Posted on 06/07/2005 5:43:09 AM PDT by Incorrigible
Computer Hardware & Software
The Open Source Heretic
05.26.05, 6:00 AM ET
Since 1993, Larry McVoy has been one of the closest allies to Linus Torvalds, creator of the open source Linux operating system.
Yet after all these years, McVoy has come to believe that the open source business model, which is all the rage these days among computer makers like Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) and IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ), cannot generate enough money to support the development of truly innovative software programs.
"Open source as a business model, in isolation, is pretty much unsustainable," says McVoy, founder and chief executive of BitMover, a San Francisco-based company that makes a software-development tool for Linux called BitKeeper.
McVoy understands open source as well as anyone on the planet. Though his product, BitKeeper, is not an open source program, from 2002 until 2005, McVoy let open source programmers use it for free. But as of July, McVoy will stop the give-away, saying it has been costing him nearly $500,000 per year to support Torvalds and his programmers.
Open source advocates have pushed McVoy to "open source" his product--that is, to publish the program's source code, or basic instructions, and let the world use it for free. But McVoy says it is simply not possible for an innovative software company to sustain itself using an open source business model.
"We believe if we open sourced our product, we would be out of business in six months," McVoy says. "The bottom line is you have to build a financially sound company with a well-trained staff. And those staffers like their salaries. If everything is free, how can I make enough money to keep building that product for you and supporting you?"
The term "open source" refers to software that is distributed with its source code so that anyone can read or copy that code. Most commercial programs, like those made by Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), keep their source code secret.
Open source products typically are distributed free, since it's pretty much impossible to charge money for something that anyone can copy.
So how do you make money with open source code? Some companies, like Red Hat (nasdaq: RHAT - news - people ), distribute Linux for free and then make money selling service contracts to users.
"One problem with the services model is that it is based on the idea that you are giving customers crap--because if you give them software that works, what is the point of service?" McVoy says. "The other problem is that the services model doesn't generate enough revenue to support the creation of the next generation of innovative products. Red Hat has been around for a long time--for a decade now. Yet try to name one significant thing--one innovative product--that has come out of Red Hat."
To be sure, a few open source companies are successfully generating revenue and even (possibly) profits. But none of them generates enough money to do anything really innovative, says McVoy, 43, an industry veteran who has developed operating system software at Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ), Silicon Graphics (nyse: SGI - news - people ) and Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ).
"The open source guys can scrape together enough resources to reverse engineer stuff. That's easy. It's way cheaper to reverse engineer something than to create something new. But if the world goes to 100% open source, innovation goes to zero. The open source guys hate it when I say this, but it's true."
Torvalds disagrees with McVoy about the sustainability of open source.
"Open source actually builds on a base that works even without any commercial interest [which] is almost always secondary," he says. "The so-called 'big boys' come along only after the project has proven itself to be better than what those same big boys tried to do on their own. So don't fall into the trap of thinking that open source is dependent on the commercial interests. That's nice gravy, but it is gravy."
But McVoy says open source advocates fail to recognize that building new software requires lots of trial and error, which means investing lots of money. Software companies won't make those investments unless they can earn a return by selling programs rather than giving them away.
"It costs a huge amount of money to develop a single innovative software product. You have to have a business model that will let you recoup those costs. These arguments are exceedingly unpopular. Everyone wants everything to be free. They say, 'You're an evil corporate guy, and you don't get it.' But I'm not evil. I'm well-known in the open source community. But none of them can show me how to build a software-development house and fund it off open source revenue. My claim is it can't be done."
And though open source software may be "free," sometimes you get what you pay for, McVoy says. "Open source software is like handing you a doctor's bag and the architectural plans for a hospital and saying, 'Hey dude, if you have a heart attack, here are all the tools you need--and it's free,'" McVoy says. "I'd rather pay someone to take care of me."
McVoy argues that the open source phenomenon may appear to be sustainable but actually is being propped up by hardware makers who view open source code as a loss leader--something that will entice customers to buy their boxes.
"Nobody wants to admit that most of the money funding open source development, maybe 80% to 90%, is coming from companies that are not open source companies themselves. What happens when these sponsors go away and there is not enough money floating around? Where is innovation going to come from? Is the government going to fund it? This stuff is expensive."
Even the popular Linux operating system would suffer if hardware makers stopped their sugar-daddy support for its development--putting their own programmers to work on Linux, and sending payments to the Open Source Development Labs, the non-profit organization that employs Torvalds and some of his key lieutenants.
"If hardware companies stopped funding development, I think it would dramatically damage the pace at which Linux is being developed. It would be pretty darn close to a nuclear bomb going off," McVoy says.
McVoy says he believes the software industry will reach some kind of balance between open source and traditional software companies. Open source companies will make commodity knockoffs and eke out tiny profits, while traditional "closed source" companies will develop innovative products and earn fatter profits.
