Is Open Source Fading Away...
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David Cunningham wrote: I remember reading somewhere that MySQL was getting $1M drops of cash from IBM on a regular basis Heck, for $1M drops of cash from IBM on a regular basis I'd change my Bill Gates wallpaper to "Linus Green" (and I mean the stuff on my wall, not my desktop) and erect a nine foot Tux statue in the corner. Heck, for $1M drops of cash from IBM on a regular basis I'd even get plastic surgery to look like a penguin... ________________ David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk "I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves" - August Strindberg
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You raise some interesting points and I have a question. As an employee of Dundas who supply MFC extension classes and the like, what is the rational for Dundas to support Code Project. As CodeProject is essentially an open source project providing software components (Although it is a lot more than that). Given a couple of years isn't it possible that Code Project could grow to put Dundas out of business. Just curious to know your thoughts, Michael :-)
Michael, We worked with Chris to found CodeProject for exactly the reason you think it doesn't make sense for us to support it. I hope CodeProject continues to be the outstanding success it has been (and in-fact I know it will) Ignoring the (albeit in my opinion short-sighted) open source movement would certainly not be a wise move for anyone in the software business, including Dundas. I think CodeProject is a little different than Open Source projects like Linux or MySQL however. CodeProject is more of a how-to reference catalog or a set of tutorials than a set of community generated products. Code sharing as is encouraged on CodeProject has certainly addressed the trivial (< 1 developer month) MFC component marketplace, and quite frankly that's a good thing. Products that are centered on trivial innovations, or solutions to obscure problems (that may only exist because of a lack of adequate documentation) have also been killed off across the board. I'm not saying this to cast any disrespect on the contributions made on CodeProject, the vast majority of them are absolutely excellent and I only hope they continue to roll in and the quality continue to improve. It would be hard however to believe that someone would dedicate a year or two of their lives writing a really hot MFC Class or control and then post it. A month, sure, two maybe, 12+ however? Seems unlikely. Dundas' strategy (everyone be quiet so our competitors don't hear), has been to dramatically increase the business value of our products with each new initiative. In the last 3 years we've tripled the amount of investment that goes into any particular product development, and going forward that investment will continue to increase. In 2002 we'll be releasing new products that continue this trend, and certainly our strategic direction was selected to insolate us as much as possible from the "bundling" threat from Microsoft on the top, and the "Open Source" threat from the bottom. David http://www.dundas.com
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You raise some interesting points and I have a question. As an employee of Dundas who supply MFC extension classes and the like, what is the rational for Dundas to support Code Project. As CodeProject is essentially an open source project providing software components (Although it is a lot more than that). Given a couple of years isn't it possible that Code Project could grow to put Dundas out of business. Just curious to know your thoughts, Michael :-)
Butting in here.. .. there's a significant difference between sites like Code Project and the Open Source religion. Open Source code cannot be used in commercial applications, unless the developer agrees to publish the app itself as Open Source.. in other words, it can't be used in commerical applications. Code from the Code Project can be freely used in any sort of application, including commercial apps. That's what chaps my ass about the Open Source movement: it's not about making source code freely available; it's about imposing a narrow and restrictive model of software development on the world.
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Open Source means the source is available and you can look at it, fix it, break it, search and replace on it, whatever. It's very idealistic, but it isn't necessarily anti-capitalistic, it's pro-information. and frankly, if a dev can write an app in his free time that puts Software Company B out of work, Software Company B didn't have much of a business. -c
Chris, I agree with the pro-information bit, that's why we sell our sourcecode. I hate putting components into my code without being able to drill into it and see what's going on. I also agree with your triviality argument. People shouldn't build companies around trivial things. They don't last. It's pretty easy for me I guess. As software developers we shouldn't crap where we eat. David http://www.dundas.com
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Chris, I agree with the pro-information bit, that's why we sell our sourcecode. I hate putting components into my code without being able to drill into it and see what's going on. I also agree with your triviality argument. People shouldn't build companies around trivial things. They don't last. It's pretty easy for me I guess. As software developers we shouldn't crap where we eat. David http://www.dundas.com
David Cunningham wrote: that's why we sell our sourcecode yep, me too. it's scary, putting it out there. but, i guess we have to trust people to respect copyright notices and sales agreements. :confused: i really respect the GPL people - it takes a lot of faith to put something out there and expect people to respect your intentions. -c
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Butting in here.. .. there's a significant difference between sites like Code Project and the Open Source religion. Open Source code cannot be used in commercial applications, unless the developer agrees to publish the app itself as Open Source.. in other words, it can't be used in commerical applications. Code from the Code Project can be freely used in any sort of application, including commercial apps. That's what chaps my ass about the Open Source movement: it's not about making source code freely available; it's about imposing a narrow and restrictive model of software development on the world.
Jim A. Johnson wrote: Open Source code cannot be used in commercial applications, unless the developer agrees to publish the app itself as Open Source.. in other words, it can't be used in commerical applications. You are mistaking the GPL with Open Source. While GPL does what you claim, there are plenty of Open Source licenses that don't.
