The Open Group's New Open Source Strategy

Bruce Perens writes "The Open Group hasn't always had the best reputation in the Open Source community, mostly because of their handling of Motif, which remained proprietary for much too long. But there's no arguing with the success of our community, and now the Open Group leadership understands that their organization must be fully involved in Open Source... or it's time for them to change their name. To that end, the Open Group contracted me to develop an Open Source strategy for their organization. The draft strategy has been published and they are requesting comment. - Bruce"

An added strategy

The Open Group needs to add one more major strategy: preparing for and combating frivilous legal claims and the insuing litigations.

This is perhaps the greatest (and one day maybe even the only) threat to Open Source.

Re:An added strategy

Worries about open source being profitable forget that open source lasted plenty long without profitability.

Open source and business have gone hand-in-hand from the start. What's different today is that you have a few companies trying to turn it into a shrinkwrap product.

Whether those endeavors succeed or fail is irrelevant to open source in itself.

Re:An added strategy

I think SCO is a member, too. Open Group is not vendor-dominated, as far as I can tell. They have lots of large corporate users in their membership, some government agencies (including DOD/DISA), etc.

And regarding Sun, specifically, Sun has a multiple-personality disorder where Free Software is concerned. They help us with one hand and hurt with the other. This is also true for IBM, Intel, and HP. They have an internal conflict of interest that they won't be able to resolve in this decade. The best we can do is live with it.

Bruce

Well..

I won't believe they're serious until they change their name to Gnu/OpenGroup.

Motif?

Huh? I thought Motif still was proprietary, even to this day. Or at least, it is proprietary software in the sense of not being free software. Or was there some big announcement I missed?

Re:Motif?

Motif Faq [faqs.org]

Subject: 2)* Is the Motif source code publically available?
[Last modified: Jan 02]

Answer: On May 15, 2000 the Open Group released the Motif source code for
Motif 2.1, using a public license, to the Open Source community. On January
29, 2002, Open Motif 2.2 was released.

Is Open Source Good for All of Our Members?

This is a very good question. The trend that Open Source software seems to encorage is a gradual but irreversable shift away from propriatary and profiting methods. As stated in the strategy, this is good for the majority (users) and bad for the minority (vendors). The question is wether or not this method of software development is sustainable if it's popularity grew to a point where it was the majority method of development.

Some would say that it would be great. Everything would be free, innovation would happen at a rapid rate, but what about compensation for the developers. Software written under a GLP type licience, does not leave room for profits from the actual software. Ad-hoc services can only go so far to support an entire development effort. Who pays the developers for thier hard work?

The question I leave open for disucssion is this: How sustainable do you think Open Source in it's current form is and do you think that varients such as the Apache Licience are an innevatable change necessary for the properity of the community.

Re:Is Open Source Good for All of Our Members?

I don't disagree with you. Chances are that this type of development will shrink as open source software replaces proprietary software. It will shrink, but it won't die away. Companies that make their living off of selling systems (IBM) or hardware (Intel) will continue to fund open-source develeopment.

Re:Is Open Source Good for All of Our Members?

You need to re-read the GPL manifesto. You are under the assumption that the GPL is around to help people.

Re:Is Open Source Good for All of Our Members?

Well, my job right now is basically to support my organization's systems. If the accounting system goes wonky, I call the vendor to address it. If our in-house web intranet thingy goes wonky, I fix it. If a WinNT4.0 desktop goes wonky, I explain that we are all powerless to do anything, let's go have a drink.

My point is that in an all-open-source world, I would still have a job: I'd be answering user's requests and fixing bugs for them. I just wouldn't have to call vendors anymore, and I could actually fix a desktop too.

Re:Is Open Source Good for All of Our Members?

The trend that Open Source software seems to encorage is a gradual but irreversable shift away from propriatary and profiting methods. As stated in the strategy, this is good for the majority (users) and bad for the minority (vendors). The question is wether or not this method of software development is sustainable if it's popularity grew to a point where it was the majority method of development.

No, that is not the question. The 40-70% profit margins achieved by vendors are clearly unsustainable--they can't exist in an efficient market. Open source software just happens to be the mechanism by which this market finally starts operating efficiently.

How sustainable do you think Open Source in it's current form

You are viewing open source software as some kind of alternative to proprietary development, but it is not. Rather, it is a stage in the evolution of a software market segment.