Heretical as this may seem, McVoy wants to be on the side that innovates and makes money.
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
I see Fedora Core, but where is Red Hat? Or Red Hat Enterprise?
I don't know why you're purposely twisting my statements. Perhaps I should ignore you, or perhaps I'll just invite you to try to compile Red Hat's kernel into another distribution. If it was truly open it would compile in a snap, but it won't becuase it isn't. Other companies pay RH to put their bits in RH's distribution.
Anything wrong with that? No, not really. Red Hat is a for-profit business. "Open" and "free" run counter to the profit motive, which is why Red Hat is spinning off Fedora.
Actually I have done that on CENT-OS... Took the source for the redhat kernel and compiled it into the CENT-OS distro, no bugs, no errors, and it went right in.
I don't, but if someone down the street offered to do exactly what I do (or do it almost as well) for free, I'd have to figure out a way to deliver enough value to make it worthwhile for customers to pay me.
If I couldn't do that, I'd have to find another line of work.
Those same choices are open to the proprietary software industry.
Are you purposely being dishonest? Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat, but it is NOT a Red Hat distribution.
Oh, this thread may be of interest: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1417914/posts
Who said anything about RHEL? In any case, RH makes the source code for RHEL freely available. They have to since most of it is under one or more open source licenses. I'm not sure if they make it easy for you to find it any more, but if you really want it, give them a call.
You know, I don't have any issues at all with anyone who loves Linux. I like it, but I don't swear by it. I do wish one of you would be honest enough to admit that Red Hat is neither open nor free. It can be modified by third parties to be both (but then it's not Red Hat any more).
Read the statement again. You left out "generate enough money to...."
He's talking prospectively; he's speaking about what is (or is not) going to happen.
He's saying there isn't enough money for an enterprise to produce an innovative product profitably in the open source model. That seems obvious to me.
But I'd like to understand how he's wrong.
I converted my home business from Windows to Linux in 2002.
What do you think I'm doing with the savings, keeping it in a jar under the garden?
No, I spent it on other, non IS (nearly all American made) products, putting money in the hands of local businessmen whose cash flow needs are greater than Microsoft's.
And that supports the coders of you free OS how?
Could you create the same chart for a 2-year interval? I tried, but I couldn't figure out how.
Fedora is not Rehat is a community project sponcered by redhat.... You put fedora as a place to freely download and copy redhat... I have news for you the only redhat left is RHEL..
Ever heard of plausible deniability? I can assure you that Fedora is just as much a Red Hat distribution as RHEL is, maybe moreso. Fedora is Red Hat's playground. RHEL 4 will essentially be Fedora Core 1, hide and watch. RH made a lot of noise about community development, but Alan Cox, Warren Togami, Arjan van de Ven, et al are still firmly in charge on the Fedora project.
You asked if I could take a RH kernel and compile it into a different distro... I can, I can do it on cent-os. you may not like the fact I had an answer for you but its no reason to ignore the fact youre wrong on this one..
Actually redhat is spinning fedora off into its own foundation..
That is true, but the branding is all that matters. Red Hat can be profitable as well as others that use the same technique. For example Trolltech, who produces Qt- the framework for KDE and the standard for cross platform OpenGL client implementations, have had such great success with the dual license (GPL for noncommercial, proprietary for commercial) that they are going to release into open source under the GPL their Windows Qt version with the upcoming Qt 4.0, something not before done. I expect, as they do, that this will only increase their visibility and their bottom line.
Huh core one was kernel 2.4, RHEL4 is 2.6... they have different gcc levels, different X levels (hell core one might have been XF86, where RHEL4 is Xorg. if RHEL 4 is anything is might be Core3. All of this is besides the point as RHEL is spinning off Fedora..
Where he's wrong is in assuming that software innovation is a direct result of any particular package's profitability. I thoroughly detest Richard Stallman for the aging, hypocritical, hippie socialist he is, but he always had one piece of it right. Free software doesn't have anything to do with price. The innovations in the applications I mentioned were a direct result of the availability of the source code and the desire to build a better mousetrap.
The open source business model has many shortcomings, not the least of which is the tendency for it to attract people like Stallman. You cannot, however, assert that without a direct market benefit that software innovation will not occur. The applications most people see are just the tip of the iceberg. The entire realm of parallelism and software supercomputing lives mostly in the open source world. Amazing innovations occur there on an almost daily basis. Some more useful than others.
Well, as I read it, I thought this so-called "heretic" was saying the profit incentive is not going to be driving innovation in open source because there's not enough money in it. Something else might drive innovation, but the normal profit motive won't be strong enough, because there isn't going to be enough profit.
Not enough coffee for me to be sure I'm being coherent, but I heard his words with an economist's ears.
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