Does It Matter Where Open Source is Based? 100
munchola writes "CBR has created a map of current open source software providers that contradicts the recent assertion of Alfresco's Matt Asay that "open source is not a Silicon Valley phenomenon". That statement has prompted a debate about the importance of location, involving Asay, Robert Scoble, and Dana Blankenhorn. A closer look shows that open source is very much a Silicon Valley phenomenon."
Get slashdotted! (Score:5, Funny)
Google map + Any story + Web 2.0 mash up = Get slashdotted
Re:Get slashdotted! (Score:5, Insightful)
a map full of baloons claiming that open source only is developed in a few developed nations. completely ignoring developments from africa, australia, and several other locations
Re:Get slashdotted! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Get slashdotted! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Get slashdotted! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Get slashdotted! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Get slashdotted! (Score:3, Funny)
According to this there are only two open source vendors in the UK (one in Berkshire and one on the Isle of Man).
Clearly a huge data sample there.
Re:Get slashdotted! (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot editors are good trolls
Makes no sense to me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Makes no sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Makes no sense to me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Makes no sense to me (Score:5, Insightful)
The Apache group worked together for years without most of the principals so much as meeting. It began in Chicago at NCSA and spread.
The origin of the OSS movement was quite definitely Cambridge MA and Stallman. He may be mad as a hatter but he did start things.
OK so there are more OSS startups based in the valley than elsewhere. That merely shows that there is more VC in the Valley and they don't like to travel. If people are going to treat the OSS startups as if they are OSS then we might as well close up show now.
Most of the OSS startups have business models that make no more sense than Dilbert and Wally's attempt to corner the maket for Internet sales of tuna sandwiches. Boy it sure looks like 1997 again. Only difference this time is that OSS is the new Java.
Re:Makes no sense to me (Score:1)
Re:Makes no sense to me (Score:2)
NCSA is part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.
Silicone Valley you said? (Score:1)
KDE
Vendors != producers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Makes no sense to me (Score:2, Interesting)
In the private sector growing companies from out side of the US will get them selves a Silicon Valley address. This an important strategy for continued growth especially for the lucrative US market. From a marketing point of view Americans prefer to buy from someone they see as American and for the rest of the world a Silicon Valley address is seen as pedigree.
I can't speak for any existing Open Source project, but t seems to me, if you have developers from around the
Doesn't really matter where it's based (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Doesn't really matter where it's based (Score:1)
They miss the point completely. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason to go to silicon valley. The area is beautiful, and the talent pool for your $COMPANY there is tremendous, if you need 20 engineers to work on some software project, finding 20 skilled individuals in Atlanta, Georgia is going to suck. Trying to find 20 skilled people in silicon valley is a matter of going out to a busy resturant at lunch
Re:They miss the point completely. (Score:1)
Re:They miss the point completely. (Score:1)
I'm sure you're right about lots of talented people living nearby, but beautiful?!? I admit, I've only visited, but as far as I can see, silicon valley is
Re: (Score:1)
Re:They miss the point completely. (Score:2)
Re:They miss the point completely. (Score:1)
I've been to San Francisco a few times, and I love it. My first thought the first time driving up there was that I thought it was odd that they didn't build any higher up the mountain just south of the city. Then I got
Re:They miss the point completely. (Score:2)
Re:They miss the point completely. (Score:1)
I like my women like I like my coffee... (Score:2)
Re:They miss the point completely. (Score:1)
That talented people will cost 150K/year each + options/bonuses
And it is not easier to find people in Bay Area than in any other place - check craigslist. This is one of the reasons why the cos there need so many H1 visas. There are simply no people willing to work - not enough people. After a couple of exists "just coding" is not somet
are you kidding?? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think you haven't been to atlanta in a long time....
addendum: (Score:1)
http://www.atlantasmartcity.com/html/work/overvie
Re:are you kidding?? (Score:2)
Yeah, between the downtown crowd and the georgia tech alumni, there is no shortage of very bright people at the old varsity.
