Open Source - Growing Up

As far as I am concerned, OSBC is the most important conference of the year for those who are looking to use open source to create leverage for their business. If you were not able to attend this year … know that you missed out and you should make an effort to get to next years event; it’s the week of March 10th: plan accordingly. :-) For those that couldn’t attend, you can find a lot of analysis here on Matt Asay’s Blog, The Open Road. There were many interesting, insightful, and practical keynotes and sessions over the course of the two-day event. Of particular note: R0ml Leftowitz’s talk on IT: Forget The Factory, Enterprise IT is a Deli, all keynotes/footnote addresses, the panel on open source acquisition, and several of the panel discussion where customers were able to give real world feedback on their experience implementing Open Source. As a customer trying to walk in their shoes the customer centric sessions and keynotes are extremely helpful.

I am very grateful for OSBC, the folks who put it together and for those who take time to speak and attend – it’s simply an invaluable opportunity to learn from and interact with the brilliant folks who are changing the face of the software industry as we know it.

Every OSBC has had a transformative effect on my thinking concerning open source and this year is no exception. However, this year the thinking is of a much different nature than in years past and I’m still trying to digest and understand it. It’s probably not the best idea to blog until I have come to terms more fully with my thoughts but what the heck… what fun would that be?

This year I attended a talk titled “What can Open Source learn from Microsoft and the proprietary world.” Moderator Steven Walli (Consultant), Jean Barmash (Alfresco), Neelan Choski (SpringSource), Jim Zemlin (Linux Foundation) and Sam Ramji (Microsoft). I have to admit I was pretty excited for this talk. Steven Walli has a fantastic way of cutting through the spin and getting to the point. Sam is Director of Open Source and Linux Strategy at Microsoft. Jim is Executive Director at the Linux Foundation and Jean and Neelan are members of highly successful, fast growing commercial open source organizations. What a topic! What a line up!

Does Open Source have something to learn from Microsoft? My hypothesis? You better believe it! Microsoft’s business is orders of magnitude larger than the entire open source market as a whole at the moment. The open source industry is trying to institute open source from the bottom up. If Microsoft were to open up, it would have to do so from the top down. Small groups inside Microsoft may favor open source but real, timely change is going to take someone with a title that includes the words: “Director” or “EVP” and “open source” and a top-level management commitment. It takes control of the helm to effectively turn an aircraft carrier.

I’m not familiar with Sam Ramji (Microsoft Corp, Directory of Open Source and Linux Strategy) or his work – I’m not familiar with what kind of strategy he is responsible for concerning open source or Linux in his role at Microsoft. From the open source perspective, is his position used for good or evil? Is Sam a voice for change or is he a “Ring Wraith” carrying out the dark work Mt Doom. To be perfectly clear, I have no idea – I still don’t know for sure. I tried to attend the session with an open mind and with hopeful expectations that Microsoft might indeed be recognizing some advantages in opening up and thus they have someone like Sam to help champion and ultimately apply some of open source’s principals to improve their business.

Is shared source open source? I wouldn’t call it open source but they do have an OSI approved license. Does Microsoft’s brand of open satisfy the open source community?
From what I can tell: not at all. However, it is a start – at least that is how I view it.

Sam seemed to be coming from the perspective that Microsoft does in fact see some advantages in the open way. My conclusion? “Not a Ring Wraith.”

The panel discussion was good and all of the panelists gave strong presentations and good information. However, there was, in my opinion, minimal discussion on What Open Source can learn from Microsoft and the proprietary world. Instead, there was a lot of information, particularly from the open source side on how Open Source currently does it. It was all good information but I left disappointed.

I felt we had missed a golden opportunity to cross-examine Microsoft and the gentleman who seemed to be trying to facilitate some openness in the giant. We (Open Source) did a really good job of talking about and in some cases defending open source and a rather poor job of searching and listening. Sam’s perspective is different from “ours”, his problems are different and he’s working at the scale we all want to achieve (assuming you are a capitalist pig like me.) Shame on us. We should have made Sam work hard, really hard during this session. We don’t have to justify the existence of Open Source or the benefits of its models. The fact that Microsoft via Sam and Brad Smith were present at OSBC already demonstrates this for us. Further, do we honestly believe our current way of operating scales up to Microsoft-like size without modification – it hasn’t demonstrated that it can so far? Let’s not get lazy – even if we think we have the answers, we must continue to ask the questions over and over, again and again. “The answers change much more often than the questions.” -- Peter Drucker.

The open source community gets so worked up about how open Microsoft is or isn’t. I’d be willing to say we’re not going to be satisfied (if we even could be) with anything less than Microsoft’s full and unconditional surrender to our terms of openness.

What I think is interesting, and what I think you might find interesting if you really pay attention at an event like OSBC is that while everyone agrees there is tremendous value in Open Source, there is really no consensus on where exactly it is. Many point to code, community, licenses, cost savings, distribution etc. We understand to a large degree the overall effects of the system but we often get caught up in the details or are ignorant of how they work together to produce the effects that they do. What I’m saying is that even within the community many are still working to understand the dynamics of open. Given that, we’re not exactly in a strong position to say why it is that Microsoft or anyone else should be so open or just how open they should be. Opening up is almost a “personal” journey that has to be tailored to each organization that embarks on it. Openness is leverage but that has to be demonstrated and learned. Few are willing to take leaps of faith. Many are carrying so much legal, culture and other legacy baggage that the journey is slow, complicated and encumbered.

I'm not sure we are yet in a position to be telling anyone how it should be. We are in a position to demonstrate some real customer value -- but -- we clearly have more to learn and demonstrate. By our fruits not by our rhetoric..

Redhat is the crown jewel of Open Source but it’s only doing 500 Million a year. Compared to Microsoft, Redhat has some growing to do. Does Redhat want to scale to Microsoft size – I really hope so. I believe that open source delivers more value per dollar than the alternatives and at Microsoft’s scale that would constitute a huge amount of value. We’re never going to get there unless we think and ultimately operate at that scale – which means learning from those who are already there. It strikes me as sad and ironic that the open source community can sometimes be so closed-minded.