Red Hat CEO: Vista marks end of 'planned software'
Summary
Topics
Speaking at a forum in Singapore on Friday, Whitehurst said the proprietary, "top-down, planned" software-development model, characteristic of closed-source companies, is coming to an end. Such a model is demonstrated by Vista and the number of bugs within it, he said.
Whitehurst claimed that there are "half the number of bugs in Linux per thousand lines" compared to the Microsoft operating system, because of the open-source, collaborative model.
Vulnerability-research company Secunia released a report earlier this year stating there were more flaws reported last year for Red Hat operating systems than for Microsoft operating systems. This was denied by a Red Hat security team member.
Whitehurst explained his position in an interview with ZDNet Asia, saying closed-source models are hampered by limits on the amount of planning that can be done during the development process to foresee all the roadblocks that might arise. "If software gets too big, it cannot be organized. This is an indicator of what can be planned," he said.
The Linux stack, on the other hand, "had to be modular" because of how fast development efforts on it spread. Development from the global open-source community happens in tandem and at a rate not pre-planned by a "monolithic vendor", Whitehurst said.
However, because of the modular development model and the number of parties checking for errors, open-source software comes out with fewer errors and is more organized, he explained. Whitehurst attempted to explain the appeal of open-source software's participatory "community" model by likening open source to US reality TV competition American Idol and closed products to US pop star Britney Spears.
Of American Idol, he said the record studios were able to spend less to market the eventual winner because audience participation accurately showed which singer was preferred before the competition was over.
Britney Spears, on the other hand, as a "product of millions of dollars in investment" is not a sure bet when each record is released to the public, because the marketing surrounding her was pre-planned and excluded the public, he said.
Whitehurst said during his presentation that development through the open-source community is also faster and often more precise in terms of what customers need, because enterprises are able to contribute code that they have written for their pain points back to the community. He contrasted this with the traditional proprietary method of "listening to customers" and writing code based on that interpretation.
"Linux functionality leapt forward because customers could develop what they wanted, and Red Hat could help share it," he said.
Just In
Whitehurst claimed that there are "half the number of bugs in Linux per thousand lines" compared to the Microsoft operating system, because of the open-source, collaborative model.
Lies! Keep dreaming buddy. Linux is proven to have a higher rate of failures and bugs than any other operating system.
Comparing Britney Spears to proprietary softare just put his big foot in his big mouth. Britney made millions in sales, linux didn't. Britney is rich, popular, has talent, and looks great (albeit a little crazy). Linux is works for free, is not recognized, doesn't work well with others, and is ugly to work with. So ask anybody if they want to be Britney or linux, you will see Britney win out every time.
With a CEO like this its no wonder Red Hat and linux are tanking so quickly. The guy is in full denial about the many drawbacks of running linux.
Or once again is the CEO of a company looking to dethrone MS once again wishfully thinking aloud?
What should I say? Who's model should I endorse?
and any of the dozens of other big-name software vendors,
there will always be a place for closed-source.
While some software will have open-source code within, no
one will willing give up their closed-sourced code when it
still makes them a large profit.
because of the modular development model and the number of parties checking for errors, open-source software comes out with fewer errors and is more organized [end quote]. These simplistic tenets (more like dogma) continue to propagate on the blogosphere totally ignoring the actual tools that the corporate world and the consumer world use on a daily basis. The line between "propietary" software and "Open Source" software is getting blurrier and blurrier. Mac OS was built under the BSD Unix variant, for example, and would you call it that "close source"?. How about "shared source" vs "open source"? My point here is: articles and stands like this of Red Hat and kin are very simplistic and for those in the know it simply reads as a poorly thought out sales pitch. "American Idol" vs "Britney Spears". Please.
No "software development model is coming to an end". The article fails to sustain/prove/demonstrate what it claims in the header.
In my opinion the Idols vs Spears analogy is bad too.
OS/360 Release 1 in 1965
Various versions over the years.
z/OS V1.R10 - latest release Feb 2008
Doesn't sound to me like it's going away. Big Iron will always need an OS and IBM will always oblige.
Ant those who consider Big Iron to be a 'dinosaur' should remember dinosaurs were around about 1000 times longer than homo sapiens has been around.
And looking at the way things are going today, I'm not sure we humans will be around anywhere near as long.
This is the main argument pushed by Open Source, and for many things it is the correct argument. However many of the big dollar software packages are not represented well through open source. Things like exchange, SAP, CRMs are core business applications that techies have little interest in developing free competing products.
Open Source is good for techies developing for other techies, but that is where OSSs usefulness ends.
