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Microhoo lessons for open source

By | July 30, 2009, 6:11am PDT

Summary: What Microsoft is saying to open source here, what Oracle said to open source in the Sun deal, was said perhaps most famously by Tom Friedman in regards to the Iraq war. The polite paraphrase of Friedman’s statement is this. You don’t count.

On the surface the tie-up between Microsoft and Yahoo means nothing to open source.

It’s not a merger. Yahoo’s open source projects remain Yahoo’s. This is in contrast with the Oracle-Sun deal, where Sun’s open source projects were said to be behind Oracle’s interest.

But look more closely. Yahoo’s open source projects are now held by a company that is cash poor. The company will be under enormous pressure to monetize its software assets, and the for-sale sign is already out.

Just this year most crown jewels in the corporate open source crown have changed hands. Java. Hadoop. Open Office. The Yahoo User Interface Library. All just pawns in bigger corporate games.

This may be hard for backers of the corporate open source model, like our own Matt Asay, to explain away. But when you support a corporate open source program, your community efforts are subject to the corporation’s strategic whims.

I return again to a favorite open source analogy, Tom Sawyer “painting” his Aunt Polly’s fence in Mark Twain’s 19th century classic. Who winds up painting the fence? Who gets the credit? Twain meant the tale as a satire of Gilded Age capitalism, the eternal struggle where you knead and bake the bread but I eat it.

Contrast this with corporate community projects such as Eclipse or Apache. What happens with one contributor there has only a limited impact on the community as a whole. Not only does the code abide, but so does the governing structure. That’s protection which goes beyond what you’ll find in a mere software license.

This lesson may prove hard to swallow. Communities can be starved, but corporate projects can ignore community members’ wills if they want. Those who don’t like the terms can fork it, out in the cold cruel world, or they can suck it up.

What Microsoft is saying to open source here, what Oracle said to open source in the Sun deal, was said perhaps most famously by Tom Friedman in regards to the Iraq war.

The polite paraphrase of Friedman’s statement is this. You don’t count.

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Yahoo! Inc., Open Source, Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983.

Disclosure

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years.

At the present moment I run only a personal blog in addition to my ZDNet open source blog.

DanaBlankenhorn.Com has the subtitle The War Against Oil. In the past I have used it to write about political history, e-commerce, personal matters, some ideas related to open source, and The World of Always On, which is the idea of using sensors, motes and RFID to turn WiFi links into platforms for applications which live in the air.

My IRA account at Schwab holds a few tech shares, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials, but there are no open source companies in it. I don’t even own any CBS stock.

Biography

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for nearly 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the Interactive Age Daily for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age's "NetMarketing" supplement, and dozens of other publications over the years.

Talkback Most Recent of 20 Talkback(s)

  • The truth is UGLY!
    ... and it hurts!

    Sob, sniffle, wimper, wimper ....
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kd5auq
    30th Jul 2009
  • RE: Microhoo lessons for open source
    What Microsoft is saying to open source here, what Oracle said to open source in the Sun deal, was said perhaps most famously by Tom Friedman in regards to the Iraq ipad bag blog sutudeg education news and pclos hwdb war. l
    ZDNet Gravatar
    edward polling
    4th Jul
  • LOL....I think you summed it all up when you mentioned...
    "corporate open source backers"

    IMO thats NOT open source. Those are the companies striving to make money from the concept. Now you'll have all the NBM'er Microbrains running in here trying to flame over something that has little to do with the actual health of open source IMO. While Sun, Oracle and the like may not be able to make it work for them it sure does work for the small businesses that either use it or make money supporting it. Thats all I'm really concerned with. Unlike the majority of dreamers in America I realize its just as foolish to think that you're going to be the next MS or IBM as it is to think you're going to play in the NBA or NFL.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    storm14k
    30th Jul 2009
  • FOSS - Corporate Money = Fail
    Although FOSS advocates continually ridicule the for-profit motive they also continually ignore the fact that most of the big FOSS projects would wither and die with out corporate monies.

    It wont be long before they start crying to President Obama to put all FOSS projects on the public dole. We can have a FOSS Czar.

    As Richard Stallman likes to point out most of the public needs to be informed that proprietary software is bad for them and FOSS software is good for them. Government funding is the only 'logical' course of action for such a demented way of thinking.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mikefarinha
    30th Jul 2009
  • FOSS is eternal regardless of monies
    M$ is just a fluke in the grand scheme of software.
    FOSS developers deserve grants from the government because they work for all the people.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Linux Geek
    30th Jul 2009
  • Fantasy Land
    FOSS developers work for themselves. They don't work out of some sort of benevolent moral obligation.

    You really need to get out of the entitlement-mentality mindset.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mikefarinha
    30th Jul 2009
  • A better idea, a bountuy on FOSS
    workers. It will be a cold day in hell before so much as one cent of my tax dollars are spent on this stupidity.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    No_Ax_to_Grind
    30th Jul 2009
  • Meanwhile...
    Your tax dollars are spent over and over again on Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, when free alternatives exist.

    And let's not forget about the NSA and SELinux...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    SpikeyMike
    30th Jul 2009
  • Perhaps You Just Don't Know
    Perhaps you simply don't know the difference between funding a government ideal and purchasing a product/service on the competitive market.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mikefarinha
    30th Jul 2009
  • Sure, Comrade, whatever you say.
    Meanwhile, in the really real world...
    ZDNet Gravatar
    pmcgrath@...
    30th Jul 2009
  • Oh stewardess...?
    Pass me an airsick bag, please.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mgp3
    30th Jul 2009
  • RE: Microhoo lessons for open source
    @Linux Geek Although FOSS advocates continually ridicule the for-profit motive they also continually ignore the fact that most of the big FOSS projects would wither and die with out corporate monies.

    It wont be long before they start crying to President Obama to put all FOSS projects on the public dole. We can have a FOSS Czar.

    As Richard Stallman likes to point out most of the pembe maske energy balance oyna oyunu moliva orjin krem tutune son nanomatik complex 41 new fx15 public needs to be informed that proprietary software is bad for them and FOSS software is good for them. Government funding is the only 'logical' course of action for such a demented way of thinking.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    gaberdiye03
    21st Jun
  • RE: Microhoo lessons for open source
    Communities can be starved, but corporate projects can ignore community members wills if they want. Those who dont like the terms can fork it, out in the cold cruel world, or they can suck it up. k
    ZDNet Gravatar
    zakkiromi
    17th May
  • There's no new economics
    There's just economics. Look at how many great works of art were put on hold because the sponsor had no money to fund it. Look how cornering a market brings added value to a company. Look at Apple's intangible assets (the business of cool). These are not new concepts.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    happyharry_z
    30th Jul 2009
  • And?
    You complain about the obvious. Like any company, and most individuals, if you're getting money from me, I'll want to know how you plan on getting it back to me.

    If you don't like the terms, then do what you said: fork it.

    But at least you'll be risking your house, your future, or at the least someone else's money. If you fail, I'm still humming along just fine.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    John Zern
    30th Jul 2009
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