Something like the UNIX kernel used to cost lots of money because it provided functionality that was not widely available. But it was natural for it eventually to become open source. Ditto for software like Wordperfect and Microsoft word: initially, people could charge a premium for it because few people offered it (let's not get into the fact that the technology was invented elsewhere), but (absent monopolistic barriers), something like OpenOffice now gives you the same functionality for free.

You can make a big profit on some innovative piece of software for a few years, but then it gets commoditized and your price will go down from competition. Software is different from other goods there because it really has no physical component; generic drugs, electronics, etc., still have a non-zero cost even if there is no intellectual property. That's why it is ultimately open source programmers, not no-name manufacturers, that are driving software prices down, and in fact are driving them to how much it costs to make another unit of product: zero.

In short, open source software is sustainable--it's pretty much inevitable in an efficient market. The only thing that can kill it is government interference in the market or monopolistic practices.

Re:Is Open Source Good for All of Our Members?

According to European and US economic data, a minority of software jobs are connected with retail software. Most software is not written to be sold. Instead, software is a cost-center within a company that does something else for its profit-center. Internal software is often a non-differentiating (doesn't make your company different from the competition) but necessary. This is all perfect for Open Source collaboration.

So, to the question "will Open Source kill my job?", the answer is generally "no". India will kill your job (well, those of you who are not in India). And I don't know what you should do about that.

Bruce

OSF/1?

Didn't The Open Group do an entire UNIX implementation (the only implementation of which was Digital OSF/1|UNIX|Tru64)?

If so, how much of this could they open? Anything useful in it?

mk (as in mkLinux)

Yes, OSF (later The Open Group after they merged with X/Open) created OSF/1, which was originally going to be the Unix for all the member companies. I think that included DEC, HP, and IBM, but not Sun. In the end, only DEC moved away from using their own home-grown system, so it could be considered a failure based on the original goals.

Later, The Open Group developed mk, based on the Mach 3 microkernel. While the Unix personality for the kernel was tainted with AT&T code, the microkernel was able to be released for free. The free mk was released with a Linux-based server, with the package known as mkLinux. Some (most?) of the funding for mk came from Apple, and I believe that it is the basis for OS X.

There was a little-known project called mk++, which was a complete re-write of the Mach microkernel interfaces using C++. There was a plan to release a book on mk++ along with a CD containing mk++Linux. Unfortunately, a month or so before it was to be sent off, all development efforts were shut down, and The Open Group became a Unix branding organization.

NOTE: I worked briefly at The Open Group, doing work on mk and mk++.

Draft strategy is excellent summary of Open Source

Bruce,

I think that the opening section of your draft strategy is the best summary of the current state of the world of open-source/closed-source detente. It's exactly right that proprietary solutions are failing, and will fail with increasing rates, as open source proliferates and hardware increasingly becomes a commodity.

I have two issues with the summary. The first is that it a strategy should be a long-term document, something that might be as valid five or ten years from now as it is today (this compares to a tactical position.) I don't think that the current stated strategy, while appropriate to this time of flux, will be appropriate then.

Second, I just have a issue with the 'Sorry Vendors' line at the end of the first section -- everything else in the document is straightforward, concise, and emotion-free.

thad

Re:Draft strategy is excellent summary of Open Sou

Parent is someone who seems to have actually read the article! What is happening to /.!?

start with a name change

how about,

• "The now we're open group"
• "More Open Group"
• "We haven't been so Open in the past, but we've see the errors of our ways Group"
• "No longer Not Open group"
• "Bandwagon Group"
• "The New and Improved Open Group"
• "Really Open Group"
• "This time we mean it Open Group"

Open for business.

There does need to be a business community developed among Open Source, and the very idea free not as in free beer. To go about bashing (even if you are a born again basher) those who seriously try to make a living with technology is just stupid.

The best possible way to accomplish this is to set a model of co-operative enterprise that todays over-blown corporate despots cannot compete with. If you study nature co-operative systems invariably will out compete when up against closed single modeled systems. The fundamentals of this are already in the GPL which will go down in history as one of the great documents of our time. Along with other human social documents like the Magna Carta. RMS really is a visionary.

Open Source Strategy

I can see the position to share it but irreversable shift away from propriatary and will be used in the greatest (and other open source OS that meets the developers get along just fine with Flash animations and PowerPoint slides.) The Open Source Strategy GNU is the majority method of their name to add one forces you care about your draft strategy is today (this compares to further his own career.) I trust you won't believe they're serious until they will fail meaning I won't believe they're serious until they will fail with the success of Motif, which remained proprietary software with others that did.

Too complex/too little time?

To me these issues are quite complex, and a draft like this need a follow up here at Slashdot soonish. Perhaps within a week to get a good brainstorming settle.

Unfortunately all good remarks will come very late to this message, when people have had time to read it carefully. Then, there are already more than 500 comments, of less value and people don't really care any longer.

My suggestion, in cases like these, would be to use the Slashdot forum as a forum with delay - as is done before an upcoming interview. A short notice in advance and a more indepth follow later. Let people have a few days to think it over and get a refreshener then. Perhaps overdoing it? Whatever.

Comments? Hah!

So, wait, he expects the Slashdot readers to read a draft and comment on it? Ha! Read the article - that's a good one, Bruce.

The OpenGroup is the Cathedral and irrelevant

The Open Group has been pretty much irrelevant for the last 5 years, not because they have been closed source, but because they are a Cathedral style closed source. Both Gnome and KDE have become far, far superior to Motif in a far shorter amount of time. What role is there to play for a centralized standards-blessing body in the world of the distributed, bazaar-style development?

If Bruce says it doesn't exist, it probably doesn'

When attorneys new to Open Source have access to another attorney who is experienced with Open Source licensing, especially the GPL, the process goes much more smoothly. One way we can help is to produce a reference for attorneys, or programs for attorneys at our meetings.

Does anyone know of a reference quide or set of resources that might help IP attorneys start thinking about the GPL and open source?

I'm working on building a cross-corporation (non profits) knowledge sharing network that will likely rely heavily on GPL like language. I expect the legal conversations to be less than fun. Any resources for convincing IP lawyers that there are other ways to do things would be much appreciated.

Ramblings about the draft....

Sadly, I haven't been around the *NIX/'open source community' long enough to know about the Open Group's misdealings with Motif.

However, this draft thingy looks pretty good; there are a couple things I'd look at in closer detail. For instance, observe the three distinctions between the various 'manifestations' of things "open source". Open Source Methods, for instance, bear little resemblence(sp?) to the concept of open source software licensing.

Notice that there is no "Key Point" under the second 'open source manifestation', open source licensing. Odd, that.

Note one of the recommended projects:

"Establish an "OpenForge" portal for The Open Group, where all of the various Open Group projects that are available in Open Source will reside. This portal could also be expanded to host deserving Open Source projects on the outside."

Sort of like a non-public, corporate-funded SourceForge? Hm.

Keep in mind, of course, that this is a draft.
---

"Jonas Miller. He's a nightcrawler. We all started out in the same lab, but Jonas went out and got himself some corporate sponsors. He's in it for the money, not the science!" -Twister

Open Source = Free?

Does Open Source always equal free? I know it is nice to have the source code, but I must admit I have never really looked at it for the apps I use. In some ways, I really could care less.

But if I wanted a application that I knew needed some maintence, support, etc - I don't see any reason not to pay the money. Examples being mySQL, StarOffice, a Linux distro, etc.

I think Open Source's biggest gain is that it has a "nice to know" feature - the source code. Suppose someone offered a product for $50 dollars, and it came with the source code. You may never need it, but it's nice to know that it is there.

Re:Open Source = Free?

There are proprietary forms of software with disclosed source code but without Open Source licensing. Microsoft calls this Shared Source, Sun calls it Community Source, I just call it "Disclosed Source-Code". It's important to note that Open Source relates to the rights attached to the code, not just the presence of source code.

Open Source, a form of Social Darwinism?

The marketing mechanism of global Open Source community is best described as a massively parallel drunkards walk, filtered by a Darwinistic process. This looks more like research than conventionally driven development.

Social darwinism, joined with a "market mechanism" mumbo-jumbo, to describe how Open Source, and research functions/works? I am, to put it mildly, astonished that Perens has written this!

I was sort of hoping that social darwinism to describe social structure was a relic of the last century, and best left that way.

Please ignore the drunkards walk part of the article, it's just a distraction from the real point.

Deutsche Democratic Republic

The Open Group announcing that they're interested in Open Source Software is like the Deutsche Democratic Republic announcing they're interested in becoming a democratic republic.

DDR (Deutsche Democratic Republic) was the name of East Germany during the time it was a Communist, non-democratic non-republic, which was as ironic as the Open Group calling themselves an open group.

To bring it into the present: It's as ironic as George Bush announcing he's finally going to pay attention to military intelligence, instead of fabricating his own.

-Don

Interesting ramifications

Interesting. It seems to me that the computer software industry is being commoditized into basic tools for jobs, and your write up seems to agree with this view.

In other words, companies need X and Y tools, and they need someone to provide them. Anyone will do, and the labor of the installation of X and Y is mainly what is paid over the cost of X and Y. It seems similar to, say, the furniture industry, where you have a Lazy Boy sofa, which you can get from anyone. The difference between the sofa providers is that some will deliver for you, but they charge more for the sofa, while others do not deliver, and they charge less. Etc.

Is Open Source Good for All of Our Members? No.

The key section is titled "Is Open Source Good for All of Our Members?", and from my reading of that
section, the answer is "no".

You say how a "nonrivalrous public good" is good
for the general population, but generally bad for
vendors. Well, the Open Group members are those
vendors, they are not the "general population"
or even "users".

You talk about reduced vendor margins and how vendors
must shift to services and make other "uncomfortable changes". But you never make any case
that Open Source is good for vendors. In fact,
you seem to be saying that it is *not* good for vendors.

You talk about HP's 40% profit margin and say that
those good times are over. That may be good for
consumers and the industry overall, but it certainly isn't good for HP.

If you really think that Open Source is good for
HP, Sun, IBM, and the others, then you need to
spell out the reasons much more clearly and
concisely. That section right now sounds like you're
saying "Open Source isn't as bad for us as you might think".

Andy

*Yawn*

I'll be impressed when they actually release the source code to DCE 1.22 under the LGPL like they have been saying they are going to do for about a year now. Until then it is just a well written paper by Bruce Perens. The Open Group so far has a horrible track record grasping the concept of "open"

Finkployd

To challenge Bruce's "engineering over marketing"

The reason why Open Source user interfaces are so bad is because the entire Open Source movement is engineer-centric, and most engineers (especially Open Source ones) are incredibly clueless when it comes to understanding and being empathic with the non-technical users who are using their software.

For years people in the HCI field been screaming at open source engineers to design the UI before the code is written, because there are things that pop up in the UI design process that have lower-level ramifications that engineers don't usually consider when they go the code-first approach. If these issues aren't taken care of immediately and much code is written, the engineers will be loathe to change something just because it makes the software more usable, and the result is that you've got usability problems that take years to fix (if they ever are).

The response we typically get when we tell the engineers they need to come up with the user interaction before major code is written: "You obviously don't understand the Open Source method".

While I am all for OSS, I fail to see how giving engineers even more power will make the situation any better.

Extend and encompass

My first impression of Bruce's draft is that it's merely another version of MicroSoft's strategy of extend and encompass.

Bruce seems to fail to understand that Open Group needs Open Source more than Open Source needes Open Group.

I never realized Bruce was so arrogant.

OSDL...

That's mean that the OpenGroup could be join to Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) like sponsor?

OpenForge??

"Establish an "OpenForge" portal for The Open Group, where all of the various Open Group projects that are available in Open Source will reside. This portal could also be expanded to host deserving Open Source projects on the outside.

One problem that the Open Source community is presently facing is that the owner of SourceForge is having financial problems, and there's no guarantee that whoever eventually purchases it will be viewed well by the community. Thus, an organization-hosted portal similar to SourceForge would be appreciated."

Time to create one SF.net Foundation or pass the SF control to OSDL?

Ok, this is off topic

Ya this is off topic, but i think this is important to Open Source.

How does one go about getting Tux models?

I have started a project on sourceforge called Sound Orgy. I am rendering the logo in povray. I was wonder if there were any povray models of tux out there that I could use in my logo? (while my project is cross-platform, i'd like to promote the fact that it is developed for Linux).

My suggestion for TOG's open strategy

Here's my simple, humble suggestion:

The Open Group should waive the fees for Free operating system with regard to Unix branding.

That way, operating systems such as Linux, GNU/Linux, and assortedBSD can truly, officially, be called Unix in name as well as in spirit.

I'll believe it when I see it, Bruce.

