Slashdot Log In
Analyst Admits Open Source Will Quietly Take Over
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:31 PM
from the i'm-the-juggernaut dept.
from the i'm-the-juggernaut dept.
ZDOne writes "In a few years' time, almost all businesses will use open source, according to analyst Gartner — which has up to now been fairly cautious, or downright negative, in its previous predictions about community developed software. '"By 2012, more than 90 percent of enterprises will use open source in direct or embedded forms,' predicts a Gartner report, The State of Open Source 2008, which sees a 'stealth' impact for the technology in embedded form: "Users who reject open source for technical, legal or business reasons might find themselves unintentionally using open source despite their opposition.'"
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:4, Insightful)
"despite their objection"? who are these people who "object" to using free software and why? No one objects to email and the web, but they are largely run by free software, as is pointed out in the fine article by Taylor. This position and the way they take it for granted is baffling. Do the majority of people really care what business model their software is developed under? Are there really people who would pick up their pitchforks if confronted with Firefox? Do non free software companies really enjoy such mass support that people would never bother to look at options that could save them hundreds of dollars up front and all sorts of pain down the road?
"technical skill required to use it"? My two year old can click a mouse and my whole family uses GNU/Linux without missing a beat and has for years. Our TCO has been far lower thanks to free software - we use hardware much longer, don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for fundamental software like text editors and things just work.
Gartner people understand things are on the way but really the tone is hostile.
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:5, Interesting)
I can see why they would avoid specific instances of open source for these reasons -- e.g. using source code from GPLv2 licenses. But I'm not aware of any good (or even reasonably bad) reason for any company to avoid open source as a whole, on principle. Not Apple, nor Microsoft, nor Exxon-Mobil, nor Wal-Mart. A sole proprietor might have some misconceptions about security or a "nothing good is free" (as in beer) attitude, but this is hardly an enterprise.
Parent
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I suggest you consult Mr P.T Barnum:
"There's one born every minute"
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:5, Insightful)
The sound you hear in the background is laughter coming from the vicinity of Redmond. Our software caused your database to fall down and go poof, and with it your whole company because you couldn't fulfill your orders? Gee. Too bad. Responsible? Read the EULA, dunno who, but certainly not us.
Parent
Logical fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:4, Informative)
Good luck trying that with a typical piece of proprietary software. In order to stand any chance of doing this you'd need to take the company to court and win.
If there's a bug I want to be able to outsource the patch in the form of paying for it.
Which is something you can easily do with open source. With proprietary software you face both technical and legal issues even trying.
Parent
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Software almost always comes with NO GUARANTEES, wether you pay for it or not (read the license agreements)... And the supplier is under NO OBLIGATION WHATSOEVER to fix any bugs.
With proprietary code, you have a single vendor who *could* fix the bug for you, but they are under no obligation to do so or to charge you a fair price for doing so. They can turn around and refuse to fix the bug, or charge you a billion dollars for doing it, leaving you with no other option.
By contrast, open source code can be fixed by multiple parties, assuming you bought a supported package of open source software from eg RedHat you can go there first... Failing that, you can *always* pay third party programmers to fix the bugs for you.
While your requirements are completely valid, the logical course of action with such requirements is open source.
Parent
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:4, Insightful)
And even then you end up on a wining position.
In the first case you would have a relaxed upgrade path (hey, we all know all privative-licensed programs are always a breeze to upgrade, don't we?) *but* the software *still* will have the bug: remember that the case was about a privative-licensed software whose owner didn't want to provide a bugfix vs. an open-licensed software whose primary provider didn't want to provide a bugfix.
In the second case you still would have two valuable options:
1) Provide the bugfix to the upstream vendor *even* if it didn't want to produce it itself. The upstream vendor might want to patch the main line after the hard work is done (after all, it will probably benefit their other clients).
2) Assess a cost-benefit analysis: is the bugfix valuable enough for all the hassle of patching new versions? If it is valuable enough, you still win versus the option of no bugfix at all, and if it isn't worth the effort you still are no *worse* than in the very begining.
So, again, even using arguments from closed-source minions open source arises as a win-win proposition.
"The danger of customizing your open source product is the same danger that companies face modifying products like SAP"
This is quite off-topic, but HA! is SAP what you are talking about? Is there any company that uses SAP as-is? Heck, is even SAP meant to be working out-of-the-box in any case? Of course upgrading will be expensive but in the case of SAP it is out from a well thougth strategy where SAP is more focused on SAP itself and its consultants, knowing they work by their side about getting enough gullible CxOs to make their day. SAP is *all* about being expensive and CxO marketable.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should you be forced to obtain support from the same company who wrote the software?
You want supported open source software? Give IBM, Sun, HP, SGI, Novell, RedHat, or many other companies a call.
And since theres multiple vendors, there's competition, and competition is good for the consumer.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Support? Seems obvious when you point it out.
I always laugh at this. The "support" even big companies get from software vendors still takes lots of work testing on the customer's end, so this portion of the TCO is effectively equal. Often, it takes longer for a proprietary vendor to provide a fix than it takes the FOSS community.
Visual Studio w/ .net, ... [is] genuinely better than anything OSS can come up
Really? .NET? I'll stick with g++ over VC++ thank you.
Well .NET is a pretty decent class library as far as those go. Microsoft has never denied that it was strongly influenced by java's class library, but it is still rather difficult to design a good class library at all, let alone one usable in multiple languages, and a common run-time system. For what .NET it does it fairly well.
As for Visual Studio, it is a damn good IDE, and is arguably slightly nicer than even the best FOSS IDE, Eclipse. (Though it is also lacking some of Eclipse's nicer features). Th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people simply don't care about the freedom to modify software and redistribute it for free, because most users can't even read code in the first place.
What's worse, is that many just don't understand that there IS such a thing as source code and that binary code CAN'T be modified. For the average clueless nut that I meet, if I tell them that "Linux is open and you can change the code, but Windows is closed source so you can't modify it.", then they go into a tirade about "Oh my little son Billy is 11 years old and is always changing around our little Internet. He's a genius with them. You must not be very good if you're can't change around stuff on Wi
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:4, Interesting)
And while I'll tough it out (to my extreme dismay) and learn Linux and other free systems, truthfully, I just don't like them. Simply because most of the time they have a "programmer's" feel to them and not a "user's" feel. On a postiive note though, going back to the Ubuntu OS, I do see promise and potential, and I don't say that lightly.
Parent
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:5, Insightful)
After a while, though, it turns around. Frustration sets in, for the Windows user as well as for the VB programmer. A lot of the things you want to do simply don't work. Or are hard to pull off. You start to see the shortcomings in your OS (or language), you look over to the other guy and see how easily he can pull off what would be a major feat for you (try to do a full HD backup and compress it at the same time in Windows, something that's a very trivial matter with dd and bzip in Linux, or compare it to any kind of pointer operation in the programming analogy).
You start being pissed at your system (or language), you start envying the guy you belittled earlier for his choice of the "needlessly complex" tool. And generally, you'll be dissatisfied in the long run.
That's pretty much how I see it. Yes, the learning curve is still a bit more steep for Linux (although it has mellowed out a DAMN lot, especially with the advent of udev which makes the "now, which chipset do I have..." guessworking no longer the primary source of frustration during setup), but you'll be frustrated the first month of usage, then it's like floating on air. Not the other way 'round.
Parent
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Edubuntu: Linux for Young Human Beings (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:4, Funny)
So, you're saying you're taking an eight year old computer and you erase the operating system that your daughter likes and replace it with one that you yourself hate, that she has never used and didn't ask for, and that probably doesn't run any of the software she likes or is used to. And then you force your 10 year old daughter to use it. And because she complains about that, you conclude that Linux is less usable than Windows.
Your "experiment" tells us nothing about the relative usability of Windows and Linux. All it tells us is that you really aren't very smart.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The 5th result when you search google for "flash ubuntu 7.10 [google.com]" is this [ubuntuforums.org]. You read through it, enable the Restricted Repositories in Synaptic, and then just install flash.
I think you may find that this is enlightening [oneandoneis2.org]. It boils down to this: Linux is NOT Windows. Trying to treat it like Windows sets you up for failure. You don't try to drive your car like you ride your bike, do you?
Certain Software Companies Would Disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
Geez... are you the only one who has not heard Microsoft practically screaming in pain this last year?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I got that sound on my MP3-player, it makes wonderful soothing background noise when I'm stressed out.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose some software development companies "object" to open source code (especially to opening up their own code), because it threatens their business model.
On a side note, the nice thing about searching for "open source" applications as opposed to "freeware" applications, is that open source appl
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You tend to find the same thing on sites specifcially carrying Windows "free" software. There can be all types of shareware, nagware, crippleware, trialware, free only to certain types of user
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most users really don't care how the software is developed, as long as they can learn to use it and it does what they want.
Most people would rather pay for support if/when they need it and get the program, updates and patches fr
Re:That's Positive? Positively clueless. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm calling bullshit.
I am a user of Windows, OS X, and Linux. I make my living as a Windows admin--which I do *damn* well I might add--have found Xubuntu to be a great option for very low end machines (I converted my neighbor to Linux as a fun project) and find OS X to be my OS of choice on a laptop. I have experience working with each of the OS's, and have used both Windows and Ubuntu Server products and I can say, without a doubt, that your statement is not only elitist, but very, very stupid.
Tell me, oh mighty AC, why it is imperative that I know how to manually configure AD structure by hacking my way through a tool like ADSI Edit, when I can just use the standard Active Directory snap-ins?
Why should I, as a Windows Admin, have to know precisely how to edit various INI files and the system registry to change settings, when I can just click something in a GUI?
Why should I, as a Windows Admin, have to write an incredibly long and painfully meticulous netsh command to allow something past my firewall when I can just click my way to network settings?
I won't because I DON'T FUCKING HAVE TO!
Step back a second, and ask all of those questions with their Linux counterparts. The answer turns into "BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER RELIABLE AND UNIFORM WAY TO DO SO."
When it comes down to it, setting up a Linux server in a nice, secure fashion is a royal pain in the ass. You have to type MILES of command lines and edit scores of
Furthermore, that lower learning curve to becoming a Windows admin has--you guessed it--created more Windows admins! If a Linux admin needs to worship at Torvalds' feet and perpetually keep an eye out for him on the street so he can give Torvalds the obligatory blowjob he deserves for creating such a wonderful kernel, that makes a good Linux admin harder to come by! Therefore, a competent Linux admin suddenly costs more money to hire because of his greater skill set and lower availability. If you can, however, hire a SINGLE Windows God in a medium to large business, who can delegate tasks to people who are lower on the food chain (like the ones who can click "Next..Next..Finish" but not use ADSI Edit), your maintenance costs go down...
Run a Linux server? No thank you. I'll take Windows---not because I'm an incompetent Network admin, but because I don't fucking hate myself.
Oh, that and Exchange.
Parent
Reliable and uniform? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reliable and uniform -- not the words I would have have used in context of windows administration. The problem with windows administration (and I mostly mean 3rd party server software, but also Microsoft stuff) is that often the GUI is the only sane way to do things -- the cli interface, if it exists, is an afterthought. So automating anything is impossible or hard and debugging problems becomes a game of guesswork.
Yeah, that may be an unfair extrapolation from my experience that includes some fairly bad software vendors and it might even be outdated (as I haven't touched windows in years). Still, that is one of the reasons I prefer not to have anything to do with Windows, at home or at work.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know what else brings maintenance costs down? Not having to hire clickers because you have sane software! You may be knowledgeable in Windows, you are profoundly ignorant of Linux, but you are not a good sysadmin. Because you think having people doing the work of computers is
A good start (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:that would be nice (Score:4, Insightful)
The assertion that there's very few tasks left is equivalent to saying that progress has almost finished.
Of course, your point is well taken: useful things that are already written but are falling out of date will surely be re-implemented by somebody else, better, given time; and then the original source code won't be so useful.
Parent
Use != Take Over (Score:4, Informative)
So... (Score:2, Funny)
So how does one make money in this market? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't say services because services don't provide real cash flow. What I mean is enough cash flow for serious new projects and research. Service work has a relatively low profit margin because there is no way to "ramp up" as it were. You need people to do work and their time is limited. Once a piece of commercial software is developed it can continue to provide profit with only maintenance costs. Plus you can sell upgrades.
Services DO provide real cash flow (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, services! Services really do provide real cash flow. In fact, business like service so much they often prefer to convert to that model when they can. Service is an incremental cash flow that keeps on coming. Selling software is a one time sale.
Sure, you can sell upgrades. But you can also sell maintenance, management, and consulting service. You can even sell installation service (unless you make software that installs itself).
The risk of service work is not this lack of ramp up that you claim. Instead, the real risk is a higher level of competition. That is, you'll have a lot of others who can provide the same kind of service, including support service for open source software. Another risk is that if you identify a need to make improvements, you won't invest money in that effort since you can't use it as market leverage. By contrast, a service can be to sell the work of customizing the software to meet individual client needs.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
O
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Other models such as Adobe Flex do work well with open source however. But I would prefer to find a licensing model that doesn't require the initial creator giving up all fu
Re:So how does one make money in this market? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, these guys [ibm.com] don't have cash flow, serious projects or research.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I switched long ago from the attempt to sell my software to handing it out to prospective customers and offering them a service deal on top of it. In short, it was maybe the best decision I made so far.
