Comments on: Open Source Applications AKA – “Shooting Ourselves In The Foot”

By: Lopo Lencastre de Almeida

Lopo Lencastre de Almeida — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 02:35:06 +0000

Need to clear some concepts better here to avoid confusion:

Free Software is always Open Source Software
Free Software is, most of the times, also Free as in Free Beer
Open Source Software is, most of the times but not always, Free Software
Propreitary Software is, sometimes, Free Software
Proprietary Software is, most of the times, Closed Software

Free Software is all about Freedom
Proprietary Software is all about closing the knowledge
Free Beer is all about coolness (altough I prefer portuguese wine)

Software Patents (or as some would wish Idea Patents) are a freak show with the only target to make a few lawyers rich without knowing an inch of what code is all about.

Hope this can give some ligth to the subject

By: Lopo Lencastre de Almeida

Lopo Lencastre de Almeida — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 02:21:25 +0000

Dear Dizzy,

Not to repeat too much what others have already said but just to remember you that you are just using ALL Free Software based products and bashing of the Free Software is not very nice, don’t you think? As we say here you “shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you”.

The issue that you seem not to understand is something that we’ve been explaining from ages.

The free software movement is a movement of developers and technologists who wish to build software that is free to all. By free we mean free as in “freedom”, software that is freely available under license – a social software license.

People can copy our software, redistribute it, explore, change or modify the code. In most cases people choose to “give something back” by publishing any modifications back to us for inclusion in the core build, thus constantly evolving the software for all.
Our growing network of developers encompasses people from every continent giving Barnraiser a wide variety of talent and cultural diversity.

Read some about “Free Software”:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=9350
http://www.fluctuat.net/blog/2008-Free-software-explained-to-my-fellow-European-citizens

And why is Free Software better than Closed Software:

Because it is peer reviewed, for once, and this is its most advantage. Bad code doesn’t go too far for too long.

Because it usually aims to respect open standards and good programming pratices.
Example from a good FOSS project, AROUNDMe, from Barnraiser:
“We develop our social software solutions using the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology which is a deliberate and disciplined approach to software development.
We develop to W3C web standards including conformance level Double-A of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines ensure accessibility for people with disabilities.”

But, as an important american politician said:

“if we are explaining, we are loosing”.

We must stop explaining and start bumper-sticking:

“Free Software is about choice”
“Publishers are killing innovation”
“Patents exclude competitors, lead industry to standstill
Bill Gates, 1991″
“Earn a buck with Free Software! Ask me how?”
“Don’t Patent My Mind”
“Idea Patents are a Bad Idea”

Many other ideas could be even more hear/eye catching. See what the guys from the Mozilla Firefox are doing for their pet project. It should be done for Free Software as an idea.

And why is this Freedom so important to Culture and Innovation?
A good answer is at http://www.lessig.org/freeculture/free.html

See what others said. Don’t trust on my word only.

Have a nice day.

By: dizzydeveloper

dizzydeveloper — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:50:03 +0000

Its a very interesting point: I’m certainly not saying that good software is a bad thing. Do you think that the only way to write good software is if you give it away? This may be true (although many people would have wasted their careers improving commercial development…) Have a look at the interview with Alan Cooper at he certainly seems to give that idea some credence at the moment (i.e. It is currently very difficult to find somewhere to write good software for money, this is because big corporations can get by making developers do death march development (Same developers tend to do OSS in their spare time because they are disillussioned with the industry (See the title of this blog))).

And who is this WE that you talk about anyway. If we is the human race, very few of the other WEs give stuff away for the good of mankind, why is it that computer programmers seem to be so keen to give their stuff away. (I think I know the answer to that one actually, see Alan Cooper video above, about 17-21 minutes in) In particular, if computer programmers aren’t making money, they can’t spend it so the economy would suffer… Other industries very rarely give stuff away for free, unless there is a direct (or very obvious indirect) benefit. The market won’t stand for it.

By: Wim Coenen

Wim Coenen — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:32:38 +0000

So you are saying that free software is bad because it puts developers out of a job. That’s like saying that unbreakable windows are bad because they put the window makers out of a job.

Surely we would be better off if we could stop repairing broken windows and spend those resources elsewhere. The window maker will adjust or find another job, and society as a whole would be better off.

