Winning war won't secure peace for open source
True,

I am only a very very small one man compagny but I install FOSS at my customers if I can. It is not always possible but they start asking for it, being disappointed that their software does not run on Linux for example. It does take a lot of energy but it is worth the trouble.
If more small businesses like me would do so, we will slowly turn our environment to more FOSS-freindly and it will grow and grow.
Posted by Jan van Leeuwen on Saturday, July 04 2009 07:55 PM

Winning war won't secure peace for open source
Freedom is all about choice. To light up a cigarette, or to run whatever software you want too. Whether it is Open Source or not. And if you don't like that you can just quit breathing my air thank you very much! Because I really don't need people like you in my world.
Posted by Paul on Monday, July 06 2009 12:38 PM

RE: Winning war won't secure peace for open source
Paul, you're an ass. It's people like you with you're stupid attitudes about smoking and whatever that don't get it. This is a little off the topic but, what does the non-smoker do to harm your health, nothing!!! What does not smoking do other than inconvenience you. You're talk back is very self serving, start thinking of others. Free software is good and banning smoking is great. Get a clue.
Posted by Dave on Tuesday, July 07 2009 07:31 AM

Winning war won't secure peace for open source
This is not my point, but proprietary software has a very definite place in the market, and it will NOT ever be replaced. Simple economics shows us this. As much as I wish that this weren't true for the OS market, it is particularly true of the OS market, and also for some specialized niche software markets. Additionally, the economics for the individual user favor the proprietary OS market. This IS my point: the open source arena will have to coalesce into a sufficiently strong common theme to ever stand a chance at becoming anything like a major competitor. The lack of coalescence, of commonality, prevents their rise to significant market position.

As for proprietary software being in the market: the OS market has shown itself to be naturally monopolistic. Reasoning doesn't matter - history tells us this is true. I believe OSes would, and do, benefit from the competition of open source, but open source is still behind Windows in the usability category. Open source OS'es require more user intervention and knowledge to get them running, and when they go awry, to keep them running. In other words, Windows has a strong competitive advantage. See Michael Porter's publications on this topic for the rationale as to why that will continue.

Other niche software has also shown itself historically to perform better in proprietary mode: GIS and project scheduling software are two examples I know. These markets seem to me to be of the sort dominated by a low number of end-users, but where the software can command a fairly high price. The OS market shows the same pattern - some portions of that market are willing to pay a high price for certain characteristics. In that market, a natural monopoly has not formed (think servers and enterprise).

End users, however, in particular, are faced with a very high personal economic cost in converting to an open source OS. In the consumer opinion, the dollar savings is far offset by the time requirement to make open source viable in their lives. The time cost is the key. The market clearly tells us this is a fact.

What does this have to do with your theme - that the argument is won, but the war is not? The example you prominently refer to is Ghandi. You will note that Ghandi commanded UNITY of purpose in his non-violent dissension. It was the unanimity of purpose that created success. Take a look at other "successful" changes in the last century. Civil rights for black Americans - unanimity of purpose was present. When that commonality began to fade, so did the movement. Women's rights, ditto. Global warming was sufficiently derailed, and is still threatened by, a lack of unanimity of voice in the scientific community, that it failed to gain any real headway in changed direction. That it now has some unanimity, and that this is backed by the common experience, in the populace, of REAL and visible consequences, is allowing it to make some headway towards change.

Windows has gifted the open source market with multiple advantages in recent years. Win95/98 had a lack of networking, stability, and security; and Win2K still had issues. XP had a restrictive online licensing requirement. Vista had significant interface changes which represented a new learning curve. All presented marketing opportunities for open source. Yet open source has not (I hope "yet" is the operative descriptor) communally risen to meet those marketing challenges.

The most successful model for open source OS systems is represented by a relationship marketing framework - just like that presented by Sirius, and I would guess Red Hat. The end user forges a relationship, and makes purchases based on that, not on upfront cost. A mentor of mine, a consummate salesman, taught me this: all sales are either relationship based, or cost based. Most sales, and particularly most software sales today, are cost based. The "cost" of free OSes is time. The fix is paying for a relationship, but that is a complex model, and end-users today are wary of it.

For open source OSes to be successful, something will have to happen to create a preference in users for "relationship" based use motivations. Or, all the OS developers will have to quit acting like cats in a cage, and start working towards a single, monolithic, open source OS that simply works better for the (forgive me) "ignorant" end-user from the first installation screen to the last daily little program. They will have to develop a much stronger commonality of purpose.

Without that, they will always, and forever, lose the war. And that makes me sad.
Posted by anonymous on Tuesday, July 07 2009 09:05 AM