In my trade, i.e. computer security, trust plays an important role. So being able to hand over the source to the tools I offer is a big bonus, because few competitors do it. Being able to see the source (and compile it yourself if you are really paranoid) means, though, that you can 100% ve
There's no advantage to propietary (Score:5, Insightful)
MSFT was trying to sell litigation fear over Linux, all the while the BSA was handing out hundreds of thousands in fines. Maybe there's an IP risk for Linux but positively there's a risk of a BSA audit. I've never been in a Windows shop that would survive a 100% audit without finding something out of compliance. Even the Death Star security shops.
Product activation, DRM, dongles and a dozen other ways the proprietary model has shot themselves in the foot. If you need capacity on an open source platform, just stand it up. Fast and uncomplicated.
And the only machines I trust on the internet are my Linux boxes.
I'm starting my new businesses on Linux from the ground up. All the money I would have spent on software can now go to more productive expenses...like booze and strippers. Okay, that's not true but it's nice to have the option.
Unless they're deductible.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Quietly? (Score:3, Funny)
Let's be honest. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not like this means corporate America will fully embrace or even prefer open source products. It just means that LAMP solutions will be installed in nearly every company.
What is good about this is that it "pops" the bubble: open source software can successful. But I don't know that it says anything about whether it's an optimal solution for business. I think that's case-by-case.
I think what this is really proving is that there is a certain point at which a software product becomes a commodity. A word processor is a word processor, and for the most part, a browser is a browser. Certainly, a web server is a web server, and doesn't even differentiate on UI. Any changes to the basic template are going to be pretty incremental.
Open-source isn't exactly what you'd call the fastest or most direct method to produce a product. Nothing replaces real dedicated, paid resources. However, if it can create a usable product by the time the market turns largely into commodity, you're pretty much guaranteed adoption.
When they're all basically the same, free looks mighty good.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you not realize that nobody ever pays you to work on an OSS project until the project itself is sufficiently successful to attract either commercialization of support, or corporate use as a lynchpin product?
But you're right. I did munge the free-as-in-beer software development process with open source. There's nothing preventing a revolution in paid, open-source software...except for the fact that it's onl
How can you "admit" a prediction? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about an adjective like "thinks", "suspects", or "predicts".
Nobody is admitting anything here.
Complete report (Score:4, Informative)
Gartner seems way behind the times on this one. (Score:3, Informative)
All of them are running Windows and Office on just about every machine they have.
However, most of them are also using at least one Open Source tool to fill some need. For many of them, that's something like Subversion running on a Windows server and Tortoise installs for the devs to go with it, but still, they're using it.
Incredibly bogus headline (Score:3, Insightful)
No. That's not what he says. He says that in four years, 90% of business will use open-source directly or in embedded devices. So in four years, if 90% of business have one guy with an Android phone, he will be right.
I don't see why I even come to Slashdot anymore. I used to like it because it was less bullshit than Digg, but now it's the exact opposite. What the fuck are the editors doing these days? Every other article I read is a quote taken out of context to mean "OPEN-SOURCE WINS EPIC LULZ."
Reasons? (Score:3, Insightful)
As for legal and business reason - that will be a sure way to be left behind and get excessive costs mounting without any gain.
One problem for open source in the future will be patent trolls. Maybe it's time to go troll hunting and see if they have collected a stash of gold that can be put to better use.
I'm trying to get approval now for embedded Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
I slammed together a really quite sophisticated robotic scanner controller processing unit for my own company, which I will now shamelessly plug in case any of you need to get custom 20-ton steel castings, give us a call, heck you never know. WHEMCO [whemco.com]
My unit uses the V4L Linux kernel API to run a frame grabber unit. I don't know of any way to run it under Windows except writing some kind of customized TWAIN driver or somesuch bull that will never happen. My Linux system works *right now* and has been demonstrated to company executives who said things like "this is fucking amazing!"
I ordered some hardware to build the actual prototype, and IT has shut me down. They are whining about all kinds of things like "who is going to support it?"
Hey, when I welded together the robot arms, IT didn't ask me who would "support it." Why should it be any different with my brainbox unit. Face it, those guys will *NEVER* be able to write or understand anything like this. If the program has a cos() call in it, they are done.
Where do they say "take over"? (but, Dr Evil...) (Score:3, Informative)
A company may have 3000 Windows systems running Office and one Linux-based router, and they will be 'using open source in direct or embedded form'.
Except that they're too late. I doubt there's a business in America that isn't using open source, one way or another. Even if they have nothing but Windows in-house: (oh, and what the hell are the "technical, business, or legal reasons" to reject open source?)