SAP Exec Disparages Open Source As IP Socialism

FlorianMueller writes "According to a VNUnet report, Shai Agassi, the president of the product and technology group at SAP, disparaged open source as 'more likely to break applications' than to deliver innovation. He also equated the open-source development model with 'Intellectual property [IP] socialism,' which he says 'is the worst that can happen to any IP-based society.' In Europe, it isn't a secret that SAP's management primarily views open source as a threat to its business, and that SAP is politically on Microsoft's side. SAP and Microsoft co-financed certain pro-patent lobbying activities in Europe, and recently co-founded the European Software Association, an entity that is expected to lobby for software patents and against open-source adoption by European governments."

Why against open?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are affraid that anyone sees their horrible source code.

Never works?

[DrXym]

I take it then that SAP software always works first time, doesn't require an army of consultants to install, correctly and no one has a bad word of any kind to say about it?

In Soviet Russia...

[Guardian of Terra]

This article deals with 'socialism', so I'm waiting politely for the best 'In Soviet Russia' comment.

All your broken applications are belong to us!

[octogen]

1. [...] open source as 'more likely to break applications' [...]
2. [...] SAP's management primarily views open source as a threat to its business [...]

Perfectly consistent, if they think that 1.) is true, then 2.) is only a logical consequence, because until now it has always been SAP's job to break things...

;-)

Re:Never works?

[peterprior]

I would refer to someone who purchases their software as a 'poor sap [urbanup.com]' but the irony would be too much to bear

Re:Bogeyman...

[aurelian]

Why should I be penalised if my mother is a crack whore? That's not my fault, is it?

It is if you sold her the crack.

Re:Bogeyman...

[Kick the Donkey]

I'm an alcoholic, and my employer continues to give me money. Does that make them bad?

Re:Why against open?

[AKAImBatman]

They're probably just ticked off that the OSS community didn't jump on their wonderful SAP DB [sapdb.org] database! So what if it's the crappiest amalgamation of computer languages ever seen to mankind? It's open source, man! You were all supposed to fix it for them!