The real problem is that techies don't possess the business knowledge to make the systems workable. Open Source projects lack the business needs identification and focus for exactly the same reason that they tout as their big advantage - flexibility from central planning.
You said:
The real problem is that techies don't possess the business knowledge to make the systems workable. Open Source projects lack the business needs identification and focus for exactly the same reason that they tout as their big advantage - flexibility from central planning.
Most business requirements aren't beyond the abilities of techies. IMO it simply isn't in their interest. To their credit I think it is completely within the realm of OSS to create these enterprise level applications. However they lack the leadership for these endeavors.
For software such as Content management, collaboration, document storage, and the like, I would agree with you - as I've stated earlier, there are pretty static business requirements for this type of software, and they can mainly be managed through a database alone.
In the case of ERP, CRM, and SCM software (accounting, distribution, job costing, etc) I would HIGHLY disagree that techies would have the knowledge to develop this type of software any more than the accountants or operations staff who will be using it could. There is too much required knowledge for either camp to be successful.
For this type of software, you need collaboration from many specialists (HIGHLY skilled programmers, Accounting Specialists, Operations Management Specialists, etc) and project management from people that understand the fundamentals of each camp who can manage the communication of requirements from the Accounting/Operations people to the software architects.
Ask any given programmer, for example, what IFRS is, and how it differs from GAAP, and you'll probably get a blank stare, however understanding and applying the difference is crucial for any ERP system that hopes to be used by a publicly traded enterprise where there are legal ramifications to the capabilities of the software.
To their credit I think it is completely within the realm of OSS to create these enterprise level applications. However they lack the leadership for these endeavors.
Fundamentally, yes, we agree that Open Source software lacks this kind of leadership, but it isn't just because of lack of interest. Open Source projects are still generally organized, defined, and run by programmers - little knowledge of complex business requirements. This hurdle needs to be cleared before Open Source can even begin to churn out this type of enterprise software.
Thanks for the clarification.
I can see your point more clearly... The well developed OSS solutions are products that developers themselves use such as browsers, OSes, databases, etc.
Developers do use word processing and spread sheet applications so they don't have to go to far out of their realm of expertise to work on Open Office.org. Open Office.org is an oddity, the only reason it is at the level of maturity that it is is because it was resurrected from the failure of Star Office, a proprietary product that the market rejected.
I do give the team props for making it so refined. I have a feeling with Microsoft's new XML format OOo will be better able to do 100% perfect rendering of all MS Office documents.
It should be interesting how this competition plays out.
But Text processing is quite a bit of more work when you aren't used to it.
The argument that it gives better rendering still holds though.
It simply isn't WYSIWYG.
But Ubuntu and KDE 4.1 really rocks and is already a much better replacement for Apple crap and has a whole lot more software than Macs have so if you're stuck in the even buggier world of the Mac moving to Kubuntu with KDE 4.1 would be quite easy. May as well go with the best of the open source world for no cost at all...
I my view "Open Source" seems to be easier to fix (on the fly if need be).
I guess there will always be emperors, kings,"closed-source, etc, but if you are not one of the chosen ones which would you prefer?
On one hand we have a star who has been very narrowly focused on her "purpose" in life while being "developed", and as a result (and after quite a bit of heavy marketing), she is very good and what she does, a household name, and extremely successful.
Then we have the other side of the coin - 50,000 pet projects per year that vary widely in talent or practicality are eventually whittled down to a handful of successes, only one of which becomes a runaway winner, and a few which, after they win, still don't really make it (I mean, who really listens to Ruben or Fantaisia, anyway?)
Ask anyone about an American Idol and they'll look at you as if you're asking them about some local talent from the bar downtown.
Microsoft = Brittany
Open Source = No Name
Bottomline, regardless of talent/quality, people go for what they know...and that's just Psychology 101.
The winners of American Idol over the past few years have, with a couple exceptions (Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood) failed to become well marketed outside the group of people that "developed" their careers in the first place. Many people who have never watched American Idol (or haven't watched the seasons that these singers won) aren't aware of their existence, let alone buy their music.
In much the same way, a large number of Open Source projects haven't really found a large audience outside their core development community (OpenBravo is a good example - also a good example of what happens when you get techies trying to build an accounting program).
I don't listen to Britney Spears and i don't listen to Idol winners neither.
For something that has no official organ and has no official advertising GNU/Linux does have a brand exposure some companies would dream of to start of with.
It's really a poor analogy and this CEO isn't doing a good job hereh.
I'm more convinced when someone without a major stake in the outcome makes the prediction.
Nowadays commercial software is seldom needed as there is a good free alternative. You could say this is 'planned', (by the will of the public).
