msgid "" msgstr "" "Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n" "POT-Creation-Date: 2008-10-03 19:55+0700\n" "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n" "Last-Translator: FULL NAME \n" "Language-Team: LANGUAGE \n" "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n" "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n" #: magic-cauldron.xml:7(title) msgid "The Magic Cauldron" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:12(firstname) msgid "Eric" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:13(othername) msgid "Steven" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:14(surname) msgid "Raymond" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:16(ulink) msgid "Thyrsus Enterprises" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:19(email) msgid "esr@thyrsus.com" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:23(pubdate) msgid "$Date: 2008-10-03 11:13:03 $" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:24(releaseinfo) msgid "This is version 3.0" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:26(year) msgid "2000" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:27(holder) msgid "Eric S. Raymond" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:30(title) msgid "Copyright" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:31(para) msgid "" "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under " "the terms of the Open Publication License, version 2.0." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:40(authorinitials) magic-cauldron.xml:51(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:62(authorinitials) magic-cauldron.xml:71(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:80(authorinitials) magic-cauldron.xml:90(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:101(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:110(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:121(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:130(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:140(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:149(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:158(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:167(authorinitials) #: magic-cauldron.xml:176(authorinitials) msgid "esr" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:41(revremark) msgid "" "Observations on the price of ERPs and other very large products. The " "underprovision problem. Effects of asymmetric information. More on the " "sawmill case." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:49(revnumber) msgid "1.19" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:50(date) magic-cauldron.xml:61(date) msgid "25 Aug 2000" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:52(revremark) msgid "" "Added link to Kipling's \"The Mary Gloster\". Observed that the service-cost-" "exhaustion model still works when we move from constant dollars to " "discounted present value." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:60(revnumber) msgid "1.18" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:63(revremark) msgid "DocBook conversion. Minor updates for Summer 2000." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:69(revnumber) msgid "1.17" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:70(date) msgid "22 Oct 1999" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:72(revremark) msgid "This version went into the first printed edition." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:78(revnumber) msgid "1.16" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:79(date) msgid "8 Aug 1999" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:81(revremark) msgid "" "New section, ``Future-Proofing, Market Pressures, and Strategic Business " "Risk''" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:88(revnumber) msgid "1.15" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:89(date) msgid "9 Jul 1999" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:91(revremark) msgid "" "New appendix on hardware drivers, and a better explanation of rivalrous " "goods due to Rich Morin." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:99(revnumber) msgid "1.14" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:100(date) magic-cauldron.xml:109(date) msgid "25 Jun 1999" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:102(revremark) msgid "Added e-smith, inc." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:108(revnumber) msgid "1.13" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:111(revremark) msgid "" "Corrected 13% claim about Netscape revenues; added better treatment of free-" "rider effects, corrected list of closed protocols." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:119(revnumber) msgid "1.10" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:120(date) magic-cauldron.xml:129(date) #: magic-cauldron.xml:139(date) magic-cauldron.xml:148(date) msgid "24 Jun 1999" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:122(revremark) msgid "A better name for the `Razor Blades' model." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:128(revnumber) msgid "1.9" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:131(revremark) msgid "" "New material on `future-proofing', the `Free the Future' model, and a new " "section on exclusion payoffs." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:138(revnumber) msgid "1.7" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:141(revremark) msgid "Minor update; clarify criterion (e) in payoff analysis." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:147(revnumber) msgid "1.5" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:150(revremark) msgid "Minor update; point at definition of `hacker'." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:156(revnumber) msgid "1.3" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:157(date) msgid "23 Jun 1999" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:159(revremark) msgid "First public release." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:165(revnumber) msgid "1.2" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:166(date) msgid "18 Jun 1999" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:168(revremark) msgid "First private review version." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:174(revnumber) msgid "1.1" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:175(date) msgid "20 May 1999" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:177(revremark) msgid "Initial draft." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:185(para) msgid "" "This essay analyzes the evolving economic substrate of the open-source " "phenomenon. I first explode some prevalent myths about the funding of " "program development and the price structure of software. I then present a " "game-theory analysis of the stability of open-source cooperation. I present " "nine models for sustainable funding of open-source development; two non-" "profit, seven for-profit. I then continue to develop a qualitative theory of " "when it is economically rational for software to be closed. I then examine " "some novel additional mechanisms the market is now inventing to fund for-" "profit open-source development, including the reinvention of the patronage " "system and task markets. I conclude with some tentative predictions of the " "future." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:200(title) msgid "Indistinguishable From Magic" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:202(para) msgid "" "In Welsh myth, the goddess Ceridwen owned a great cauldron that would " "magically produce nourishing food—when commanded by a spell known only " "to the goddess. In modern science, Buckminster Fuller gave us the concept of " "`ephemeralization', technology becoming both more effective and less " "expensive as the physical resources invested in early designs are replaced " "by more and more information content. Arthur C. Clarke connected the two by " "observing that ``Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable " "from magic''." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:212(para) msgid "" "To many people, the successes of the open-source community seem like an " "implausible form of magic. High-quality software materializes ``for free'', " "which is nice while it lasts but hardly seems sustainable in the real world " "of competition and scarce resources. What's the catch? Is Ceridwen's " "cauldron just a conjuring trick? And if not, how does ephemeralization work " "in this context—what spell is the goddess speaking?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:221(title) msgid "Beyond Geeks Bearing Gifts" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:223(para) msgid "" "The experience of the open-source culture has certainly confounded many of " "the assumptions of people who learned about software development outside it. " "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" "[CatB] described the ways in which decentralized cooperative software " "development effectively overturns Brooks's Law, leading to unprecedented " "levels of reliability and quality on individual projects. " "Homesteading the Noosphere[HtN]" " examined the social dynamics within which this `bazaar' style of " "development is situated, arguing that it is most effectively understood not " "in conventional exchange-economy terms but as what anthropologists call a " "`gift culture' in which members compete for status by giving things away. In " "this essay I begin by exploding some common myths about software production " "economics; then continue the line of analysis of these essays into the realm " "of economics, game theory and business models, developing new conceptual " "tools needed to understand the way that the gift culture of open-source " "developers can sustain itself in an exchange economy." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:243(para) msgid "" "In order to pursue this line of analysis without distraction, we'll need to " "abandon (or at least agree to temporarily ignore) the `gift culture' level " "of explanation. Homesteading the Noosphere[HtN] posited that gift culture behavior arises in " "situations where survival goods are abundant enough to make the exchange " "game no longer very interesting; but while this appears sufficiently " "powerful as a psychological explanation of behavior, it " "lacks suffiency as an explanation of the mixed economic " "context in which most open-source developers actually operate. For most, the " "exchange game has lost its appeal but not its power to constrain. Their " "behavior has to make sufficient material-scarcity–economics sense to " "keep them in a gift-culture–supporting zone of surplus." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:258(para) msgid "" "Therefore, this essay will consider (from entirely within the realm of scarcity economics) the modes of cooperation and " "exchange that sustain open-source development. While doing so it will answer " "the pragmatic question ``How do I make money at this?'', in detail and with " "examples. First, though, I will show that much of the tension behind that " "question derives from prevailing folk models of software-production " "economics that are false to fact." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:267(para) msgid "" "(A final note before the exposition: the discussion and advocacy of open-" "source development in this essay should not be construed as a case that " "closed-source development is intrinsically wrong, nor as a brief against " "intellectual-property rights in software, nor as an altruistic appeal to " "`share'. While these arguments are still beloved of a vocal minority in the " "open-source development community, experience since The Cathedral " "and the Bazaar was published has made it clear that they are " "unnecessary. An entirely sufficient case for open-source development rests " "on its engineering and economic outcomes—better quality, higher " "reliability, lower costs, and increased choice.)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:280(title) msgid "The Manufacturing Delusion" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:282(para) msgid "" "We need to begin by noticing that computer programs like all other kinds of " "tools or capital goods, have two distinct kinds of economic value. They have " "use value and sale value." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:287(para) msgid "" "The use value of a program is its economic value as a tool, a productivity " "multiplier. The sale value of a program is its value as a salable commodity. " "(In professional economist-speak, sale value is value as a final good, and " "use value is value as an intermediate good.)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:293(para) msgid "" "When most people try to reason about software-production economics, they " "tend to assume a `factory model' which is founded on the following " "fundamental premises:" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:297(para) msgid "1. Most developer time is paid for by sale value." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:299(para) msgid "" "2. The sale value of software is proportional to its development cost (i.e., " "the cost of the resources required to functionally replicate it) and to its " "use value." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:303(para) msgid "" "In other words, people have a strong tendency to assume that software has " "the value characteristics of a typical manufactured good. But both of these " "assumptions are demonstrably false." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:307(para) msgid "" "First, code written for sale is only the tip of the programming iceberg. In " "the pre-microcomputer era it used to be a commonplace that 90% of all the " "code in the world was written in-house at banks and insurance companies. " "This is probably no longer the case—other industries are much more " "software-intensive now, and the finance industry's share of the total must " "have accordingly dropped—but we'll see shortly that there is empirical " "evidence that approximately 95% of code is still written in-house." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:316(para) msgid "" "This code includes most of the stuff of MIS, the financial- and database-" "software customizations every medium and large company needs. It includes " "technical-specialist code like device drivers. Almost nobody makes money " "selling device drivers, a point we'll return to later. It includes all kinds " "of embedded code for our increasingly microchip-driven machines - from " "machine tools and jet airliners to cars to microwave ovens and toasters." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:324(para) msgid "" "Most such in-house code is integrated with its environment in ways that make " "reusing or copying it very difficult. (This is true whether the environment " "is a business office's set of procedures or the fuel-injection system of a " "combine harvester.) Thus, as the environment changes, work is continually " "needed to keep the software in step." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:331(para) msgid "" "This is called `maintenance', and any software engineer or systems analyst " "will tell you that it makes up the vast majority (more than 75%) of what " "programmers get paid to do. Accordingly, most programmer-hours are spent " "(and most programmer salaries are paid for) writing or maintaining in-house " "code that has no sale value at all—a fact the reader may readily check " "by examining the listings of programming jobs in any newspaper with a `Help " "Wanted' section." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:340(para) msgid "" "Scanning the employment section of your local newspaper is an enlightening " "experiment that I urge the reader to perform for him- or herself. Examine " "the jobs listings under programming, data processing, and software " "engineering for positions that involve the development of software. " "Categorize each such job according to whether the software is being " "developed for use or for sale." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:347(para) msgid "" "It will quickly become clear that, even given the most inclusive definition " "of `for sale', at least 19 in 20 of the salaries offered are being funded " "strictly by use value (that is, value as an intermediate good). This is our " "reason for believing that only 5% of the industry is sale-value-driven. " "Note, however, that the rest of the analysis in this essay is relatively " "insensitive to this number; if it were 15% or even 20%, the economic " "consequences would remain essentially the same." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:356(para) msgid "" "When I speak at technical conferences, I usually begin my talk by asking two " "questions: how many in the audience are paid to write software, and for how " "many do their salaries depend on the sale value of software. I generally get " "a forest of hands for the first question, few or none for the second, and " "considerable audience surprise at the proportion." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:363(para) msgid "" "Second, the theory that the sale value of software is coupled to its " "development or replacement costs is even more easily demolished by examining " "the actual behavior of consumers. There are many goods for which a " "proportion of this kind actually holds (before depreciation)—food, " "cars, machine tools. There are even many intangible goods for which sale " "value couples strongly to development and replacement cost—rights to " "reproduce music or maps or databases, for example. Such goods may retain or " "even increase their sale value after their original vendor is gone." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:373(para) msgid "" "By contrast, when a software product's vendor goes out of business (or if " "the product is merely discontinued), the maximum price consumers will pay " "for it rapidly falls to near zero regardless of its theoretical use value or " "the development cost of a functional equivalent. (To check this assertion, " "examine the remainder bins at any software store near you.)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:380(para) msgid "" "The behavior of retailers when a vendor folds is very revealing. It tells us " "that they know something the vendors don't. What they know is this: the " "price a consumer will pay is effectively capped by the expected " "future value of vendor service (where `service' is here construed " "broadly to include enhancements, upgrades, and follow-on projects)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:387(para) msgid "" "In other words, software is largely a service industry operating under the " "persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:391(para) msgid "" "It is worth examining why we normally tend to believe otherwise. It may " "simply be because the small portion of the software industry that " "manufactures for sale is also the only part that advertises its product. The " "common mental bias that regards manufacturing as more `real' than services, " "because it produces things you can heft, may be at work " "[WG]. Also, some of the most visible and heavily advertised products " "are ephemera like games that have little in the way of continuing service " "requirements (the exception, rather than the rule) [SH]" "." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:402(para) msgid "" "It is also worth noting that the manufacturing delusion encourages price " "structures that are pathologically out of line with the actual breakdown of " "development costs. If (as is generally accepted) over 75% of a typical " "software project's life-cycle costs will be in maintenance and debugging and " "extensions, then the common price policy of charging a high fixed purchase " "price and relatively low or zero support fees is bound to lead to results " "that serve all parties poorly." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:411(para) msgid "" "Consumers lose because, even though software is a service industry, the " "incentives in the factory model all work against a vendor's offering " "competent service. If the vendor's money comes from " "selling bits, most effort will go into making bits and shoving them out the " "door; the help desk, not a profit center, will become a dumping ground for " "the least effective employees and get only enough resources to avoid " "actively alienating a critical number of customers." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:420(para) msgid "" "It gets worse. Actual use means service calls, which cut into the profit " "margin unless you're charging for service. In the open-source world, you " "seek the largest possible user base, so as to get maximum feedback and the " "most vigorous possible secondary markets; in the closed-source you seek as " "many buyers but as few actual users as possible. Therefore the logic of the " "factory model most strongly rewards vendors who produce shelfware—" "software that is sufficiently well marketed to make sales but actually " "useless in practice." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:429(para) msgid "" "The other side of this coin is that most vendors buying this factory model " "will also fail in the longer run. Funding indefinitely-continuing support " "expenses from a fixed price is only viable in a market that is expanding " "quickly enough to cover the support and life-cycle costs entailed in " "yesterday's sales with tomorrow's revenues. Once a market matures and sales " "slow down, most vendors will have no choice but to cut expenses by orphaning " "the product [DPV]." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:438(para) msgid "" "Whether this is done explicitly (by discontinuing the product) or implicitly " "(by making support hard to get), it has the effect of driving customers to " "competitors%mdash;because it destroys the product's expected future value, " "which is contingent on that service. In the short run, one can escape this " "trap by making bug-fix releases pose as new products with a new price " "attached, but consumers quickly tire of this. In the long run, therefore, " "the only way to escape is to have no competitors—that is, to have an " "effective monopoly on one's market. In the end, there can be only one." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:448(para) msgid "" "And, indeed, we have repeatedly seen this support-starvation failure mode " "kill off even strong second-place competitors in a market niche. (The " "pattern should be particularly clear to anyone who has ever surveyed the " "history of proprietary PC operating systems, word processors, accounting " "programs, or business software in general.) The perverse incentives set up " "by the factory model lead to a winner-take-all market dynamic in which even " "the winner's customers end up losing." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:457(para) msgid "" "If not the factory model, then what? To handle the real cost structure of " "the software life cycle efficiently (in both the informal and economics-" "jargon senses of `efficiency'), we require a price structure founded on " "service contracts, subscriptions, and a continuing " "exchange of value between vendor and customer. This is already the price " "structure of the largest merchant software products such as ERP (Enterprise " "Resource Planning) systems, for which the development costs are so large " "that no fixed purchase price could possibly cover them; firms like Baan and " "Peoplesoft actually make their money from after-sale consulting fees. Under " "the efficiency-seeking conditions of the free market we can predict that " "this is the sort of price structure most of a mature software industry will " "ultimately follow." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:471(para) msgid "" "The foregoing begins to give us some insight into why open-source software " "increasingly poses not merely a technological but an economic challenge to " "the prevailing order. The effect of making software `free', it seems, is to " "force us into that service-fee–dominated world—and to expose " "what a relatively weak prop the sale value of the secret bits in closed-" "source software was all along." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:479(para) msgid "" "This transition will not be quite the wrench it may at first appear. Many " "consumers find that pirate copies of packaged software (especially games, " "operating systems, and popular productivity tools) are readily available to " "them. Thus, many proprietary software sale prices are, from the point of " "view of the consumer, only worth paying as claims on other goods: vendor " "support, or the paper manuals, or a feeling of virtuousness. Commercial " "distributions of so-called `free' software often justify their price to the " "customer in exactly the same way—the only difference is that their " "vendors do not fool themselves into thinking that the bits alone necessarily " "have value to the customer." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:491(para) msgid "" "The term `free' is misleading in another way as well. Lowering the cost of a " "good tends to increase, rather than decrease, total investment in the people " "and infrastructure that sustains it. When the price of cars goes down, the " "demand for auto mechanics goes up—which is why even those 5% of " "programmers now compensated by sale-value would be very unlikely to suffer " "in an open-source world. The people who lose in the transition won't be " "programmers, they will be investors who have bet on closed-source strategies " "where they're not economically viable." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:502(title) msgid "The ``Information Wants to be Free'' Myth" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:504(para) msgid "" "There is another myth, equal and opposite to the factory-model delusion, " "which often confuses peoples' thinking about the economics of open-source " "software. It is that ``information wants to be free''. This usually unpacks " "to a claim that the zero marginal cost of reproducing digital information " "implies that its clearing price ought to be zero (or that a market full of " "duplicators will force it to zero)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:512(para) msgid "" "Some kinds of information really do want to be free, in the weak sense that " "their value goes up as more people have access to them—a technical " "standards document is a good example. But the myth that all information wants to be free is readily exploded by considering " "the value of information that constitutes a privileged pointer to a " "rivalrous good—a treasure map, say, or a Swiss bank account number, or " "a claim on services such as a computer account password. Even though the " "claiming information can be duplicated at zero cost, the item being claimed " "cannot be. Hence, the non-zero marginal cost for the item can be inherited " "by the claiming information." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:524(para) msgid "" "We mention this myth mainly to assert that it is almost unrelated to the " "economic-utility arguments for open source; as we'll see later, those would " "generally hold up well even under the assumption that software actually " "does have the (nonzero) value structure of a " "manufactured good. We therefore have no need to tackle the question of " "whether software `should' be free or not." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:533(title) msgid "The Inverse Commons" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:535(para) msgid "" "Having cast a skeptical eye on one prevailing model, let's see if we can " "build another—a hard-nosed economic explanation of what makes open-" "source cooperation sustainable." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:539(para) msgid "" "This is a question that bears examination on a couple of different levels. " "On one level, we need to explain the behavior of individuals who contribute " "to open-source projects; on another, we need to understand the economic " "forces that sustain cooperation on open-source projects like Linux or Apache." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:545(para) msgid "" "Again, we must first demolish a widespread folk model that interferes with " "understanding. Over every attempt to explain cooperative behavior there " "looms the shadow of Garret Hardin's ``Tragedy of the Commons''." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:550(para) msgid "" "Hardin famously asks us to imagine a green held in common by a village of " "peasants, who graze their cattle there. But grazing degrades the commons, " "tearing up grass and leaving muddy patches, which re-grow their cover only " "slowly. If there is no agreed-upon (and enforced!) policy to allocate " "grazing rights that prevents overgrazing, all parties' incentives push them " "to run as many cattle as quickly as possible, trying to extract maximum " "value before the commons degrades into a sea of mud." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:559(para) msgid "" "Most people have an intuitive model of cooperative behavior that goes much " "like this. The tragedy of the commons actually stems from two linked " "problems, one of overuse and another of underprovision. On the demand side, " "the commons situation encourages a race to the bottom by overuse—what " "economists call a congested–public-good problem. On the supply side, " "the commons rewards free-rider behavior—removing or diminishing " "incentives for individual actors to invest in developing more pasturage." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:568(para) msgid "" "The tragedy of the commons predicts only three possible outcomes. One is the " "sea of mud. Another is for some actor with coercive power to enforce an " "allocation policy on behalf of the village (the communist solution). The " "third is for the commons to break up as village members fence off bits they " "can defend and manage sustainably (the property-rights solution)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:575(para) msgid "" "When people reflexively apply this model to open-source cooperation, they " "expect it to be unstable with a short half-life. Since there's no obvious " "way to enforce an allocation policy for programmer time over the Internet, " "this model leads straight to a prediction that the commons will break up, " "with various bits of software being taken closed-source and a rapidly " "decreasing amount of work being fed back into the communal pool." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:583(para) msgid "" "In fact, it is empirically clear that the trend is opposite to this. The " "trend in breadth and volume of open-source development can be measured by " "submissions per day at Metalab and SourceForge (the leading Linux source " "sites) or announcements per day at freshmeat.net (a site dedicated to " "advertising new software releases). Volume on both is steadily and rapidly " "increasing. Clearly there is some critical way in which the ``Tragedy of the " "Commons'' model fails to capture what is actually going on." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:592(para) msgid "" "Part of the answer certainly lies in the fact that using software does not " "decrease its value. Indeed, widespread use of open-source software tends to " "increase its value, as users fold in their own fixes " "and features (code patches). In this inverse commons, the grass grows taller " "when it's grazed upon." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:598(para) msgid "" "That this public good cannot be degraded by overuse takes care of half of " "Hardin's tragedy, the congested–public-goods problem. It doesn't " "explain why open source doesn't suffer from underprovision. Why don't people " "who know the open-source community exists universally exhibit free-rider " "behavior behavior, waiting for others to do the work they need, or (if they " "do the work themselves) not bothering to contribute the work back into the " "commons?