Just what we need another Quango or talking shop to promote the use of Open Source. One of the founding members is OpenAdvantage based in Birmingham and with whom I’ve had some dealings with, so I’m not surprised to see these guys involved. So, the idea is if we get all these interested organisations together and talk about how good Open Source is and people will start to use it! Wrong, what’s needed is to look at making some of these applications in to “Products” and better integrated to allow people to work more easily and effectively. People have panned Microsoft and Novell about their partnership but that’s a far better approach than this. This organisation has no commercial viability and will rely on sponsorship and donations. The OSDL (Open Source Development Lab) has had to cut down on its activities and get rid of people as its handouts have decreased.
P.S. I’ve worked with many Open Source applications in a commercial environment such as NetBeans, Eclipse, Apache/Tomcat, Asterisk, Ant, CVS, Bugzilla, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server v9, Open-XChange Server and a whole range of Linux Desktop distributions.
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March 22nd, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Hi Vijay. Just read your comments re: the NOC and OpenAdvantage. I actually work for OpenAdvantage, so I’m a bit disappointed that’s how you see our work. I’d like to think we do more than talk (though talk is important). I addressed this (what I would call mis-)perception, in the hope of making visible what OpenAdvantage really does, in a blog post at http://townx.org/blog/elliot/national-open-centre-launch, written in response to similar comments from another author.
While I agree that the Novell/MS deal is interesting, to me it seems a particularly negative way to do business: I promise not to sue you if you don’t sue me. Not really embracing the spirit of open source, is it? I also think you’re right about the need for integration, especially at the application level: I’d like to see more companies specialising in this, too, and think there are great business opportunities there.
However, realistically, at OpenAdvantage we have a tiny staff, some of whom are not programmers. We haven’t got the resources to get into integrating Drupal and Alfresco (for instance). Plus this would put us into competition with local companies too directly: integration development is work for commercial companies with a pool of developers (like Senokian, Clocksoft, PalePurple etc. in the West Midlands).
Dissemination of the ideas of open source, lowering the barriers preventing its acceptance, dispelling myths, helping people find support for open source, helping people choose from existing open source software: that’s what we do, and what I believe we’re good at.
March 25th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Elliot, thanks for your comments and I welcome the debate. I’m not suggesting that OpenAdvantage do the application integration work, but I just don’t see the NOC as an effective way of getting people to use open source. Customers will use systems which fulfill their needs and not because you tell them to. I’m sure you’re aware of Linus Torvalds well publised public views on the FSF (Free Software Foundation), that it is become far too much of a “pseudo-religious” crusade and less pragmatic than it should be. I’m interested in solving customer needs and I use the best technical solution to do that whether it is Microsoft or Linux (I support both happily). I know some good people at Microsoft UK and they are not “2 horned monsters” waiting to devour small children. They are good people wanting to do the best for customers and they don’t insist you run Microsoft products. You should also look at the work being done by the Microsoft Open Source Software Labs and the integration/virtualisation work that Microsoft and Novell are doing. Why don’t you mention the work being done by people such as Miguel de Icaza on Mono and his support of the .NET technologies! Whilst I agree Steve Ballmer did have some thinly veiled threats, the likelihood that these would be realised is remote in my view. Microsoft is accepting Open Source in a stage by stage basis and organisations like OpenAdvantage should be building bridges to Microsoft. I quite often make my views known to people I know in Microsoft about things like open standards but I do it from a constructive viewpoint. Whilst we can argue about the relative merits and dismerits of Open Source vs Proprietary what I object to in some quarters is the view that Open Source = morally good and Proprietary = morally bad!
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Hi Vijay. I also welcome the debate. As I point out in many of my presentations, OpenAdvantage is not about religious zealotry: I do several of my presentations using Windows loaded with open source, to make exactly that point. I wouldn’t personally choose to use Windows, but many do, and I am sympathetic to their plight
In all seriousness, switching to Linux is not right for everybody; but keeping an eye on what’s happening in the software space, and where open source could make your life easier/cheaper/more sustainable, is good for everyone. We often talk about Mono (we’ve done presentations on it, for example - http://www.openadvantage.org/events/oaevent.2005-03-07.1184465086), but the truth is there is little interest in it among the companies we work with, so we haven’t repeated it. (.NET is obviously popular, but people looking for non-Microsoft alternatives seem more drawn to PHP than Mono.) I should also point out that my ex-colleague Jono Bacon was heavily engaged with Microsoft’s open source efforts, and visited them a couple of times to speak on the topic (e.g. http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=691 and http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=680).
As for Microsoft not acting on its legal action threats: true, it hasn’t so far. But Steve Ballmer seems to be implying that it could happen when he talks about the Microsoft/Novell deal: otherwise why would he say things like “[other Linux distributors] are certainly welcome to get involved to quickly provide these covenants not to sue” (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2050848,00.asp)? Unless he’s just trying to spread and leverage FUD?
We are not about “open source” = good, “proprietary” = bad. We are about balance, and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We are about helping people take control of their IT, and not get locked into solutions they can’t escape from. We are about helping people find the best solutions (exactly the same as you). Customers do use the systems which best fit their needs, not just because I tell them to. But helping them be informed and make better decisions is the crux of what we are doing at OpenAdvantage. The issue with Microsoft is that their marketing machine is driving every other solution underground, making it hard for small companies to compete and innovate. By helping make open source visible, we hope companies will support it and use it to produce viable, local solutions; which in turn might divert some money away from Redmond and back into the UK economy. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?