The crossroads of mediocrity and greatness
If open source isn’t changing the way we think about
business then we are wasting our time. We are in business. We should be
thinking about business. How can my business better serve my customers, my
community, my planet, etc? How can I
better serve my business in its mission to serve? When we look for ways to better serve and do
business, whether we like to admit it or not we often find ourselves chasing
after small potatoes, in pursuit of greatness, achieving mediocrity. “Staining
out gnats and swallowing camels (Mat 23:24)”. I am not saying that open source is a gnat;
by all means it should not be. Camel or
gnat: ideology and wishful thinking will not define this; performance
will. Business owners beware. How you
approach open source will dictate the constitution of the impact open source
makes on your business. I contend that
open source applied to traditional business approaches will cost more then it
is worth.
ERP, .com, and Open Source – rubber bullets
Is there a silver bullet to the application of OS? No, of
course not; there is no such thing as a silver bullet (outside of the movies
and beer commercials). Make no mistake, there are businesses looking for the
elusive silver bullet. There are quacks and matchstick men that willing to sell
these organizations exactly what they want (to hear). If we are honest with ourselves we can admit
that we are all generally pain adverse and for many of us it is better to
believe in a lie for the short time it provides relief. If you think open source is going to solve
your problems simply for the fact that is open source and appears to be with in
your price range; you can’t afford it. If you fall in to this category, the way in which open source may impact
the way you think about business is generally that you will have learned
(through much pain) that there are no silver bullets. It is likely, like many of us, you have tasted
this bitter lesson before, and you may taste it yet again.
Sigh – What the heck is open source?
Some see open source as the marketing strategy of the
moment. These are the folks who dump IP
on a service like SourceForge and declare they are open source. We wish you
luck. When you rely on “cheap” marketing
to sell your product it is likely that you don’t have a product which truly
serves your customers, your community, your planet; it serves only you. You add no value. It is unlikely that a company could really exist on this approach and for those that can we hope you have made /
stolen the money you need to survive after your quackery is exposed. Dishonesty is not a sustainable model.
One question I ask myself time and time again is “what is
open source?” Is open source about
software, about IP, about community, about choices, about commoditization,
about freedom (love, and liberty), about a focus on services rather then
product, about catching more flies with honey then with vinegar?
Is open source about software, about IP?
Sun Microsystems is showing the world that open source,
defined or not, is a concept which can be applied outside the realm of
software. Sun is quick to admit it gets open source, but they are not saying
what it is that they get about open source: and yes … they get it.
Is open source about community?
Of course you need community, but community doesn’t make
open source. Oracle has OTN, Microsoft
has MSDN, and Digital had DEC-Net. Community is necessary for open source but
it doesn’t make open source.
Is open source about choices and commoditization?
Of course open source creates choices, and hastens
commoditization. Are we really excited
about something which is nothing more then a catalyst for the inevitable? If such is the case we are “swallowing
camels...”
Is open source about freedom?
If open source is about freedom (as in free love) then it
has a limited scope in business. No
respectable CxO expects to get something for nothing. They are business men!
They don’t expect to give something for nothing. They don’t expect open source to give
something for nothing either. If open
source is about freedom (as in liberty); then great … as long as that liberty
can be leveraged to increase business. Liberty for the sake of liberty can remain on the roster of drunken late-night
fraternity discussions along with Zeno's conundrum.
Is open source about a focus on services?
If open source means only that we focus on services rather
then product for generation of revenue then the question becomes motive. Why would anyone give up a revenue stream? Of
course they would, if giving it up meant more revenue. If you think commoditization, and increased
customer options is the key to selling services then I ask only how long is it
until your services are sidelined by another competitor?
There companies which view open source as a way to show case
product via an open source community version with the intention to up-sell
them an enterprise grade product. These
companies are attempting to “catch more flies with honey then with
vinegar”. They are using open source as a carrot. These companies are leveraging
open source. They are building a support
structure that they don’t pay for. They
are encouraging further development outside of their own. This is a sound approach. It certainly works
(MySQL, SugarCRM, GreenPlum, Alfresco), are proving this. The bottom line is that the honey is bitter
sweet to the community. Many of these organizations are in total control of
what is considered for inclusion in the product (not the community). The company tends to come across as a
benevolent organization and not a whole lot more. These companies see how open source can be
used to generate / increase business. They get open source … sort of.
Don’t feel bad when others “Exploit” Open Source
Don’t feel bad when others “exploit” open source. Don’t be afraid to “exploit” open
source. Businesses exist largely to make
money. I am of the firm belief that
businesses should exist for much more noble pursuits, revenue being the means
to an end, but that’s me. The companies
who have found a way to give to the community and leverage the community as a
mechanism for generating / increasing business should be applauded. I firmly believe that if open source were
only about freedom then no one would be able to make a dime on it, and it would
remain in the realm of the bored and curious.
Open Source that makes a difference means Change in the way we think about
business.
The companies that get open source are making money because
of open source. There seem to be two
fundamental approaches in play (with a many of variations / combinations).
- Community
/ Professional Versions (SugarCRM, Alfresco, MySQL, Redhat, etc)
- Services
(Jboss, Liferay, Alfresco, MySql, Redhat)
There is endless debate about whether a company should only
sell services versus sell a professional version (which includes non community
code). I don’t see either of these two
approaches or their blends as a problem. I think they may both indicate that traditional business approaches are
being applied to open source. The issue
is not that these companies will not make a profit; it’s that they are not
going to make the kind of profit as the companies that are breaking the mold.
When an organization releases all of its IP and makes its
revenues on services, it is not a given that gets open source. In deed, it may indicate that it doesn’t
understand business because they are giving up sales revenue! As an OS Business -- you release 100% or your
IP, it’s because it makes business sense to do so! This is likely because you realize the IP is
not what is going to generate the most business.
When an organization uses open source as a carrot intended
to up sell enterprise customers it may indicate that they do not understand
open source. They understand it as
leverage but not LEVERAGE!
The question is not whether to sell product, services,
etc. This is a red herring! Companies
that get open source realize the following:
Open Source is the STICK (CROP) not the CARROT!
IBM and Sun Microsystems have made this discovery and laid
it out for the rest of us in plain sight. Seeing; we see not!
Focusing on the carrot is straining at gnats and swallowing
camels. IBM has given away flag ship
products and IP. In return it enjoys the
benefit of huge services revenue and increased adoption of other flagship
products. IBM enjoys the comfort of
sitting on almost every major standard initiative. They are in control, lashing
away with the crop while you chase the carrot. IBM raised itself from the dead through this discovery.
Sun Microsystems recently released a new chip design to open
source. It is not enough to commend the
genius of this design. Take a processor
that works, recognize that the floating point functionality is a waste of power,
cycles and money for nonscientific computing and simply do away with it resulting
in a blazingly faster processor that consumes less power (half) and costs
less. Obviously, engineers and business
people should learn a valuable lesson concerning complexity. Sun is thinking outside of the box in terms
of hardware and business. By putting the
new architecture in the public domain Sun is opening up business opportunities
with fabrication facilities on off shore locations that may not be practical or
even legally available to them under a traditional model.
Sun has shunned the carrot and taken up the crop.
For those companies which are truly willing to lay their
models "on the altar" and change in their hearts, open source is
working wonders. The rest of us are
eating the scraps from the masters table or traveling down the path of self
deception and destruction.