Broken window fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

By: B

Sat, 08 Jul 2006 05:44:21 +0000

The points Ilija makes are completely cogent. In fact I myself am one of those people who after seeing this open source project (and the only reason i seeked it was its free source attribute), expressed an interest for further work with him. I have already contacted him, and not to say that we are working on anything right now. no we are not. but the point is I saw how clean and brilliant this guy can code by looking at his project. i saw the end result and it’s ammazing well thought-out interface etc. After evaluating I can now trust that he will do a great job on what I am trying to develop. And on top of that our company may be interested in customizing this application for an MMS (Media Management System). So it is true that folks evaluate free source projects out there and consider using lead developers for their in-house development. This happens every day in the open source world. And I happen to believe in the power of open source, so if we do end up contracting this guy in a private development to add-on features for our purupose, we will make sure any of those featuresets will be passed on to the open source project for AC.

my 00.02 cents )

By: Prabhath Sirisena

Prabhath Sirisena — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 03:15:47 +0000

I guess Open Source is a misleading term here, as it doesn't embody a very important aspect of FOSS. Free Software is a better term to address the issue you're raising (or failing to raise): it's not about what you pay, but about what you compromise when you go for a proprietary application: your freedom.

By: Peter Goodman

Peter Goodman — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 22:31:32 +0000

You’ve raised some interesting points here, but let’s take a different look on this situation: the forum software industry. There are lot’s of very good and high quality free forum softwares, and many people use them, but people also go for IPB and vB (paid). In fact, IPB went from free to paid, which is another interesting twist to the way you’re looking at things. Paid forum software companies have survived open-source, and 37s will survive aC and all of the many other open-source project management softwares.

Why?

Some companies just like to pay, some people like the paid support, etc.

By: Kenn Christ

Kenn Christ — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 19:31:09 +0000

But why are you doing it for free? Do you feel that your work is so bad or so easy that it has no value

Would you ask this of Linux or Apache developers as well? How about WordPress? PHP? MySQL? Note that you’re actually using most of these free, open source projects to run this very blog.

Money is not the only motivating force for some people. Ilija touches on some of the reasons people create or contribute to open source software projects, but there are many more. Just something to keep in mind when making these kinds of judgements.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 16:03:30 +0000

dizzydev,
You say that developing open-source apps is self-defeating but I don’t think that’s the case at all. Just look at the blogging software you’re using – WP was dev’d as open-source software and it’s been an absolute windfall for Matt Mullenweg and the blogging community as a whole. If it wasn’t for WP, we’d all be locked into MT’s pricing strategies right now. Yet 6 Apart is chugging along just fine alongside WP and all the other free and/or open-source software. No, it’s not self-defeating. Instead what free a/o open-source software does is force paid/closed-source software to find its value. This is a really important point. If the paid/c-s software provides no value added, it doesn’t deserve my time and money and I’ll go with the free/o-s software. Bring on the free a/o open-source software because it’s a powerful driver for software innovation.

By: Art

Art — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:39:10 +0000

Jason Fried is selling a service, and charges not just for software but also for server space, support, new feature adds, etc. There’s nothing wrong with giving out free software, which is an entirely different model. That’s what WordPress and many forum software companies did, and now they’re making money providing support and hosted versions. There’s a lot of ways to make a buck, and getting massive adoption can be a good start.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:51:37 +0000

A perfect example of my previous post is DotNetNuke, it is more feature rich than SharePoint and is way cheaper. SharePoint is something like $40K with all the requirements in place, that is just out of my company’s price range. What are we to do?

By: e.

e. — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:47:13 +0000

anyone familiar with 37signals, or DHH and his blog in particular knows that 37s is perhaps most guilty of ‘devaluing’ the work of every other developer out there. they constantly mock anyone foolish enought to be a consultant, or blind enough not to use ruby. in response to criticism on rails performance, DHH’s argument is basically that rails will make developers less necessary so you will be able to afford to buy more servers. look, i really doubt this will hurt 37s as a business (it will probably help them) but if anyone deserves to get their business model taken away, it is 37s.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:46:44 +0000

I don’t see a problem with Open Source software given away for free because in the case of many projects it isn’t free. Many that I see have a collaborative nature (many programmers) and seek a model that looks to benefactors and donations to exist. All of us in the technology field are being pressured to reduce costs and free open source software is a good way to do that.

I tried BaseCamp and found it very limiting. I and many others tried to express our needs and I was told that they weren’t interested in making it more feature rich, that they wanted to keep it very simple. I told them good luck. I have since been checking out Office Live’s PM tool and like it. I am also waiting to see what DevShop is like. I am willing to pay if the product is really good but if a free alternative is available you bet I am going to use it. I think the problem is that some companies can’t build a product that is good enough that people are willing to pay for it. Sometimes that is necessary and good, sometimes it spurs companies to make a better product (MS Office for one).

By: dizzydeveloper

dizzydeveloper — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:27:49 +0000

Ilija, thanks for your well thought out comments. I think you raise a lot of valuable points and I will try to discuss as many as possible in my next post…

By: Ilija Studen

Ilija Studen — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:23:14 +0000

Hi,

There is a post on activeCollab blog where I explained why activeCollab is free. But, blog is down so post is inaccessible. Here are my reasons:

• It is really hard to put a commercial product online, especially when you are not from the USA or GB. Investment is too large for the budget that I have and chances for success are pretty thin.
• Amount of things you learn when you work on such a project and promote it is amazing. And mean AMAZING!
• activeCollab is my best reference. Its shows what I can do and if it is well programmed, people find value in it and use it than it says something about me, my work and my potential. Something good.
• I get the chance to meat a lot of great people. Amount of feedback that you get from the users is so large that its hard to keep up with it, reply to every email, try to answer to every question. But I really enjoy that.
• Creates a lot of opportunities. When people are looking at something you made and see a potential in it they also see a potential in you and sometimes they make pretty interesting offers.
• I don’t think it would be right to provide same service as Basecamp. Also, I don’t think it would be smart

I am convinced that open source can be a great foundation for business. You have more feedback, whole process is more about users and less about software itself, errors get found and corrected much faster. Level of communication between developers and users is really high.

Someone, especially corporations you are talking about will want commercial support or professional customization services. My plan is to provide that kind of services. Not for free of course. There is a benefit for the customer and for me: I get the job, they get stable software that is customized to fit their specific needs.

Maybe I’m wrong but I think it can work out pretty well, both for me and for the users

Your opinion?

By: dizzydeveloper

dizzydeveloper — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:34:00 +0000

Ilija, my apologies and thank you for correcting me. I have no wish to demonise anybody and have edited my article so that it more accurately reflects the facts which I missed/mis-read/mis-quoted. I think I saw the red mist descend when I started to read the TechCrunch article. However the general point still stands. If people give away their work, it devalues both what they are doing and everybody else’s work.

I agree with you that there are limitations in Basecamp and that does mean that there are other niches to fill. But why are you doing it for free? Do you feel that your work is so bad or so easy that it has no value (I’m sure you don’t)? We are not talking here about a product which will be used by individuals very much. Project management is something done by corporations and corporations will generally be in business to make a profit. By giving away your product to companies who use it to make a profit you are simply improving their profit margins. Why do you choose to do that?

By: Ilija Studen

Ilija Studen — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:03:09 +0000

You started from the wrong assumptions.

First, I’m not a student but a freelance PHP developer. Been that for past 2 years. Second, activeCollab was never targeting Basecamp directly. Users makes it look that way with comments like yours.

aC is made to feel the gap Basecamp left. Let me quote a part from comment I posted on Techcrunch:

>> activeCollab is all about alternative. There is a lot
>> of people that find closed nature of Basecamp pretty
>> limiting. Your data is not in a place you can control,
>> you can’t customize the solution to fit your specific
>> needs, it can’t be integrated with system you already
>> have in place etc. activeCollab is targeting that group
>> of people + the people who like open source or just
>> want a free solution to solve their organization problems.

Its simple. Alternative, customizable and free. Nothing more… I really don’t know why anyone thinks that activeCollab can be a threat to Basecamp. Its simply targeting different group of users.

Please read this: http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/growing_in_vs_growing_out.php

Thank you. If you have any further questions you can reach me on Ilija.studen@activecollab.com I’m always open for chat

Btw, when I read your post I look like a bad guy

By: dizzydeveloper

dizzydeveloper — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 09:33:44 +0000

I think that is an interesting point. I am personally not in favour of large corporations giving away their wares for free, after all it really isn’t free. Somebody is paying for it in increased licenses for other products, hardware costs or reduced payouts to share-holders (And before anyone says why should shareholders be paid out, don’t forget that the biggest shareholders are pension funds). Generally speaking in the wider world, such an appoach might be seen as anti-competitive. Clearly Sun is building a product in a market where Microsoft dominates, but is that any reason to make it more difficult for smaller players to make a buck?

However, I am also not entirely sure whether office falls into the category of application software any more. Virtually every PC user on earth will have a requirement for the word processing functionality in “Office” type products and a huge number will use spreadsheet and presentation facilities. Maybe office suites should be considered as systems software these days.

The point I was really trying to make is that if free replacements are built by copy cat open source developers for every good idea that comes along (and they are successful in upstaging the original company), there will be no financial incentive to build the good ideas anymore and developers will have to go into some other profession to put food on their tables. Is it in anyone’s interests to turn our new (barely) profession into an amateur hobby that can only be done by those with enough money (or rich enough parents) to support themselves?

By: Lady Godiva

Lady Godiva — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 08:57:09 +0000

Please tell that to Sun Microsystems who is creating OpenOffice.org.