I think The Open Group should choose a name that reflects their long history with the Unix (not to be confused with UNIX--the registered trademark of The Open Group and you'd be stupid to use it in a sentence without their permission) community. For example:

"The Please-Pay-Us-Money-To-Call-That-UNIX Group"
"The We'll-Sue-Your-Sorry-Open-Source-Ass Group"
"The Everything-Is-Open-Except-For-Our-Trademarks Group"
"The Please-Buy-Closed-Source-Motif Group"
"The Never-Has-Been-Never-Will-Be Open Group"

Failing that, perhaps a more modern name that reflects their traditional outlook would be more appropriate:

"The goatse.cx Group"
"The Open-As-In-Gaping-Asshole Group"

* all copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, or other IP including but not limited to
Motif, UNIX, and The Open Group are probably property of The Open Group [unix.org]; any others mentioned are property of their respective owners.

Re:Viral

>> Open Source = Viral.

It's because people have pride in their work and want to share it with others that open source exists.

Re:My attention span is about 5 minutes

As much as this does sound like a troll put yourself in the place of a PHB...

Re:Viral

"Open Source = Viral."

I'd agree except for one minor detail:

No one forces you to plunder GPL'd (and other similarly licensed) code.

Millions of programmers and developers get along just fine with the ideals set forth in 'open source' licenses. They also greatly benefit from the fact that some random person or corporation can't then steal their work.

Re:Bruce's Spin

Agreed, that should be in there.

Don't flame him for neglect, this is a draft. Its bound to have many small and some large omissions by the nature of the document. Drafts are like a JPEG with 99% compression- looks crappy but gives a solid idea of what it is supposed to be.

Re:michael rushed this out due to timothy's failur

OMG! I don't usually look at book reviews but glad i did... that was mayhem! Not one serious comment.

Hell, I mainly read comments for the good trolls anyway...

Re:My attention span is about 5 minutes

Couldn't they summarize it all using three bullet-points?

Re:Emacs people:

I think it is an old-timey way of denoting a Boolean check. I'm not an Emacs person nor a Lisp person but I heard that somewhere.

Re:Emacs people:

the -p stands for 'predicate'. it denotes something that returns true or false (T or NIL).

Re:Bruce's Spin

Notice how Bruce neglects to point that out.

It's a draft, sir. Please feel free to comment directly to Bruce, since that is what he requested.

GPLed code however cannot be put into BSD code w/o the BSD code loosing its far more open nature.

Depends on your definition of open, I guess. I prefer open code to remain open. If it can be taken closed and proprietary, then that makes it less open, IMO.

Re:Viral

No. Open source licenses like BSD impose almost no restrictions on you and don't affect any of your own source code.

Free software licenses like GPL might be described as "viral". But if the GPL is viral, many commercial software licenses are even more "viral".

If you care about your IP, you have to be careful no matter what license you agree to, whether it is the GPL or a Microsoft EULA. And it certainly isn't hard to preserve your IP and still use GPL'ed software if you spend the same amount of effort on it as you do on a commercial license.

Re:Thank God it is you Bruce

:-) That really needs to be modded up. So true.

Re:Thank God it is you Bruce

Make sure you're referring to the real Bruce Perens [slashdot.org]

Re:Thank God it is you Bruce

This really made my day. Thanks!

Re:Bruce's Spin

Notice how Bruce neglects to point that out.

Actually, I did point it out. Or at least imply it. In this text:

Establishment of a small set of licenses that are all compatible with each other, so that projects can be mixed.

Identification of a range of licenses within this set, roughly from least to most restrictive, that implement a range of Open Source business plans.

Standardization within the Open Group membership on this range of licenses, so that all Open Source work done by our members has compatible licensing, across all of our various companies.

Compatibility with a broad range of existing Open Source projects, so that our members can take part in work under most or all of the existing Open Source projects while complying with our standards.

The licenses I recommend, from similar work for HP's GELATO consortium, would be:

A BSD-like license.

Least restrictive, can be integrated into proprietary software with impunity.

A LGPL-like license.

Can be integrated into proprietary software, the Open Source component maintains its "free" status while not placing restrictions upon the proprietary elements.

A GPL-like license.

Embodies the share-and-share-alike quid-pro-quo of the GPL. Can be used to protect revenues from a parallel proprietary licensing track. Keeps your competition from running away with your product in a proprietary form that you can't match.

These licenses need not be identical to the BSD, LGPL, and GPL, but should be compatible with them in their terms.

Bruce

Re:Berkeley UNIX

How stringent do you think they are? The UNIX certification program was put in place (in 1994, and it remains so to this day) with a 50% discount for the UNIX fees for low cost ($1500 I seem to recall) software shipped without hardware. The reality we see today WAS forseen when the program was put together. Now you can argue whetehr the absolute numbers are to your liking :-))