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:606(para) msgid "" "Part of the answer lies in the fact that people don't merely need solutions, " "they need solutions on time. It's seldom possible to " "predict when someone else will finish a given piece of needed work. If the " "payoff from fixing a bug or adding a feature is sufficient to any potential " "contributor, that person will dive in and do it (at which point the fact " "that everyone else is a free rider becomes irrelevant)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:614(para) msgid "" "Another part of the answer lies in the fact that the putative market value " "of small patches to a common source base is hard to capture. Supposing I " "write a fix for an irritating bug, and suppose many people realize the fix " "has money value; how do I collect from all those people? Conventional " "payment systems have high enough overheads to make this a real problem for " "the sorts of micropayments that would usually be appropriate." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:622(para) msgid "" "It may be more to the point that this value is not merely hard to capture, " "in the general case it's hard to even assign. As a " "thought experiment, let us suppose that the Internet came equipped with the " "theoretically ideal micropayment system—secure, universally " "accessible, zero-overhead. Now let's say you have written a patch labeled " "``Miscellaneous Fixes to the Linux Kernel''. How do you know what price to " "ask? How would a potential buyer, not having seen the patch yet, know what " "is reasonable to pay for it?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:631(para) msgid "" "What we have here is almost like a funhouse-mirror image of F. A. Hayek's " "`calculation problem'—it would take a superbeing, both able to " "evaluate the functional worth of patches and trusted to set prices " "accordingly, to lubricate trade." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:636(para) msgid "" "Unfortunately, there's a serious superbeing shortage, so patch author J. " "Random Hacker is left with two choices: sit on the patch, or throw it into " "the pool for free." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:640(para) msgid "" "Sitting on the patch gains nothing. Indeed, it incurs a future cost—" "the effort involved in re-merging the patch into the source base in each new " "release. So the payoff from this choice is actually negative (and multiplied " "by the rapid release tempo characteristic of open-source projects)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:646(para) msgid "" "To put it more positively, the contributor gains by passing maintainance " "overhead of the patch to the source-code owners and the rest of the project " "group. He also gains because others will improve on his work in the future. " "Finally, because he won't have to maintain the patch himself, he will be " "able to afford more time on other and larger customizations to suit his " "needs. The same arguments that favor opening source for entire packages " "apply to patches as well." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:654(para) msgid "" "Throwing the patch in the pool may gain nothing, or it may encourage " "reciprocal effort from others that will address some of J. Random's problems " "in the future. This choice, apparently altruistic, is actually optimally " "selfish in a game-theoretic sense." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:659(para) msgid "" "In analyzing this kind of cooperation, it is important to note that while " "there is a free-rider problem (work may be underprovided in the absence of " "money or money-equivalent compensation) it is not one that scales with the " "number of end users (see the endnote on [ST] for discussion). The complexity and communications overhead of an open-" "source project is almost entirely a function of the number of developers " "involved; having more end users who never look at source costs effectively " "nothing. It may increase the rate of silly questions appearing on the " "project mailing lists, but this is relatively easily forestalled by " "maintaining a Frequently Asked Questions list and blithely ignoring " "questioners who have obviously not read it (and in fact both these practices " "are typical)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:672(para) msgid "" "The real free-rider problems in open-source software are more a function of " "friction costs in submitting patches than anything else. A potential " "contributor with little stake in the cultural reputation game (see " "Homesteading the Noosphere[HtN]" ") may, in the absence of money compensation, think ``It's not worth " "submitting this fix because I'll have to clean up the patch, write a " "ChangeLog entry, and sign the FSF assignment papers...''. It's for this " "reason that the number of contributors (and, at second order, the success of " "projects) is strongly and inversely correlated with the number of hoops each " "project makes a contributing user go through. Such friction costs may be " "political as well as mechanical. Together I think they explain why the " "loose, amorphous Linux culture has attracted orders of magnitude more " "cooperative energy than the more tightly organized and centralized BSD " "efforts—and why the Free Software Foundation has receded in relative " "importance as Linux has risen." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:689(para) msgid "" "This is all good as far as it goes. But it is an after-the-fact explanation " "of what J. Random Hacker does with his patch after he has created it. The " "other half we need is an economic explanation of how JRH was able to write " "that patch in the first place, rather than having to work on a closed-source " "program that might have returned him sale value. What business models create " "niches in which open-source development can flourish?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:698(title) msgid "Reasons for Closing Source" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:700(para) msgid "" "Before taxonomizing open-source business models, we should deal with " "exclusion payoffs in general. What exactly are we protecting when we close " "source?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:704(para) msgid "" "Let's say you hire someone to write to order (say) a specialized accounting " "package for your business. That problem won't be solved any better if the " "sources are closed rather than open; the only rational reasons you might " "want them to be closed is if you want to sell the package to other people, " "or deny its use to competitors." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:710(para) msgid "" "The obvious answer is that you're protecting sale value, but for the 95% of " "software written for internal use this doesn't apply. So what other gains " "are there in being closed?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:714(para) msgid "" "That second case (protecting competitive advantage) bears a bit of " "examination. Suppose you open-source that accounting package. It becomes " "popular and benefits from improvements made by the community. Now, your " "competitor also starts to use it. The competitor gets the benefit without " "paying the development cost and cuts into your business. Is this an argument " "against open-sourcing?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:721(para) msgid "" "Maybe—and maybe not. The real question is whether your gain from " "spreading the development load exceeds your loss due to increased " "competition from the free rider. Many people tend to reason poorly about " "this tradeoff through (a) ignoring the functional advantage of recruiting " "more development help, and (b) not treating the development costs as sunk. " "By hypothesis, you had to pay the development costs anyway, so counting them " "as a cost of open-sourcing (if you choose to do that) is mistaken." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:730(para) msgid "" "Another reason often cited is the fear that disclosing source of a " "particular special accounting function might be tantamount to revealing " "confidential aspects of your business plan. This is really an argument not " "for closed source but against bad design; in a properly-written accounting " "package, business knowledge should not be expressed in code at all but " "rather in a schema or specification language implemented by the accounting " "engine (for a closely parallel case, consider the way that database schemas " "separate business knowledge from the mechanics of the database engine). The " "separation of function would enable you to guard the crown jewels (the " "schema) while getting maximum benefit from open-sourcing the engine." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:742(para) msgid "" "There are other reasons for closing source that are outright irrational. You " "might, for example, be laboring under the delusion that closing the sources " "will make your business systems more secure against crackers and intruders. " "If so, I recommend therapeutic conversation with a cryptographer " "immediately. The really professional paranoids know better than to trust the " "security of closed-source programs, because they've learned through hard " "experience not to. Security is an aspect of reliability; only algorithms and " "implementations that have been thoroughly peer-reviewed can possibly be " "trusted as secure." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:754(title) msgid "Use-Value Funding Models" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:756(para) msgid "" "A key fact that the distinction between use and sale value allows us to " "notice is that only sale value is threatened by the " "shift from closed to open source; use value is not." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:761(para) msgid "" "If use value rather than sale value is really the major driver of software " "development, and (as was argued in The Cathedral and the Bazaar[CatB]) open-source development is " "really more effective and efficient than closed, then we should expect to " "find circumstances in which expected use value alone sustainably funds open-" "source development." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:769(para) msgid "" "And in fact it is not difficult to identify at least two important models in " "which full-time developer salaries for open-source projects are funded " "strictly out of use value." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:773(title) msgid "The Apache Case: Cost-Sharing" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:775(para) msgid "" "Let's say you work for a firm that has a business-critical requirement for a " "high-volume, high-reliability web server. Maybe it's for electronic " "commerce, maybe you're a high-visibility media outlet selling advertising, " "maybe you're a portal site. You need 24/7 uptime, you need speed, and you " "need customizability." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:781(para) msgid "" "How are you going to get these things? There are three basic strategies you " "can pursue:" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:784(para) msgid "" "Buy a proprietary web server. In this case, you are " "betting that the vendor's agenda matches yours and that the vendor has the " "technical competence to implement properly. Even assuming both these things " "to be true, the product is likely to come up short in customizability; you " "will be able to modify it only through the hooks the vendor has chosen to " "provide. We can see from the monthly Netcraft surveys that this proprietary " "path is not a popular one, and is getting less popular all the time." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:793(para) msgid "" "Roll your own. Building your own web server is not an " "option to dismiss instantly; web servers are not very complex, certainly " "less so than browsers, and a specialized one can be very lean and mean. " "Going this path, you can get the exact features and customizability you " "want, though you'll pay for it in development time. Your firm may also find " "it has a problem when you retire or leave." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:801(para) msgid "" "Join the Apache group. The Apache server was built by " "an Internet-connected group of webmasters who realized that it was smarter " "to pool their efforts into improving one code base than to run a large " "number of parallel development efforts. By doing this they were able to " "capture both most of the advantages of roll-your-own and the powerful " "debugging effect of massively-parallel peer review." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:809(para) msgid "" "The advantage of the Apache choice is very strong. Just how strong, we may " "judge from the monthly Netcraft survey, which has shown Apache steadily " "gaining market share against all proprietary web servers since its " "inception. As of November 2000, Apache and its derivatives have 60% market share— with no " "legal owner, no promotion, and no contracted service organization behind it " "at all." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:817(para) msgid "" "The Apache story generalizes to a model in which competing software users " "find it to their advantage to cooperatively fund open-source development " "because doing so gets them a better product, at lower cost, than they could " "otherwise have." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:823(title) msgid "The Cisco Case: Risk-Spreading" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:825(para) msgid "" "Some years ago, two programmers at Cisco (the networking-equipment " "manufacturer) got assigned the job of writing a distributed print-spooling " "system for use on Cisco's corporate network. This was quite a challenge. " "Besides supporting the ability for arbitrary user A to print at arbitrary " "printer B (which might be in the next room or a thousand miles away), the " "system had to make sure that in the event of a paper-out or toner-low " "condition the job would get rerouted to an alternate printer near the " "target. The system also needed to be able to report such problems to a " "printer administrator." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:835(para) msgid "" "The duo came up with a clever " "set of modifications to the standard Unix print-spooler software, " "plus some wrapper scripts, that did the job. Then they realized that they, " "and Cisco, had a problem." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:841(para) msgid "" "The problem was that neither of them was likely to be at Cisco forever. " "Eventually, both programmers would be gone, and the software would be " "unmaintained and begin to rot (that is, to gradually fall out of sync with " "real-world conditions). No developer likes to see this happen to his or her " "work, and the intrepid duo felt Cisco had paid for a solution under the not " "unreasonable expectation that it would outlast their own employment there." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:849(para) msgid "" "Accordingly, they went to their manager and urged him to authorize the " "release of the print-spooler software as open source. Their argument was " "that Cisco would have no sale value to lose, and much else to gain. By " "encouraging the growth of a community of users and co-developers spread " "across many corporations, Cisco could effectively hedge against the loss of " "the software's original developers." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:856(para) msgid "" "The Cisco story shows open source can function not only to lower costs but " "to to spread and mitigate risk. All parties find that the openness of the " "source, and the presence of a collaborative community funded by multiple " "independent revenue streams, provides a fail-safe that is itself " "economically valuable—sufficiently valuable to attract funding for it." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:865(title) msgid "Why Sale Value is Problematic" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:867(para) msgid "" "Open source makes it rather difficult to capture direct sale value from " "software. The difficulty is not technical; source code is no more nor less " "easily copied than binaries, and the enforcement of copyright and license " "laws permitting capture of sale value would not by necessity be any more " "difficult for open-source products than it is for closed." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:874(para) msgid "" "The difficulty lies rather with the nature of the social contract that " "supports open-source development. For three mutually reinforcing reasons, " "the major open-source licenses prohibit most of the sort of restrictions on " "use, redistribution and modification that would facilitate direct-sale " "revenue capture. To understand these reasons, we must examine the social " "context within which the licenses evolved; the Internet hacker culture." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:884(para) msgid "" "Despite myths about the hacker culture still too widely believed outside it, " "none of these reasons has to do with hostility to the market. While a " "minority of hackers does indeed remain hostile to the profit motive, the " "general willingness of the community to cooperate with for-profit Linux " "packagers like Red Hat, SuSE, and Caldera demonstrates that most hackers " "will happily work with the corporate world when it serves their ends. The " "real reasons hackers frown on direct-revenue-capture licenses are more " "subtle and interesting." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:893(para) msgid "" "One reason has to do with symmetry. While most open-source developers do not " "intrinsically object to others profiting from their gifts, most also demand " "that no party (with the possible exception of the originator of a piece of " "code) be in a privileged position to extract profits. " "J. Random Hacker is willing for Fubarco to profit by selling his software or " "patches, but only so long as JRH himself could also potentially do so." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:902(para) msgid "" "Another has to do with unintended consequences. Hackers have observed that " "licenses that include restrictions on and fees for commercial use or sale " "(the most common form of attempt to recapture direct sale value, and not at " "first blush an unreasonable one) have serious chilling effects. A specific " "one is to cast a legal shadow on activities like redistribution in " "inexpensive CD-ROM anthologies, which we would ideally like to encourage. " "More generally, restrictions on use/sale/modification/distribution (and " "other complications in licensing) exact an overhead for conformance tracking " "and (as the number of packages people deal with rises) a combinatorial " "explosion of perceived uncertainty and potential legal risk. This outcome is " "considered harmful, and there is therefore strong social pressure to keep " "licenses simple and free of restrictions." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:916(para) msgid "" "The final and most critical reason has to do with preserving the peer-" "review, gift-culture dynamic described in Homesteading the " "Noosphere[HtN]. License " "restrictions designed to protect intellectual property or capture direct " "sale value often have the effect of making it legally impossible to fork the " "project. This is the case, for example, with Sun's so-called \"Community " "Source\" licenses for Jini and Java. While forking is frowned upon and " "considered a last resort (for reasons discussed at length in " "Homesteading the Noosphere), it's considered " "critically important that that last resort be present in case of maintainer " "incompetence or defection (e.g., to a more closed license) [SSH]." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:930(para) msgid "" "The hacker community has some give on the symmetry reason; thus, it " "tolerates licenses like the Netscape Public License (NPL) that give some " "profit privileges to the originators of the code (specifically in the NPL " "case, the exclusive right to use the open-source Mozilla code in derivative " "products including closed source). It has less give on the unintended-" "consequences reason, and none at all on preserving the option to fork (which " "is why Sun's Java and Jini Sun Community Source License schemes have been " "largely rejected by the community)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:939(para) msgid "" "(It bears repeating here that nobody in the hacker community " "wants projects to split into competing development " "lines; indeed (as I observed in Homesteading the Noosphere) there is very strong social pressure against forking, for good " "reasons. Nobody wants to be on a picket line, in court, or in a firefight " "either. But the right to fork is like the right to strike, the right to sue, " "or the right to bear arms—you don't want to have to exercise any of " "these rights, but it's a signal of serious danger when anyone tries to take " "them away.)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:950(para) msgid "" "These reasons explain the clauses of the Open Source Definition, which was " "written to express the consensus of the hacker community regarding the " "critical features of the standard licenses (the GPL, the BSD license, the " "MIT License, and the Artistic License). These clauses have the effect " "(though not the intention) of making direct sale value very hard to capture." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:958(title) msgid "Indirect Sale-Value Models" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:960(para) msgid "" "Nevertheless, there are ways to make markets in software-related services " "that capture something like indirect sale value. There are five known and " "two speculative models of this kind (more may be developed in the future)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:965(title) msgid "Loss-Leader/Market Positioner" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:967(para) msgid "" "In this model, you use open-source software to create or maintain a market " "position for proprietary software that generates a direct revenue stream. In " "the most common variant, open-source client software enables sales of server " "software, or subscription/advertising revenue associated with a portal site." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:973(para) msgid "" "Netscape Communications, Inc. was pursuing this strategy when it open-" "sourced the Mozilla browser in early 1998. The browser side of their " "business was at 13% of revenues and dropping when Microsoft first shipped " "Internet Explorer (IE). Intensive marketing of IE (and shady bundling " "practices that would later become the central issue of an antitrust lawsuit) " "quickly ate into Netscape's browser market share, creating concern that " "Microsoft intended to monopolize the browser market and then use de-facto " "control of HTML and HTTP to drive Netscape out of the server market." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:983(para) msgid "" "By open-sourcing the still widely popular Netscape browser, Netscape " "effectively denied Microsoft the possibility of a browser monopoly. They " "expected that open-source collaboration would accelerate the development and " "debugging of the browser, and hoped that Microsoft's IE would be reduced to " "playing catch-up and prevented from exclusively defining HTML." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:990(para) msgid "" "This strategy worked. In November 1998 Netscape actually began to regain " "business-market share from IE. By the time Netscape was acquired by AOL in " "early 1999, the competitive advantage of keeping Mozilla in play was " "sufficiently clear that one of AOL's first public commitments was to " "continue supporting the Mozilla project, even though it was still in alpha " "stage." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:998(title) msgid "Widget Frosting" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1000(para) msgid "" "This model is for hardware manufacturers (hardware, in this context, " "includes anything from Ethernet or other peripheral boards all the way up to " "entire computer systems). Market pressures have forced hardware companies to " "write and maintain software (from device drivers through configuration tools " "all the way up to the level of entire operating systems), but the software " "itself is not a profit center. It's an overhead—often a substantial " "one." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1008(para) msgid "" "In this situation, opening source is a no-brainer. There's no revenue stream " "to lose, so there's no downside. What the vendor gains is a dramatically " "larger developer pool, more rapid and flexible response to customer needs, " "and better reliability through peer review. It gets ports to other " "environments for free. It probably also gains increased customer loyalty as " "its customers' technical staffs put increasing amounts of time into the code " "to improve the source as they require." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1017(para) msgid "" "There are a couple of vendor objections commonly raised specifically to open-" "sourcing hardware drivers. Rather than mix these objections with discussion " "of more general issues here, I have written an afterword specifically on this topic." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1023(para) msgid "" "The `future-proofing' effect of open source is particularly strong with " "respect to widget frosting. Hardware products have a finite production and " "support lifetime; after that, the customers are on their own. But if they " "have access to driver source and can patch those drivers as needed, they're " "more likely to be happier repeat customers." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1030(para) msgid "" "A very dramatic example of adopting the widget frosting model was Apple " "Computer's decision in mid-March 1999 to open-source \"Darwin\", the core of " "their Mac OS X operating system." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1035(title) msgid "Give Away the Recipe, Open a Restaurant" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1037(para) msgid "" "In this model, one open-sources software to create a market position not for " "closed software (as in the loss-leader/market-positioner case) but for " "services." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1041(para) msgid "" "(I used to call this `Give Away the Razor, Sell Razor Blades', but the " "coupling is not really as close as the razor/razor-blade analogy implies.)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1045(para) msgid "" "This model was first used by Cygnus Solutions, arguably the first open " "source business (1989). At the time, the GNU tools provided a common " "development environment across several machines, but each tool used a " "different configuration process and required a different set of patches to " "run on each platform. Cygnus domesticated the GNU tools and created the " "\"configure\" script to unify the build process (the recipe), and then sold " "support services and binaries bundled with their version of the GNU tools " "(the restaurant). In accordance with the GPL, they permitted customers to " "freely use, distribute, and modify the software that they distributed, but " "the service contract could be terminated (or a higher fee had to be paid) if " "there were more users at the site using the support services than were " "accounted for in the contract (no sharing at the salad bar)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1059(para) msgid "" "This also is what Red Hat and other Linux distributors do. What they are " "actually selling is not the software, the bits itself, but the value added " "by assembling and testing a running operating system that is warranted (if " "only implicitly) to be merchantable and to be plug-compatible with other " "operating systems carrying the same brand. Other elements of their value " "proposition include free installation support and the provision of options " "for continuing support contracts." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1067(para) msgid "" "The market-building effect of open source can be extremely powerful, " "especially for companies that are inevitably in a service position to begin " "with. One very instructive recent case is Digital Creations, a website-" "design house started up in 1998 that specializes in complex database and " "transaction sites. Their major tool, the intellectual-property crown jewels " "of the company, is an object publisher that has been through several names " "and incarnations but is now called Zope." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1076(para) msgid "" "When the Digital Creations people went looking for venture capital, the " "venture capitalist they brought in carefully evaluated their prospective " "market niche, their people, and their tools. The VC then recommended that " "Digital Creations take Zope open-source." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1081(para) msgid "" "By traditional software industry standards, this looks like an absolutely " "crazy move. Conventional business school wisdom has it that core " "intellectual property like Zope is a company's crown jewels, never under any " "circumstances to be given away. But the VC had two related insights. One is " "that Zope's true core asset is actually the brains and skills of its people. " "The second is that Zope is likely to generate more value as a market-builder " "than as a secret tool." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1089(para) msgid "" "To see this, compare two scenarios. In the conventional one, Zope remains " "Digital Creations's secret weapon. Let's stipulate that it's a very " "effective one. As a result, the firm will able to deliver superior quality " "on short schedules—but nobody knows that. It will " "be easy to satisfy customers, but harder to build a customer base to begin " "with." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1096(para) msgid "" "The VC, instead, saw that open-sourcing Zope could be critical advertising " "for Digital Creations's real asset— its people. " "He expected that customers evaluating Zope would consider it more efficient " "to hire the experts than to develop in-house Zope expertise." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1102(para) msgid "" "One of the Zope principals has since confirmed very publicly that their open-" "source strategy has \"opened many doors we wouldn't have got in otherwise" "\" [sic]. Potential customers do indeed respond to the logic of the " "situation—and Digital Creations, accordingly, is prospering." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1108(para) msgid "" "Another up-to-the-minute example is e-" "smith, inc.. This company sells support contracts for turnkey " "Internet server software that is open-source, a customized Linux. One of the " "principals, describing the spread of free downloads of e-smith's software, " "says ``Most companies would consider that software piracy; we " "consider it free marketing''." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1118(title) msgid "Accessorizing" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1120(para) msgid "" "In this model, you sell accessories for open-source software. At the low " "end, mugs and T-shirts; at the high end, professionally-edited and produced " "documentation." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1124(para) msgid "" "O'Reilly & Associates Inc., publishers of many excellent reference " "volumes on open-source software, is a good example of an accessorizing " "company. O'Reilly actually hires and supports well-known open-source hackers " "(such as Larry Wall and Brian Behlendorf) as a way of building its " "reputation in its chosen market." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1132(title) msgid "Free the Future, Sell the Present" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1134(para) msgid "" "In this model, you release software in binaries and source with a closed " "license, but one that includes an expiration date on the closure provisions. " "For example, you might write a license that permits free redistribution, " "forbids commercial use without fee, and guarantees that the software come " "under GPL terms a year after release or if the vendor folds." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1141(para) msgid "" "Under this model, customers can ensure that the product is customizable to " "their needs, because they have the source. The product is future-" "proofed—the license guarantees that an open source community can take " "over the product if the original company dies." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1147(para) msgid "" "Because the sale price and volume are based on these customer expectations, " "the original company should enjoy enhanced revenues from its product versus " "releasing it with an exclusively closed-source license. Furthermore, as " "older code is GPLed, it will get serious peer review, bug fixes, and minor " "features, which removes some of the 75% maintainance burden on the " "originator." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1154(para) msgid "" "This model has been successfully pursued by Aladdin Enterprises, makers of " "the popular Ghostscript program (a PostScript interpreter that can translate " "to the native languages of many printers)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1158(para) msgid "" "The main drawback of this model is that the closure provisions tend to " "inhibit peer review and participation early in the product cycle, precisely " "when they are needed most." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1163(title) msgid "Free the Software, Sell the Brand" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1165(para) msgid "" "This is a speculative business model. You open-source a software technology, " "retain a test suite or set of compatibility criteria, then sell users a " "brand certifying that their implementation of the technology is compatible " "with all others wearing the brand." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1170(para) msgid "(This is how Sun Microsystems ought to be handling Java and Jini.)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1172(para) msgid "" "Update: in July 2000, Sun sannounced that it would open-sourc its Star " "Office, and that they would be selling the use of the Star Office brand to " "lines of development of that codebase that pass Sun's validation suite." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1178(title) msgid "Free the Software, Sell the Content" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1180(para) msgid "" "This is another speculative business model. Imagine something like a stock-" "ticker subscription service. The value is neither in the client software nor " "the server but in providing objectively reliable information. So you open-" "source all the software and sell subscriptions to the content. As hackers " "port the client to new platforms and enhance it in various ways, your market " "automatically expands." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1188(para) msgid "(This is why AOL ought to open-source its client software.)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1192(title) msgid "When to be Open, When to be Closed" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1194(para) msgid "" "Having reviewed business models that support open-source software " "development, we can now approach the general question of when it makes " "economic sense to be open-source and when to be closed-source. First, we " "must be clear what the payoffs are from each strategy." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1199(title) msgid "What Are the Payoffs?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1201(para) msgid "" "The closed-source approach allows you to collect rent from your secret bits; " "on the other hand, it forecloses the possibility of truly independent peer " "review. The open-source approach sets up conditions for independent peer " "review, but you don't get rent from your secret bits." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1207(para) msgid "" "The payoff from having secret bits is well understood; traditionally, " "software business models have been constructed around it. Until recently, " "the payoff from independent peer review was not well understood. The Linux " "operating system, however, drives home a lesson that we should probably have " "learned years ago from the history of the Internet's core software and other " "branches of engineering—that open-source peer review is the only " "scalable method for achieving high reliability and quality." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1216(para) msgid "" "In a competitive market, therefore, customers seeking high reliability and " "quality will reward software producers who go open-source and discover how " "to maintain a revenue stream in the service, value-add, and ancilliary " "markets associated with software. This phenomenon is what's behind the " "astonishing success of Linux, which came from nowhere in 1996 to be the " "second-most-popular operating system in the business server market by mid-" "2000 (and some surveys actually showed it passing Microsoft's share in late " "2000). In early 1999 IDC projected that Linux would grow faster than all " "other operating systems combined through 2003; this projection has held true " "so far." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1228(para) msgid "" "An almost equally important payoff of open source is its utility as a way to " "propagate open standards and build markets around them. The dramatic growth " "of the Internet owes much to the fact that nobody owns TCP/IP; nobody has a " "proprietary lock on the core Internet protocols." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1234(para) msgid "" "The network effects behind TCP/IP's and Linux's success are fairly clear and " "reduce ultimately to issues of trust and symmetry—potential parties to " "a shared infrastructure can rationally trust it more if they can see how it " "works all the way down, and will prefer an infrastructure in which all " "parties have symmetrical rights to one in which a single party is in a " "privileged position to extract rents or exert control." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1242(para) msgid "" "It is not, however, actually necessary to assume network effects in order " "for symmetry issues to be important to software consumers. No software " "consumer will rationally choose to lock itself into a supplier-controlled " "monopoly by becoming dependent on closed source if any open-source " "alternative of acceptable quality is available. This argument gains force as " "the software becomes more critical to the software consumer's business—" "the more vital it is, the less the consumer can tolerate having it " "controlled by an outside party." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1251(para) msgid "" "There's a flip side to this. Economists know that, in general, asymmetric " "information makes markets work poorly. Higher-quality goods get driven out " "when it's more lucrative to collect rent on privileged information than it " "is to invest in producing better products. In general, not just in software, " "secrecy is the enemy of quality." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1258(para) msgid "" "Finally, an important customer payoff of open-source software related to the " "trust issue is that it's future-proof. If sources are open, the customer has " "some recourse if the vendor goes belly-up. This may be particularly " "important for widget frosting, since hardware tends to have short life " "cycles, but the effect is more general and translates into increased value " "for all kinds of open-source software." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1266(title) msgid "How Do They Interact?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1268(para) msgid "" "When the rent from secret bits is higher than the return from open source, " "it makes economic sense to be closed-source. When the return from open " "source is higher than the rent from secret bits, it makes sense to go open " "source." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1273(para) msgid "" "In itself, this is a trivial observation. It becomes nontrivial when we " "notice that the payoff from open source is harder to measure and predict " "than the rent from secret bits—and that said payoff is grossly " "underestimated much more often than it is overestimated. Indeed, until the " "mainstream business world began to rethink its premises following the " "Mozilla source release in early 1998, the open-source payoff was incorrectly " "but very generally assumed to be zero." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1282(para) msgid "" "So how can we evaluate the payoff from open source? It's a difficult " "question in general, but we can approach it as we would any other predictive " "problem. We can start from observed cases where the open-source approach has " "succeeded or failed. We can try to generalize to a model that gives at least " "a qualitative feel for the contexts in which open source is a net win for " "the investor or business trying to maximize returns. We can then go back to " "the data and try to refine the model." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1291(para) msgid "" "From the analysis presented in The Cathedral and the Bazaar[CatB], we can expect that open " "source has a high payoff where (a) reliability/stability/scalability are " "critical, and (b) correctness of design and implementation is not readily " "verified by means other than independent peer review. (The second criterion " "is met in practice by most non-trivial programs.)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1299(para) msgid "" "A consumer's rational desire to avoid being locked into a monopoly supplier " "will increase its interest in open source (and, hence, the competitive-" "market value for suppliers of going open) as the software becomes more " "critical to that consumer. Thus, another criterion (c) pushes towards open " "source when the software is a business-critical capital good (as, for " "example, in many corporate MIS departments)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1306(para) msgid "" "As for application area, we observed above that open-source infrastructure " "creates trust and symmetry effects that, over time, will tend to attract " "more customers and to outcompete closed-source infrastructure; and it is " "often better to have a smaller piece of such a rapidly-expanding market than " "a bigger piece of a closed and stagnant one. Accordingly, for infrastructure " "software, an open-source play for ubiquity is quite likely to have a higher " "long-term payoff than a closed-source play for rent from intellectual " "property." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1316(para) msgid "" "In fact, the ability of potential customers to reason about the future " "consequences of vendor strategies and their reluctance to accept a supplier " "monopoly implies a stronger constraint; without already having overwhelming " "market power, you can choose either an open-source ubiquity play or a direct-" "revenue-from-closed-source play—but not both. (Analogues of this " "principle are visible elsewhere—e.g., in electronics markets where " "customers often refuse to buy sole-source designs.) The case can be put less " "negatively: where network effects (positive network externalities) dominate, " "open source is likely to be the right thing." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1327(para) msgid "" "We may sum up this logic by observing that open source seems to be most " "successful in generating greater returns than is closed source in software " "that (d) establishes or enables a common computing and communications " "infrastructure." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1332(para) msgid "" "Finally, we may note that purveyors of unique or just highly differentiated " "services have more incentive to fear the copying of their methods by " "competitors than do vendors of services for which the critical algorithms " "and knowledge bases are well understood. Accordingly, open source is more " "likely to dominate when (e) key methods (or functional equivalents) are part " "of common engineering knowledge." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1340(para) msgid "" "The Internet core software, Apache, and Linux's implementation of the " "standard Unix API are prime exemplars of all five criteria. The path towards " "open source in the evolution of such markets are well-illustrated by the " "reconvergence of data networking on TCP/IP in the mid-1990s following " "fifteen years of failed empire-building attempts with closed protocols such " "as DECNET, XNS, IPX, and the like." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1348(para) msgid "" "On the other hand, open source seems to make the least sense for companies " "that have unique possession of a value-generating software technology " "(strongly fulfilling criterion (e)) which is (a) relatively insensitive to " "failure, which can (b) readily be verified by means other than independent " "peer review, which is not (c) business-critical, and which would not have " "its value substantially increased by (d) network effects or ubiquity." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1356(para) msgid "" "As an example of this extreme case, in early 1999 I was asked \"Should we go " "open source?\" by a company that writes software to calculate cutting " "patterns for sawmills that want to extract the maximum yardage of planks " "from logs. My conclusion was ``No.'' The only criterion this comes even " "close to fulfilling is (c); but at a pinch, an experienced operator could " "generate cut patterns by hand." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1363(para) msgid "" "Note that my answer night have been very different if the cut-pattern " "calculator had been written by a sawmill-equipment manufacturer. In that " "case, opening the code would have increased the value of the associated " "hardware they were selling. Also note that if some open-source cut-pattern " "calculator already existed (perhaps the one written by the sawmill-equipment " "manufacturer) the closed-source product would have trouble competing with " "it—not so much for reasons of price, but because customers would " "perceive on open-source advantage in customizability and other traits." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1373(para) msgid "" "An important point is that where a particular product or technology sits on " "these scales may change over time, as we'll see in the following case study." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1377(para) msgid "In summary, the following discriminators push towards open source:" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1380(term) msgid "(a)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1380(para) msgid "Reliability/stability/scalability are critical." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1384(term) msgid "(b)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1384(para) msgid "" "Correctness of design and implementation cannot readily be verified by means " "other than independent peer review." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1388(term) msgid "(c)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1388(para) msgid "The software is critical to the user's control of his/her business." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1392(term) msgid "(d)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1392(para) msgid "" "The software establishes or enables a common computing and communications " "infrastructure." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1396(term) msgid "(e)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1396(para) msgid "" "Key methods (or functional equivalents of them) are part of common " "engineering knowledge." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1402(title) msgid "Doom: A Case Study" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1404(para) msgid "" "The history of id software's best-selling game Doom illustrates ways in " "which market pressure and product evolution can critically change the payoff " "magnitudes for closed versus open source." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1408(para) msgid "" "When Doom was first released in late 1993, its first-person, real-time " "animation made it utterly unique (the antithesis of criterion (e)). Not only " "was the visual impact of the techniques stunning (far exceeding the flat-" "world animation in its predecessor Wolfenstein 3D), but for many months " "nobody could figure out how it had been achieved on the underpowered " "microprocessors of that time. These secret bits were worth some very serious " "rent. In addition, the potential payoff from open source was low. As a solo " "game, the software (a) incurred tolerably low costs on failure, (b) was not " "tremendously hard to verify, (c) was not business-critical for any consumer, " "(d) did not benefit from network effects. It was economically rational for " "Doom to be closed source." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1421(para) msgid "" "However, the market around Doom did not stand still. Would-be competitors " "invented functional equivalents of its animation techniques, and other " "``first-person shooter'' games like Duke Nukem began to appear. As these " "games ate into Doom's market share, the value of the rent from secret bits " "went down." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1427(para) msgid "" "On the other hand, efforts to expand that share brought on new technical " "challenges—better reliability, more game features, a larger user base, " "and multiple platforms. With the advent of multiplayer `deathmatch' play and " "Doom gaming services, the market began to display substantial network " "effects. All this was demanding programmer-hours that id would have " "preferred to spend on the next game." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1435(para) msgid "" "From the time the game was first released, id had looked benignly on the " "publication of technical specs that helped people to create data objects for " "the game, and occasionally cooperated directly with hackers by answering " "specific questions or publishing an existing specs document of their own. " "They also encouraged the Internet distribution of new Doom data." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1442(para) msgid "" "The technical and market trends raised the payoff from opening the source; " "Doom's opening of specifications and encouragement of third-party add-ons " "increased the perceived value of the game and created a secondary market for " "them to exploit. At some point the payoff curves crossed over and it became " "economically rational for id to shift to making money in that secondary " "market (with products such as game-scenario anthologies) and then open up " "the Doom source. Sometime after this point, it actually happened. The full " "source for Doom was released in late 1997." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1453(title) msgid "Knowing When to Let Go" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1455(para) msgid "" "Doom makes an interesting case study because it is neither an operating " "system nor communications/networking software; it is thus far removed from " "the usual and obvious examples of open-source success. Indeed, Doom's life " "cycle, complete with crossover point, may be coming to typify that of " "applications software in today's code ecology—one in which " "communications and distributed computation both create serious robustness/" "reliability/scalability problems only addressible by peer review, and " "frequently cross boundaries both between technical environments and between " "competing actors (with all the trust and symmetry issues that implies)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1466(para) msgid "" "Doom evolved from solo to deathmatch play. Increasingly, the network effect " "is the computation. Similar trends are visible even in " "the heaviest business applications, such as ERP systems, as businesses " "network ever more intensively with suppliers and customers—and, of " "course, they are implicit in the whole architecture of the World Wide Web. " "It follows that almost everywhere, the open-source payoff is steadily " "increasing." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1474(para) msgid "" "If present trends continue, the central challenge of software technology and " "product management in the next century will be knowing when to let go—" "when to allow closed code to pass into the open-source infrastructure in " "order to exploit the peer-review effect and capture higher returns in " "service and other secondary markets." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1480(para) msgid "" "There are obvious revenue incentives not to miss the crossover point too far " "in either direction. Beyond that, there's a serious opportunity risk in " "waiting too long—you could get scooped by a competitor going open-" "source in the same market niche." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1485(para) msgid "" "The reason this is a serious issue is that both the pool of users and the " "pool of talent available to be recruited into open-source cooperation for " "any given product category is limited, and recruitment tends to stick. If " "two producers are the first and second to open-source competing code of " "roughly equal function, the first is likely to attract the most users and " "the most and best-motivated co-developers; the second will have to take " "leavings. Recruitment tends to stick, as users gain familiarity and " "developers sink time investments in the code itself." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1497(title) msgid "Open Source as a Strategic Weapon" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1499(para) msgid "" "Sometimes, open-sourcing can be effective not just as a way to grow markets " "but as a strategic maneuver against a company's competition. It will be " "fruitful to re-examine some of the business tactics described above from " "that angle; not directly as revenue generators but as ways to break into and " "reshape markets." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1505(title) msgid "Cost-sharing as a competitive weapon" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1507(para) msgid "" "Earlier, we considered Apache as an example of better and cheaper " "infrastructure development through cost-sharing in an open-source project. " "For software and systems vendors competing against Microsoft and its IIS web " "server, the Apache project is also a competitive weapon. It would be " "difficult, perhaps impossible, for any other single web server vendor to " "completely offset the advantages of Microsoft's huge war chest and desktop-" "monopoly market power. But Apache enables each corporate participant in the " "project to offer a webserver that is both technically superior to IIS and " "reassures customers with a majority market share—at far lower cost. " "This improves the market position and cost of production for value-added " "electronic-commerce products (like IBM's WebSphere)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1520(para) msgid "" "This generalizes. Open, shared infrastructure gives its participants " "competitive advantages. One is lower cost per participant to produce salable " "products and services. Another is a market position that reassures customers " "that they are much less likely to be stuck with orphaned technology as a " "result of one vendor's change in strategy or tactics." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1528(title) msgid "Resetting the competition" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1530(para) msgid "" "When the development of the open-source X window system was funded by DEC in " "the 180s, their explicit goal was to `reset the competition'. At the time " "there were several competing alternative graphics environments for Unix in " "play, notably including Sun Microsystems's NeWS system. DEC strategists " "believed (probably correctly) that if Sun were able to establish a " "proprietary graphics standard it would get a lock on the booming Unix-" "workstation market. By funding X and lending it engineers, and by allying " "with many smaller vendors to establish X as a de-facto standard, DEC was " "able to neutralize advantages held by Sun and other competitors with more in-" "house expertise in graphics. This moved the focus of competition in " "theworkstation market towards hardware, where DEC was historically strong." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1544(para) msgid "" "This too generalizes. Open source is attractive to smart customers, and to " "potential allies not large enough to fund competive development on their " "own. An open-source project, pitched at the right time, can do better than " "just competing successfully against closed-source alternatives; it can " "actually prevent them from getting traction in the marketplace, resetting " "the competition and redirecting it from an area where the initiating company " "is weak to one where it is strong." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1554(title) msgid "Growing the pond" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1556(para) msgid "" "Red Hat Software funded the development of the RPM packaging system in order " "to give the Linux world a standard binary package installer. By doing so, " "they bet that the increased confidence such a standard installer would give " "potential customers would be worth more in future revenue than either the " "development cost of the software or the revenue potentially lost to " "competitors also able to use it." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1564(para) msgid "" "Sometimes the smartest way to become a bigger frog is to make the pond grow " "faster. This, of course, is the economic reason technology firms have " "participated in public standards—and it's useful to think of open-" "source software as an executable standard. Besides being an excellent market " "builder, this strategy can be a direct competitive weapon when a small " "company uses it to offset the mass and market power of a much larger company " "outside the standards-based alliance. In Red Hat's case, the obvious and " "acknowledged big competitor is Microsoft; standardization on RPM across most " "Linux distributions went a significant way towards neutralizing advantages " "Microsoft had previously held in ease of system administration on its " "Windows machines." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1578(title) msgid "Preventing a choke hold" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1580(para) msgid "" "In explaining the loss-leader/market-positioner business model above, I " "described how Netscape's open-sourcing of the Mozilla browser was a " "(successful) maneuver aimed at preventing Microsoft from effectively locking " "up HTML markup and the HTTP protocol" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1585(para) msgid "" "Often, it's more important to prevent your competition from getting a " "chokehold on a particular technology than it is to control the technology " "yourself. By open-sourcing, you greatly increase the potential size of your " "blocking coalition." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1592(title) msgid "Open Source and Strategic Business Risk" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1594(para) msgid "" "Ultimately, the reasons open source seems destined to become a widespread " "practice have more to do with customer demand and market pressures than with " "supply-side efficiencies for vendors. I have already discussed, from the " "vendor's point of view, the effects of customer demand for reliability and " "for infrastructure with no single dominant player, and how these have played " "out historically in the evolution of networking. There is more to be said, " "though, about the behavior of customers in a market where open source is a " "factor." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1604(para) msgid "" "Put yourself for the moment in the position of a CTO at a Fortune 500 " "corporation contemplating a build or upgrade of your firm's IT " "infrastructure. Perhaps you need to choose a network operating system to be " "deployed enterprise-wide; perhaps your concerns involve 24/7 web service and " "e-commerce; perhaps your business depends on being able to field high-" "volume, high-reliability transaction databases." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1612(para) msgid "" "Suppose you go the conventional closed-source route. If you do, then you put " "your firm at the mercy of a supplier monopoly—because by definition, " "there is only one place you can go for support, bug fixes, and enhancements. " "If the supplier doesn't perform, you will have no effective recourse because " "you are effectively locked in by your initial investment and training costs. " "Your supplier knows this. Under these circumstances, do you suppose the " "software will change to meet your needs and " "your business plan...or your supplier's needs and your supplier's business plan?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1624(para) msgid "" "The brutal truth is this: when your key business processes are executed by " "opaque blocks of bits that you can't even see inside (let alone modify) " "you have lost control of your business. You need your " "supplier more than your supplier needs you—and you will pay, and pay, " "and pay again for that power imbalance. You'll pay in higher prices, you'll " "pay in lost opportunities, and you'll pay in lock-in that grows worse over " "time as the supplier (who has refined its game on a lot of previous victims) " "tightens its hold." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1634(para) msgid "" "Contrast this with the open-source choice. If you go that route, " "you have the source code, and no one can take it away from you. " "Instead of a supplier monopoly with a chokehold on your business, you now " "have multiple service companies bidding for your business—and you not " "only get to play them against each other, you have the option of building " "your own captive support organization if that looks less expensive than " "contracting out. The market works for you." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1643(para) msgid "" "The logic is compelling; depending on closed source code is an unacceptable " "strategic business risk. So much so that I believe it will not be very long " "until closed-source single-vendor acquisitions when there is an open-source " "alternative available will be viewed as actual fiduciary irresponsibility, " "and rightly grounds for a shareholder lawsuit." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1651(title) msgid "The Business Ecology of Open Source" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1653(para) msgid "" "The open-source community has organized itself in a way that tends to " "amplify the productivity effects of open source. In the Linux world, in " "particular, it's an economically significant fact that there are multiple " "competing Linux distributors which form a tier separate from the developers." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1659(para) msgid "" "Developers write code, and make the code available over the Internet. Each " "distributor selects some subset of the available code, integrates and " "packages and brands it, and sells it to customers. Users choose among " "distributions, and may supplement a distribution by downloading code " "directly from developer sites." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1665(para) msgid "" "The effect of this tier separation is to create a very fluid internal market " "for improvements. Developers compete with each other, for the attention of " "distributors and users, on the quality of their software. Distributors " "compete for user dollars on the appropriateness of their selection policies, " "and on the value they can add to the software." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1671(para) msgid "" "A first-order effect of this internal market structure is that no node in " "the net is indispensible. Developers can drop out; even if their portion of " "the code base is not picked up directly by some other developer, the " "competition for attention will tend to rapidly generate functional " "alternatives. Distributors can fail without damaging or compromising the " "common open-source code base. The ecology as a whole has a more rapid " "response to market demands, and more capability to resist shocks and " "regenerate itself, than any monolithic vendor of a closed-source operating " "system can possibly muster." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1681(para) msgid "" "Another important effect is to lower overhead and increase efficiency " "through specialization. Developers don't experience the pressures that " "routinely compromise conventional closed projects and turn them into tar-" "pits—no lists of pointless and distracting check-list features from " "Marketing, no management mandates to use inappropriate and outdated " "languages or development environments, no requirement to reinvent wheels in " "a new and incompatible way in the name of product differentiation or " "intellectual-property protection, and (most importantly) no " "deadlines. No rushing a 1.0 out the door before it's done right. " "De Marco and Lister observed in their discussion of the `wake me when it's " "over' management style in ``Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams'' " "[DL] that this generally conduces not only to " "higher quality but actually to the most rapid delivery of a working result." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1697(para) msgid "" "Distributors, on the other hand, get to specialize in the things " "distributors can do most effectively. Freed of the need to fund massive and " "ongoing software development just to stay competitive, they can concentrate " "on system integration, packaging, quality assurance, and service." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1703(para) msgid "" "Both distributors and developers are kept honest by the constant feedback " "from and monitoring by users that is an integral part of the open-source " "method." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1708(title) msgid "Coping with Success" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1710(para) msgid "" "The Tragedy of the Commons may not be applicable to open-source development " "as it happens today, but that doesn't mean there are not any reasons to " "wonder if the present momentum of the open-source community is sustainable. " "Will key players defect from cooperation as the stakes become higher?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1716(para) msgid "" "There are several levels on which this question can be asked. Our `Comedy of " "the Commons' counter-story is based on the argument that the value of " "individual contributions to open source is hard to monetize. But this " "argument has much less force for firms (like, say, Linux distributors) that " "already have a revenue stream associated with open source. Their " "contribution is already being monetized every day. Is their present " "cooperative role stable?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1724(para) msgid "" "Examining this question will lead us to some interesting insights about the " "economics of open-source software in the real world of present time—" "and about what a true service-industry paradigm implies for the software " "industry in the future." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1729(para) msgid "" "On the practical level, applied to the open-source community as it exists " "now, this question is usually posed in one of two different ways. One: will " "Linux fragment? Two: conversely, will Linux develop a dominant, quasi-" "monopolistic player?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1734(para) msgid "" "The historical analogy many people turn to when considering if Linux will " "fragment is the behavior of the proprietary-Unix vendors in the 1980s. " "Despite endless talk of open standards, despite numerous alliances and " "consortia and agreements, proprietary Unix fell apart. The vendors' desire " "to differentiate their products by adding and modifying operating-system " "facilities proved stronger than their interest in growing the total size of " "the Unix market by maintaining compatibility (and consequently lowering both " "entry barriers for independent software developers and total cost of " "ownership for consumers)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1745(para) msgid "" "This is quite unlikely to happen to Linux, for the simple reason that all " "the distributors are constrained to operate from a common base of open " "source code. It's not really possible for any one of them to maintain " "differentiation, because the licenses under which Linux code are developed " "effectively require them to share code with all parties. The moment any " "distributor develops a feature, all competitors are free to clone it." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1753(para) msgid "" "Since all parties understand this, nobody even thinks about doing the kinds " "of maneuvers that fragmented proprietary Unix. Instead, Linux distributors " "are forced to compete in ways that actually benefit the " "consumer and the overall market. That is, they must compete on service, on " "support, and their design bets on what interfaces actually conduce to ease " "installation and use." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1761(para) msgid "" "The common source base also forecloses the possibility of monopolization. " "When Linux people worry about this, the name usually muttered is ``Red " "Hat'', that of the largest and most successful of the distributors (with " "somewhere around 90% estimated market share in the U.S.). But it is notable " "that within days after the May 1999 announcement of Red Hat's long-awaited " "6.0 release—before Red Hat's CD-ROMs actually shipped in any " "quantity—CD-ROM images of the release built from Red Hat's own public " "FTP site were being advertised by a book publisher and several other CD-ROM " "distributors at lower prices than Red Hat's expected list price." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1772(para) msgid "" "Red Hat itself didn't turn a hair at this, because its founders understand " "very clearly that they do not and cannot own the bits in their product; the " "social norms of the Linux community forbid that. In a latter-day take on " "John Gilmore's famous observation that the Internet interprets censorship as " "damage and routes around it, it has been aptly said that the hacker " "community responsible for Linux interprets attempts at control as damage and " "routes around them. For Red Hat to have protested the pre-release cloning of " "its newest product would have seriously compromised its ability to elicit " "future cooperation from its developer community." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1783(para) msgid "" "Perhaps more importantly in present time, the software licenses that express " "these community norms in a binding legal form actively forbid Red Hat from " "monopolizing the sources of the code on which their product is based. The " "only thing they can sell is a brand/service/support relationship with people " "who are freely willing to pay for that. This is not a context in which the " "possibility of a predatory monopoly looms very large." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1792(title) msgid "Open R&D and the Reinvention of Patronage" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1794(para) msgid "" "There is one other respect in which the infusion of real money into the open-" "source world is changing it. The community's stars are increasingly finding " "they can get paid for what they want to do, instead of pursuing open source " "as a hobby funded by another day job. Corporations like Red Hat, O'Reilly " "& Associates, and VA Linux Systems are building what amount to semi-" "independent research arms with charters to hire and maintain stables of open-" "source talent." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1802(para) msgid "" "This makes economic sense only if the cost per head of maintaining such a " "lab can easily be paid out of the expected gains it will achieve by growing " "the firm's market faster. O'Reilly can afford to pay the leaders of Perl and " "Apache to do their thing because it expects their efforts will enable it to " "sell more Perl- and Apache-related books and draw more people to its " "conferences. VA Linux Systems can fund its laboratory branch because " "improving Linux boosts the use value of the workstations and servers it " "sells. And Red Hat funds Red Hat Advanced Development Labs to increase the " "value of its Linux offering and attract more customers." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1813(para) msgid "" "To strategists from more traditional sectors of the software industry, " "reared in cultures that regard patent- or trade-secret–protected " "intellectual property as the corporate crown jewels, this behavior may " "(despite its market-growing effect) seem inexplicable. Why fund research " "that every one of your competitors is (by definition) free to appropriate at " "no cost?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1820(para) msgid "" "There seem to be two controlling reasons. One is that as long as these " "companies remain dominant players in their market niches, they can expect to " "capture a proportional lion's share of the returns from the open research " "and development. Using R&D to buy future profits is hardly a novel idea; " "what's interesting is the implied calculation that the expected future gains " "are sufficiently large that these companies can readily tolerate free riders " "in order to get the peer-review effect." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1829(para) msgid "" "While this obvious expected-future-value analysis is a necessary one in a " "world of hard-nosed capitalists keeping their eyes on return-on-investment, " "it is not actually the most interesting mode of explanation for star-hiring, " "because the firms themselves advance a fuzzier one. They will tell you if " "asked that they are simply doing the right thing by the community they come " "from. Your humble author is sufficiently well-acquainted with principals at " "all three of the firms cited above to testify that these protestations " "cannot be dismissed as humbug. Indeed, I was personally recruited onto the " "board of VA Linux Systems in late 1998 explicitly so that I would be " "available to advise them on ``the right thing'', and have found them far " "from unwilling to listen when I did so." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1842(para) msgid "" "An economist is entitled to ask what payoff is involved here. If we accept " "that talk of doing the right thing is not empty posturing, we should next " "inquire what self-interest of the firm the ``right thing'' serves. Nor is " "the answer, in itself, either surprising or difficult to verify by asking " "the right questions. As with superficially altruistic behavior in other " "industries, what these firms actually believe they're buying is goodwill." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1850(para) msgid "" "Working to earn goodwill, and valuing it as an asset predictive of future " "market gains, is hardly novel either. What's interesting is the extremely " "high valuation that the behavior of these firms suggests they put on that " "goodwill. They're demonstrably willing to hire expensive talent for projects " "that are not direct revenue generators even during the most capital-hungry " "phases of the runup to IPO. And, at least so far, the market has richly " "rewarded this behavior." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1858(para) msgid "" "The principals of these companies themselves are quite clear about the " "reasons why goodwill is especially valuable to them. They rely heavily on " "volunteers among their customer base both for product development and as an " "informal marketing arm. Their relationship with their customer base is " "intimate, often relying on personal trust bonds between individuals within " "and outside the firm. They do not merely use the hacker community; they " "identify with it." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1866(para) msgid "" "These observations reinforce a lesson we learned earlier from a different " "line of reasoning. The intimate relationship between Red Hat/VA/O'Reilly and " "their customers/developers is not one typical of manufacturing firms. " "Rather, it carries to an interesting extreme the patterns characteristic of " "highly professionalized and knowledge-intensive service industries. Looking " "outside the technology industry, we can see these patterns in (for example) " "law firms, medical practices, and universities." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1875(para) msgid "" "We may observe, in fact, that open-source firms hire star hackers for much " "the same reasons that universities hire star academics. In both cases, the " "practice is similar in mechanism and effect to the system of aristocratic " "patronage that funded most fine art until after the Industrial " "Revolution—a similarity of which some parties are fully aware." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1883(title) msgid "Getting There From Here" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1885(para) msgid "" "The market mechanisms for funding (and making a profit from!) open-source " "development are still evolving rapidly. The business models we've reviewed " "in this essay probably will not be the last to be invented. Investors are " "still thinking through the consequences of reinventing the software industry " "as one with an explicit focus on service rather than closed intellectual " "property, and will be for some time to come." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1893(para) msgid "" "This conceptual revolution will have some cost in foregone profits for " "people investing in the sale-value 5% of the industry; historically, service " "businesses are not as lucrative as manufacturing businesses (though as any " "doctor or lawyer could tell you, the return to the actual practitioners is " "often higher). Any foregone profits, however, will be more than matched by " "benefits on the cost side, as software consumers reap tremendous savings and " "efficiencies from open-source products. (There's a parallel here to the " "effects that the displacement of the traditional voice-telephone network by " "the Internet is having everywhere)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1904(para) msgid "" "The promise of these savings and efficiencies is creating a market " "opportunity that entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are now moving in to " "exploit. As the first draft of this essay was in preparation, Silicon " "Valley's most prestigious venture-capital firm took a lead stake in the " "first startup company to specialize in 24/7 Linux technical support " "(Linuxcare). In August 1999 Red Hat's IPO was (despite a background slump in " "Internet and technology stocks) wildly successful. It is generally expected " "that several Linux- and open-source–related IPOs will be floated " "before the end of 1999 —and that they too will be quite successful. " "(Year 2000 update: they were!)