Re:are you kidding?? (Score:1)
Re:are you kidding?? (Score:2)
I've never been to Trackside, but love some good wings, so I'll have to check it out.
But where are the developers (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
It makes sense to see so many dots in the Silicon Valley since this is a map of where companies who develop open source software are located. I would guess that if plotted where developers who have created open source software, enterprise or not, are located that you will find a *lot* more dots in Europe and a lot less in Silicon Valley.
So really, nothing to see here, move along.
Right here (Score:5, Informative)
Like this [debian.org]?
Re:Right here (Score:4, Interesting)
Things you'll notice is that there's still a good cluster in Silicon Valley, but there's also a good cluster in Boston, and the seemingly huge list of European locations isn't quite so huge, there's just more cities with less people. Most interestingly, there's very few Russian participants, despite there being plenty of talented software developers. Finally, the largest Debian developer area is probably Tokyo.
Re:Right here (Score:1)
See Finland on the map? I don't. (Score:1)
Linus Torvalds's country, anyone?
The guy is an immigrant aiming to steal our 'merikin jerbs.
[it's a joke, dammit]
Re:See Finland on the map? I don't. (Score:3, Funny)
What's a jerb?
Re:See Finland on the map? I don't. (Score:1)
Site is possibly NWS
Re:See Finland on the map? I don't. (Score:2)
Never, ever trust a TV accent. Especially a cartoon accent.
Aren't you smart enough to know that?
duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:duh (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed; this is the main thing I noticed about the article.
I'm part of several open-source efforts. One is a music package first developed by a math prof in Germany. When he announced to the mailing list that he was getting too busy, at least three of us started forks of his code and implemented radically different new features (needed by different groups of musicians). All of us (including the original author) have put our source code online for anyone who wants it. This means that we aren't "vendors"; i.e., we aren't selling it. So we aren't included in this articles data. None of us developers are in Silicon Valley.
In a different direction, I'm one of at least a thousand C developers who has a personal collection of C debugging tools. I wrote some, downloaded some, and radically rewrote a few other tools. I keep it all online. I see occasional downloads (by non-search-bots
Talking about open-source "vendors" pretty much labels the writer as clueless. Either that, or someone trying to prove something and hoping we won't notice the verbal sleight of hand.
Does it matter where open source is based? (Score:1, Troll)
As long as it stays away from Redmond.
Re:Does it matter where open source is based? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd be ok if companies in Redmond open sourced some of their software. If they did, I might consider using their software on occassion.
But it's still my choice.
Re:Does it matter where open source is based? (Score:1)
What an accurate map.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Equally interesting is that he somehow has forgotten where Linux started up, where iRC originated and so many other open source projects have come up. SuSE is no where on the map and the other countless German open source contributions.
All in all, this is about as much news (or accurate) as most of the stuff on the Inquirer.
Re:What an accurate map.. (Score:2)
Or Slashdot, for that matter.
What does "providers" mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many important open source projects have one central coordinating authority, like SourceForge or LKML, and the actual project members are spread geographically over the globe?
Who exactly is on this list, and how were they chosen? The article does not say what the selection criteria was, and I see entries on the map ranging from JBoss (an important project) to "Linux Networx" (Who?).
If this map tosses in companies like IBM for whom open source is an important strategy but still a peripheral part of their business, but ignores people like Alan Cox living in a little cottage in a field somewhere in Britain, it may be all you've done here is make a map of "software corporations".
it matters and its not the valley (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it matters and its not the valley (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who has worked in the valley for nearly 20 years, I have to wonder what evidence you have to support that idea. It certainly runs counter to my experience here. At more than one of my jobs I have been not only allowed, but encouraged by my management to open-source software I've written on company time. (Not everything I've written, of course, but stuff that is not part of the company's core business.)
Do
Not really (Score:2)
It's over the Internet. (Score:2, Interesting)
Import, export, patents, DMCA (Score:2)
With a maze of differing import laws, munitions export laws, patent laws, and copyright anti-circumvention laws, it matters very much in which jurisdiction a free software project is developed, even with the Internet.
