on the shoulders of 'suits'. In general, the blame can be placed equally on both the 'suits' and the programmers. The 'suits' usually base their expectations on what some programmer has told them. The software would not be premature if development was on schedule. In a industry where 2-3 years of experience amounts to 'senior' positions it is no surprise that time estimates are not very accurate. Sure specifications may change which also adds time, either way the blame (in general) can be spread around to all parties involved.
Even the consumer can shoulder some of the blame for purchasing 'bad' software hence companies release product that is just 'good enough'.