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I don't know. It seems to me a little bit idiotic how devs who have day jobs at Software Company A, spend all their free time writing open source code to put the developers at Software Company B out of work. The devs at B in their spare time write open code to put the devs at C out of business, and so on. The utlimate result of this of course is downward pressure on the $$$ paid to devs, cause in their spare time devs are trying to put each other out of work. Let's face it. The big "successful" open source projects are funded by the major competitors of the category leaders. I remember reading somewhere that MySQL was getting $1M drops of cash from IBM on a regular basis. Is that really open source in the way the public thinks about it (idealistic software developers trying to free the world from opressive monopolistic software companies) or simply competitors (IBM/Microsoft/Oracle) trying to trip each other up? David http://www.dundas.com
David Cunningham wrote: It seems to me a little bit idiotic how devs who have day jobs at Software Company A, spend all their free time writing open source code to put the developers at Software Company B out of work. The devs at B in their spare time write open code to put the devs at C out of business, and so on. Very strange perspective indeed. But I think it's not even close to reality. Nobody will, for example, write a competitive trading platform to put me out of work, simply because it's way too boring. I would say that the drive for most of the Open Source projects is the natural curiosity and desire to explore new fields and sometimes low quality or too high price of the commercial alternative. At least that's what drives my projects... David Cunningham wrote: Let's face it. The big "successful" open source projects are funded by the major competitors of the category leaders. Doubtfull. I have at hand 3 Open Source projects, one of which I am a sole member, one in duo that emerged from the first one and posted at CP, and one that has 22 developers and about 3000 downloads daily that I am taking a lead right now. All of them are succesfull and the latter is actually one of the big ones. None of them were "funded", even thought I remember refusing an offer to put a particular bug fix into it.
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David Cunningham wrote: It seems to me a little bit idiotic how devs who have day jobs at Software Company A, spend all their free time writing open source code to put the developers at Software Company B out of work. The devs at B in their spare time write open code to put the devs at C out of business, and so on. Very strange perspective indeed. But I think it's not even close to reality. Nobody will, for example, write a competitive trading platform to put me out of work, simply because it's way too boring. I would say that the drive for most of the Open Source projects is the natural curiosity and desire to explore new fields and sometimes low quality or too high price of the commercial alternative. At least that's what drives my projects... David Cunningham wrote: Let's face it. The big "successful" open source projects are funded by the major competitors of the category leaders. Doubtfull. I have at hand 3 Open Source projects, one of which I am a sole member, one in duo that emerged from the first one and posted at CP, and one that has 22 developers and about 3000 downloads daily that I am taking a lead right now. All of them are succesfull and the latter is actually one of the big ones. None of them were "funded", even thought I remember refusing an offer to put a particular bug fix into it.
Nobody will, for example, write a competitive trading platform to put me out of work, simply because it's way too boring Want to bet. I *personally* know someone who is about to release their competitive trading platform, auction engine (with all the trimmings), personalization system, etc. Basically the whole line-up for the historic b-2-b space, all in well written J2EE as open source designed to run on Enhydra. So, basically he's going to put downward price pressure on your company, and therefore... You. What goes around comes around I suppose. I doubt he's the only one as well. I agree with you natural curiosity argument. But also believe that the desire to take a kick at the big players in a market is part of the motivation as well. As a side note, I thought it was interesting that the SourceForge folks called me up and asked if I'd like to buy their content managment system. Isn't it free I asked... No they said, it's $100K to start. David http://www.dundas.com
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Michael, We worked with Chris to found CodeProject for exactly the reason you think it doesn't make sense for us to support it. I hope CodeProject continues to be the outstanding success it has been (and in-fact I know it will) Ignoring the (albeit in my opinion short-sighted) open source movement would certainly not be a wise move for anyone in the software business, including Dundas. I think CodeProject is a little different than Open Source projects like Linux or MySQL however. CodeProject is more of a how-to reference catalog or a set of tutorials than a set of community generated products. Code sharing as is encouraged on CodeProject has certainly addressed the trivial (< 1 developer month) MFC component marketplace, and quite frankly that's a good thing. Products that are centered on trivial innovations, or solutions to obscure problems (that may only exist because of a lack of adequate documentation) have also been killed off across the board. I'm not saying this to cast any disrespect on the contributions made on CodeProject, the vast majority of them are absolutely excellent and I only hope they continue to roll in and the quality continue to improve. It would be hard however to believe that someone would dedicate a year or two of their lives writing a really hot MFC Class or control and then post it. A month, sure, two maybe, 12+ however? Seems unlikely. Dundas' strategy (everyone be quiet so our competitors don't hear), has been to dramatically increase the business value of our products with each new initiative. In the last 3 years we've tripled the amount of investment that goes into any particular product development, and going forward that investment will continue to increase. In 2002 we'll be releasing new products that continue this trend, and certainly our strategic direction was selected to insolate us as much as possible from the "bundling" threat from Microsoft on the top, and the "Open Source" threat from the bottom. David http://www.dundas.com
Thanks for sharing. I can see better now how Dundas fits into the scheme. Michael :-)
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Butting in here.. .. there's a significant difference between sites like Code Project and the Open Source religion. Open Source code cannot be used in commercial applications, unless the developer agrees to publish the app itself as Open Source.. in other words, it can't be used in commerical applications. Code from the Code Project can be freely used in any sort of application, including commercial apps. That's what chaps my ass about the Open Source movement: it's not about making source code freely available; it's about imposing a narrow and restrictive model of software development on the world.
Don't confuse Open Source with the dreaded GPL licence. There are some worthy open source licences out there. The BSD one in particular. Michael :-)