But the Linux® kernel has big companies behind it (such as IBM) that can use their patent portfolios to countersue software pate
This is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
It also says exactly nothing about the physical distribution of the open source phenomenon.
Depends on the kind of open source (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, Silicon Valley does have a much higher concentration of computer people than just about anywhere else in the world. So if there is a relatively constant percentage of developers who contribute to open source projects, naturally you'll find the most open source contributors wherever you find the most developers in general.
One enormous flaw... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you count open-source software companies (I have seen ActiveState and CodeWeavers, for instance), sure, it seems most of it is gathered in the USA and in Europe.
But take a look at, for instance, the map of the OpenBSD developers [openbsd.org] (at the bottom of the link): there are individuals working on OpenBSD all over the place.
Another case that I know well is Slackware: there are developers helping Patrick Volkerding all over the world, with strong clusters in Italy, Brazil, the UK and other countries. Mandriva is a French/Brazilian companies, with strong sales in the USA, and so on and so forth. And there are so many other projects out there that are definitely not US-centric.
So, again: count companies and Open Source seems to be based in Silicon Valley. Take a look at individual developers and the picture becomes a lot more international.
Re:One enormous flaw... (Score:2)
Now, as so many people pointed out, the map shows vendors, not developers, so the map doesn't actually do much to answer that question. Can anyone offer some insight?
Re:One enormous flaw... (Score:3, Informative)
Now, as so many people pointed out, the map shows vendors, not developers, so the map doesn't actually do much to answer that question. Can anyone offer some insight?
Not only vendors, but as people have also pointed out the map shows an arbitrarily chosen set of vendors.
In short, that means it's
Re:One enormous flaw... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One enormous flaw... (Score:2)
You'd think that the main developer would welcome i18n patches.
Re:One enormous flaw... (Score:2)
Indeed, but it's not uncommon for such patches to be very intrusive, badly designed, and quite buggy (even when not using the support). For people who really need it, maybe the functionality is worth the problems, but often the tradeoffs are different for the world at large (at least from the maintainer's point of view).
Re:One enormous flaw... (Score:2)
Re:Greenland and Africa (Score:2)
It's all about image. (Score:2)
Effective immediately, my OSS support company will be keeping it real. "O.G. Suppizort" is located in the city of Compton.
Move Compiere to the Valley (Score:1)
Just tell me one thing (Score:2)
What about India (Score:2)
Open source /vendors/ (Score:3, Informative)
The map of developers, which would be much more interesting, is impractical to create. I've seen partial maps for a number of projects, though, and they certainly don't show the same distribution as the referenced article. I just went looking for a GNOME one but the only one I could find was on frappr, and was clearly so incomplete as to be nigh useless (_nobody_ in Australia; only two in the US, etc).
A more personal example is the Scribus team, which has no members in the USA. The core developers are in Germany, France, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, Finland, and Australia. Of those, one originally lived in the US but moved, and one more used to live in Australia but moved. Hardly "silicon valley". The contributors see more US involvement, but not a huge amount more, and the translation teams are obviously incredibly internationally distributed. Our user base is also very international, as Scribus's translations and support for other languages is its main advantage (beyond cost) over the big DTP names.
--
Craig Ringer
The internet is the location (Score:1)
YES, tax reasons: KDE doesn't look 501(c)3 (Score:2)
Or maybe I'm just confused about the whole tax thing.
http://www.kde.org/support/support.php [kde.org]
I found out that I didn't donate enough percentage of my money to qualify for a tax deduction anyway, It would have had to be well over 10 percent of my income to get a break larger than standard deduction.
Samba not Listed (Score:2, Informative)
Asay Does Not See the Real World (Score:1)
In Canada yes (Score:1)
If you could add that 'I am wearing canadian underwear', you have great chances to win.
Ubuntu? South Africa? !?!!! (Score:2)
Re:Ubuntu? South Africa? !?!!! (Score:1)
doesn't matter (Score:1)
Well researched ? (Score:1)
Gnome developer map exists.. (Score:2)