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eCapitalism had came (article link)

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:51 pm
by Gambler
A peculiar article titled "There Is No Open Source Community":
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/onlamp/ ... unity.html

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:05 am
by Bill H
??? Lots of ads and menus, nothing textual and no article by that name

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:46 am
by Buddha443556
There's something there. Have to turn off style to see it though and it's definitely broken.
Some software vendors believe that open source is an ideological movement. This paradigm ignores the impact of software prices shattered by zero-cost distribution and global collaboration capabilities, both of which the internet fuels. It also ignores one of the primary factors driving customer adoption: rebellion against vendor lock-in. By combining lower cost of production with the additional freedom and flexibility endemic to open source deployments, one sees two dynamics driving both adoption and production. The push of software commoditization and the pull of customer demands have created a perfect storm for open source software.

This new perspective has implications for other areas, such as TCO and potential legal obstacles to open source. I argue that TCO is largely irrelevant when one takes the larger view of open source evolution. As for legal pitfalls, we believe that economic principles prove this fear is largely unfounded and that any legal impact on open source from patent infringement or copyright violations will be limited in scope. Regardless of who leads the charge, what legal obstacles are thrown in its path, or whether there is any provable TCO advantage, open source will continue to expand its grip on IT.
Try this link [nice plain text]:
http://mail.kein.org/pipermail/incom-l/ ... 01125.html

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:11 am
by Bill H
Why is clear writing skill no longer taught in school? I have an IQ in the 99.9th percentile and I cannot decipher one bit of what this person is talking about. Just a couple of samples.
Conventional wisdom says that powerful individuals drive open source by working against the grain to institute a methodology of sharing that would balance the power between software vendors and users.
Huh? "powerful individuals" I have seen no "conventional wisdomous" articles discussing "powerful individuals" in the open source environment.
The push of software commoditization and the pull of customer demands have created a perfect storm for open source software.
Could anyone tell me what the heck it is that is pushing, how one has customers when one is not selling anything, and exactly what a perfect storm is?

He even got the word "paradigm" in there at least once. Everyone who wants to sound erudite must use that word from time-to-time.

I read this..., this..., this dissertation a couple times and I have been able to extract exactly zero meaningful information from it.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:27 am
by Gambler
Sorry about the link. It worked few days ago. And thanks for the backup version, Buddha.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 10:24 am
by Christopher
Conventional wisdom says that powerful individuals drive open source by
working against the grain to institute a methodology of sharing that
would balance the power between software vendors and users.
Exactly not. This article starts out with a thesis statement that simply isn't true and runs with it. It is a great example of the thinking of someone who really doesn't understand the many things that open source is about. In that it is interesting. He takes the point of view of someone who only understands traditional software licensing by thinking that this is a battle between "good vs evil."

His summation points show that he is trying to fit shape of the traditional software model into the new opportunities which he does not grok. He similarily limits open source developer's options to be those of proprietary software developers. He certainly knows that the internet has somethings to do with it, but he can only think of price -- not value.

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 5:49 pm
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
I agree with the earlier rating of the authors writing skills - could he stick any more verbiage into a sentence? There's a lot of value to writing simply, clearly and to the point...

Besides which its basis in truth is precarious. I can see where he's coming from, you could possibly get the same idea from a first pass look at the open source movement... But its a twisted view, and it just proves the author needs to perform more careful research before his next outing.

Who are these powerful individuals anyway? ;) Go back in time and I doubt there were any powerful individuals driving anything...

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 6:57 pm
by Gambler
Conventional wisdom says that powerful individuals drive open source by
working against the grain to institute a methodology of sharing that
would balance the power between software vendors and users.
Exactly not.
Do you mean "Conventional wisdom says" part, or "powerful individuals drive open source" part?

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 7:36 pm
by Moocat
Agreed,

Big Words != Good article

Concise Facts & Supporting Arguements == Good Article (even if I disagree)

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:09 pm
by Roja
After having caused the ruckus in the eCommunism thread, I would have thought we had clearly established the need to avoid baitword topics, and similar themes. Perhaps I was mistaken.

However, since we are here :) , might as well make the best of it.
Bill H wrote: this dissertation a couple times and I have been able to extract exactly zero meaningful information from it.
Buried in the over-the-top writing style, there are in fact some key arguments made. Namely:

- Its not the people, its the market forces
- Without those people, the market forces would keep those projects moving
- So businesses need to focus on the market forces, not on keeping the people happy

Those are the opening salvo's.

However, while each are interesting and debatable positions, he fails to back them up with solid facts. He does a fantastic job arguing the other side, telling a fairly complete, well-documented, and strong background of why the popular story is as it is - there *were* notable personalities and they *did* drive forward the projects in question, all of which became extremely successful.

Yet, he gives no evidence that it is wrong. He simply states that "we" (Royal we? Who is he speaking on behalf of?) feel, believe, argue, and assert various positions that support his contention. He points at software costs lowering (doesn't actually give numbers, or sources to refer to), yet not at any specific project that had a notable leader step down, and move forward despite that driven only by market forces.

Worse, he then throws out supposition as fact:
Looking at open source from an economic perspective, it becomes clear that Linux or its equivalent was bound to happen eventually, regardless of whether Linus decided to release a kernel in 1991.
I'm sure the same (inaccurate) argument could be made for Einstein. Someone was bound to figure it all out eventually.

Only they didn't. The great man did arrive, did discover and break that ground, and more. Linus is no Einstein, but he did things that you can't remove just because it "probably coulda woulda shoulda happened anyway". As my Mother used to say, "Coulda" Woulda, but he didn't.

Even better, he makes a claim that is provably false:
Both of these are the natural result of massive price drops in their respective markets.
Neither Unix at the time of Linux entering the market, or Webservers at the time Apache entered the market, were dropping in price. In fact, in both cases, they were *rising*. Did the introduction of both then lower the price, as would be expected in a competitive market with a zero-cost competitor?

NO. They continued to rise for several years later, until they gained widespread community acceptance as feature-comparable, stable, and reliable. Only then did they gain the market share capable of causing price corrections, and when those occurred it was a slope directly headed to commodity. Notice, the effect came after the cause, not the other way around, as he argues.

The point he desperately hopes people will accept is that the people, the community, don't matter, and that just by working with lots of people (force multiplier), you can get the same effect, with the same level of success.

The only problem is that he lists several (GNU, Linux, Apache) great counter-examples, and can't point to a single example proving that true. In every highly successful opensource project, there have been either great individuals, or a robust community driving their success. Not market forces.

Or put another way, it wasn't the process - it was the people.