Couple this with the narrow focus and tighter project management that goes into commercial software, and you can see why many large enterprise systems don't have an equivilent in the Open Source world (I'm thinking CRM, ERP, SCM software - not web browsers and spreadsheets).
wow.
Of course, it could be that, just like me, many of the other commenters are being paid by Microsoft to post comments to a blog. Yeah, that's it.
Six cents if I blog on Sunday
I think that's a good thing, even if Red Hat is the one that gets fired (as happened on the family PC a couple of weeks back; replaced by Gentoo).
download source, extract it, compile, then install. Planned
software is much easier to deal with." I know what you are trying
to say, but I have never had to do anything that you have
mentioned. No extracting, no compiling etc. Just run the update
manager and click install updates or use synaptic manager, put a
checkmark in the box of the software that I want installed and
click install. In the future either increase your knowlege of Linux
or keep your comments to yourself. It's quite obvious that your
lack of knowlege is clouding your judgement and your hatred for
Linux is obvious. Oh, and by the way, I have had to re-install
Windows 3 times in the last year. Linux? ZERO reinstalls in the
last year. Your lips flap but you never have any proof to back it
up.
Mozart (Open Source): Nobody listens to him, but everyone wants you to think they listen to him.
Britney (Proprietary): Everyone listens to her, but no one wants to admit it.
Yeah, I guess it works.
Strong marketing and deep pockets will almost assuredly continue to mean high market saturation for companies like Microsoft for years to come.
However, those who are savvy to the usefulness of open-source platforms (Amazon.com for instance) are not part of the mainstream market consciousness, but further the "linux/open-source cause" by developing innovative mainstream services, products, and content with non-mainstream platforms.
This balance of non vs. mainstream will always be in play and for GOOD REASON since it ultimately presents a perpetual window of opportunity for the innovators.
Red Hat would do better to liken themselves to Radiohead - innovative band grows cult following into a huge mainstream success story.
American Idol might as well be Disney (Britney Spears). They just use different television stations to flex their marketing muscle, build their starlets, and hawk their crap...
... and knock off whatever innovation they couldn't come up with themselves.
It certainly is the end of big-release monolithic software as we have become accustomed to - less due to planning and more due to the market segments which have evolved.
It makes sense to loosely couple operating system components - as the Unix and Linux community has known for decades - because it simplifies development and allows for an operating system focused on a specific segment.
This equates to (kind of) the concept of Linux Distro's - RHEL has a purpose,Ubuntu has a purpose, Zenwalk has a purpose - and each one is different.
Microsoft is seeing the benefit in doing this for the purpose of security, maintainability and reuse. Each version of Windows can never be completely NEW since it would mean the billions of dollars invested in previous versions would be wasted. If pieces of a system can be isolated however, then there is a better chance of reuse without security errors and design errors. This is about optimizing the investment Microsoft make in their own development.
Comparing errors per-thousand lines is just idiotic.
JC
blog.pixolut.com
bugs and it tends to be more secure. However the
collaborative effort also means that there is generally a lack
of features. Open Source products are just never as clean,
feature packed, and useful as their closed counterparts.
OS software may be stable and secure but when it comes
down to it the commercial software is more productive.
But above and beyond the who is better, Open Source feels safer not because it's technically better and so on, but because I don't have to worry about the product being discontinued. If it is discontinued, and there is a sizeable user base, that user base can continue to work on the software. If I am the only one using it, and it means that much to me, I can maintain it and improve on it. If not, I can just switch. Proprietary software has only the latter option, and no matter what guarantees a company gives you that they are committed to maintaining that proprietary software, it is not as big a guarantee as Open Source.
That said, yes, I still use Windows and I also use Linux, and generally the former has not been very good to me while the latter has been. However, Microsoft Office is a plus point as there's nothing that comes quite close to it on Linux (OpenOffice.org is a good attempt, but slow on my slow laptop), and my favourite text editor is Windows-only (but Open Source, so who knows, it may be ported).
Ultimately, the winner will not be either Open Source or Proprietary software, but which entity that capitalises on the benefits of their development/licensing models and edges out everyone else with that and other aspects. Windows makes use of vertical integration of licensing and technological incompatibility to lock people in, which is legitimate albeit a bit distasteful, and Microsoft makes a lot of money from it. Red Hat sells good support for RHEL, contributes back to the community, and exploits the positive benefits of Open Source to deliver high quality products. Ultimately there is competition, and we all win.
Join the conversation!
The best of ZDNet, delivered
ZDNet Newsletters
Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox




