SAP Exec Disparages Open Source As IP Socialism 498
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."
Re:Bogeyman... (Score:5, Informative)
SAP (Score:3, Informative)
The costs are typically astronomical to start with, but the costs just go up as you need a band of specialized software liason managers to manage the system.
Just so you know where they are coming from. My take? Bullshit/FUD from another closed-source software vendor.
http://www.sap.com/index.epx/ [sap.com]
SAP should tell SAP it doesn't work... (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly of course SAP has actually had a history of doing Open Source, including releasing its own product (sapdb, now MaxDB) and certifying R/3 on Open Source platforms including Linux, and the MaxDB database. They probably also use some of the Apache libraries in Netweaver.
So far from breaking their product suite SAP actually enable you to rely on Open Source to deliver the sort of availability you'd expect from a proper ERP.
Best disinformacija quote (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe because Linux is a kernel, not a desktop.
SAP uses open source (Score:5, Informative)
I can't logon on to work at moment and check (UPS maint), but it is full of it.
It is possible this bloke doesn't speak for the whole company.
so how does this fit in? (Score:2, Informative)
Well SAP just proudly presents,
more then 1000 Customers are
running mission critical Systems
on Linux. For those who do not
know, moving a Company to SAP can
easily cost millions of USD. Money
is not a primary issue. Stability
is! So do not put MS and SAP into
the same spot, MS does not work in
the Linux-World. Mr. Agassi is a
manager, who just farted through the
wrong hole. Do not worry, SAP is rather
a OSS Supporter. Go for http://www.sapdb.org/ [sapdb.org]
This Article is not good journalism, as you
can see from the comments below. A real
Journalist would have asked more critical
questions.
Re:Bogeyman... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bogeyman... (Score:3, Informative)
Innovation in Europe happens by government mandate or not at all
This is an unfounded and prejuditial affirmation you make. It's the sort of anti-european statements that some Americans like to pull out of their asses.
How is it socialism? (Score:3, Informative)
How is this even remotely related to shared intellectual property, contributed by individuals and corporations (non-state actors), to a common good? Especially, as the primary result seems to be the establishment of high-quality standards that private and public players need to adhere to in order to participate in the market?
It seems like a government appropriation of an idea- which is what copyright and patent laws do, they leverage the power of the state against the ownership of an "idea"- is far further along the path to socialism than the free and interested contribution of ideas to a common market.
Frankly, this guy's head is so far up his ass, he can probably see out his nostrils.
Re:It's not just Germany... (Score:3, Informative)
I understand it when nonstandard stuff is complicated, but here we're talking a process that is as bog-standard as it gets: a child is born, in Germany, with german parents and should be registered as a german citizen. This is something that happens 1000 times a year in this city alone.
I counted. The process involves visiting 6 different agencies with a sum total of 22 different documents in totally 65 copies, meaning most of the agencies require nearly or even precisely the same documentation.
It's just stupidity. It costs literally millions for people who do nothing more than move paper around. For example, the application for "kindergeld" and "erziehungsgeld" requires *precisely* the same documentation, and since *everyone* gets "kindergeld" the entire application-process for erziehungsgeld could be replaced with a single checkbox on the already existing form for kindergeld.
Only the "erziehungsgeld" is for unfathomable reasons paid by the department of work ("Arbeidamt") inspite of having nothing to do with work whatsoever (you get it even if you never held a job in your life...), and the different agencies are incapable of communicating, so you gotta do the same thing twice. The same process, by contrast, in Norway consists of the following: Show up for the birth bringing along some kind of ID. After the child is born, sign the pre-filled form the hospital put before you. That's it. (it's sligthly more complicated if the parents *arent* married, in that case a "declaration of fatherhood" and a signature from the father is required additionally)