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1916(para) msgid "" "Another very interesting development is the beginnings of systematic " "attempts to make task markets in open-source development projects. SourceXchange and " "CoSource represent slightly " "different ways of trying to apply a reverse-auction model to funding open-" "source development." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1923(para) msgid "" "The overall trends are clear. We mentioned before IDC's projection that " "Linux will grow faster than all other operating systems combined through 2003. Apache is at 61% market share and rising steadily. " "Internet usage is exploding, and surveys such as the Internet Operating System Counter show that " "Linux and other open-source operating systems are already a plurality on " "Internet hosts and steadily gaining share against closed systems. The need " "to exploit open-source Internet infrastructure increasingly conditions not " "merely the design of other software but the business practices and software " "use/purchase patterns of every corporation there is. These trends, if " "anything, seem likely to accelerate." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1936(title) msgid "Conclusion: Life after the Revolution" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1938(para) msgid "" "What will the world of software look like once the open-source transition is " "complete?" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1941(para) msgid "" "Some programmers worry that the transition to open source will abolish or " "devalue their jobs. The standard nightmare is what I call the ``Open Source " "Doomsday'' scenario. This starts with the market value of software going to " "zero because of all the free source code out there. Use value alone doesn't " "attract enough consumers to support software development. The commercial " "software industry collapses. Programmers starve or leave the field. Doomsday " "arrives when the open-source culture itself (dependent on the spare time of " "all these pros) collapses, leaving nobody around who can program " "competently. All die. Oh, the embarrassment!" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1952(para) msgid "" "We have already observed a number of sufficient reasons this won't happen, " "starting with the fact that most developers' salaries don't depend on " "software sale value in the first place. But the very best one, worth " "emphasizing here, is this: when did you last see a software development " "group that didn't have way more than enough work waiting for it? In a " "swiftly changing world, in a rapidly complexifying and information-centered " "economy, there will always be plenty of work and a healthy demand for people " "who can make computers do things—no matter how much time and how many " "secrets they give away." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1963(para) msgid "" "For purposes of examining the software market itself, it will be helpful to " "sort kinds of software by how completely the service they offer is " "describable by open technical standards, which is well correlated with how " "commoditized the underlying service has become." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1969(para) msgid "" "This axis corresponds reasonably well to what people are normally thinking " "when they speak of `applications' (not at all commoditized, weak or " "nonexistent open technical standards), `infrastructure' (commoditized " "services, strong standards), and `middleware' (partially commoditized, " "effective but incomplete technical standards). The paradigm cases today in " "2000 would be a word processor (application), a TCP/IP stack " "(infrastructure), and a database engine (middleware)." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1977(para) msgid "" "The payoff analysis we did earlier suggests that infrastructure, " "applications, and middleware will be transformed in different ways and " "exhibit different equilibrium mixes of open and closed source. It also " "suggested the prevalence of open source in a particular software area would " "be a function of whether substantial network effects operate there, what the " "costs of failure are, and to what extent the software is a business-critical " "capital good." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1985(para) msgid "" "We can venture some predictions if we apply these heuristics not to " "individual products but to entire segments of the software market. Here we " "go:" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1989(para) msgid "" "Infrastructure (the Internet, the Web, operating systems, and the lower " "levels of communications software that has to cross boundaries between " "competing parties) will be almost all open source, cooperatively maintained " "by user consortia and by for-profit distribution/service outfits with a role " "like that of Red Hat today." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:1995(para) msgid "" "Applications, on the other hand, will have the most tendency to remain " "closed. There will be circumstances under which the use value of an " "undisclosed algorithm or technology will be high enough (and the costs " "associated with unreliability will be low enough, and the risks associated " "with a supplier monopoly sufficiently tolerable) that consumers will " "continue to pay for closed software. This is likeliest to remain true in " "standalone vertical-market applications where network effects are weak. Our " "lumber-mill example earlier is one such; biometric identification software " "seems likeliest, of 1999's hot prospects, to be another." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2006(para) msgid "" "Middleware (like databases, development tools, or the customized top ends of " "application protocol stacks) will be more mixed. Whether middleware " "categories tend to go closed or open seems likely to depend on the cost of " "failures, with higher cost creating market pressure for more openness." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2012(para) msgid "" "To complete the picture, however, we need to notice that neither " "`applications' nor `middleware' are really stable categories. Earlier we saw " "that individual software technologies seem to go through a natural life " "cycle from rationally closed to rationally open. The same logic applies in " "the large." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2018(para) msgid "" "Applications tend to fall into middleware as standardized techniques develop " "and portions of the service are commoditized. (Databases, for example, " "became middleware after SQL decoupled front ends from engines.) As " "middleware services are commoditized, they will in turn tend to fall into " "the open-source infrastructure—a transition we're seeing in operating " "systems right now." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2025(para) msgid "" "In a future that includes competition from open source, we can expect that " "the eventual destiny of any software technology will be to either die or " "become part of the open infrastructure itself. While this is hardly happy " "news for entrepreneurs who would like to collect rent on closed software " "forever, it does suggest that the software industry as a whole will " "remain entrepreneurial, with new niches constantly " "opening up at the upper (application) end and a limited lifespan for closed-" "IP monopolies as their product categories fall into infrastructure." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2035(para) msgid "" "Finally, of course, this equilibrium will be great for the software " "consumers who are driving the process. More and more high-quality software " "will become permanently available to use and build on instead of being " "discontinued or locked in somebody's vault. Ceridwen's magic cauldron is, " "finally, too weak a metaphor—because food is consumed or decays, " "whereas software sources potentially last forever. The free market, in its " "widest libertarian sense including all un-coerced " "activity whether trade or gift, can produce perpetually increasing software " "wealth for everyone." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2048(title) msgid "Afterword: Why Closing a Driver Loses Its Vendor Money" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2050(para) msgid "" "Manufacturers of peripheral hardware (Ethernet cards, disk controllers, " "video boards and the like) have historically been reluctant to open up. This " "is changing now, with players like Adaptec and Cyclades beginning to " "routinely disclose specifications and driver source code for their boards. " "Nevertheless, there is still resistance out there. In this appendix I " "attempt to dispel several of the economic misconceptions that sustain it." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2058(para) msgid "" "If you are a hardware vendor, you may fear that open-sourcing may reveal " "important things about how your hardware operates that competitors could " "copy, thus gaining an unfair competitive advantage. Back in the days of " "three- to five-year product cycles this was a valid argument. Today, the " "time your competitors' engineers would need to spend copying and " "understanding the copy is a damagingly large portion of the product cycle, " "time they are not spending innovating or " "differentiating their own product." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2067(para) msgid "" "This is not a new insight. Former KGB chief Oleg Kalugin puts the " "case well:" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2071(para) msgid "" "For instance, when we stole IBMs in our blueprints, or some other electronic " "areas which the West made great strides in and we were behind, it would take " "years to implement the results of our intelligence efforts. By that time, in " "five or seven years, the West would go forward, and we would have to steal " "again and again, and we'd fall behind more and more." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2080(para) msgid "" "But Rudyard Kipling put it better in his poem The Mary Gloster, nearly a century ago. He wrote:" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2084(literallayout) #, no-wrap msgid "" "\n" "And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text, \n" "``You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!''\n" "They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,\n" "And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.\n" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2091(para) msgid "" "Acceleration to Internet time makes this effect bite harder. If you're " "really ahead of the game, plagiarism is a trap you want " "your competitors to fall into!" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2095(para) msgid "" "In any case, these details don't stay hidden for long these days. Hardware " "drivers are not like operating systems or applications; they're small, easy " "to disassemble, and easy to clone. Even teenage novice programmers can do " "this—and frequently do." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2100(para) msgid "" "There are literally thousands of Linux and FreeBSD programmers out there " "with both the capability and the motivation to build drivers for a new " "board. For many classes of device that have relatively simple interfaces and " "well-known standards (such as disk controllers and network cards) these " "eager hackers can often prototype a driver almost as rapidly as your own " "shop could, even without documentation and without disassembling an existing " "driver." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2108(para) msgid "" "Even for tricky devices like video and sound cards, there is not much you " "can do to thwart a clever programmer armed with a disassembler. Costs are " "low and legal barriers are porous; Linux is an international effort and " "there is always a jurisdiction in which reverse-engineering will be legal." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2114(para) msgid "" "For hard evidence that all these claims are true, examine the list of " "devices supported in the Linux kernel and notice the rate at which new ones " "are added to the kernel even without vendor support." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2118(para) msgid "" "Another good reason to open your drivers is so that you can " "concentrate on innovation. Imagine no longer having to " "spend your internal staff's time and salaries on rewriting, testing and " "distributing new binaries for each new kernel as it comes out. You certainly " "have better things to do with all that skill." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2124(para) msgid "" "Yet another good reason: nobody wants to wait six months for bug fixes. If " "you have any open-source competition at all, they are likely to bury you for " "this reason alone." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2128(para) msgid "" "Of course, there's the future-proofing effect previously referred to. " "Customers want open source because they know it will extend the lifetime of " "the hardware beyond the point that it is cost-effective for you to support " "it." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2133(para) msgid "" "The best reason, though, is because selling hardware is what makes money for " "you. There is no market demand for your secrecy; in fact, quite the reverse. " "If your drivers are hard to find, if they have to be updated frequently, if " "they (worst of all) run poorly, it reflects badly on your hardware and you " "will sell less of it. Open source can solve these problems and boost your " "revenues." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2140(para) msgid "" "The message? Keeping your driver secret looks attractive in the short run, " "but is probably bad strategy in the long run (certainly when you're " "competing with other vendors that are already open). But if you must do it, " "burn the code into an onboard ROM. Then publish the interface to the ROM. Go " "open as much as possible to build your market and demonstrate to potential " "customers that you believe in your capacity to out-think and out-innovate " "competitors where it matters." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2148(para) msgid "" "If you stay closed you will usually get the worst of all world—your " "secrets will still get exposed, you won't get free development help, and you " "won't have wasted your stupider competition's time on cloning. Most " "importantly, you miss an avenue to widespread early adoption. A large and " "influential market (the people who manage the servers that run effectively " "all of the Internet and a plurality of all business data centers) will " "correctly write your company off as clueless and defensive because you " "didn't realize these things. Then they'll buy their boards from someone who " "did." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2162(title) msgid "Notes" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2164(para) msgid "" "[SC] The underprovision problem " "would in fact scale linearly with number of users if we assumed programming " "talent to be uniformly distributed in the project user population as it " "expands over time. This is not, however, the case." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2170(para) msgid "" "The incentives discussed in [HtN] (and some " "more conventionally economic ones as well) imply that qualified people tend " "to seek projects that match their interests, as well as the projects seeking " "them. Accordingly, theory suggests (and experience tends to confirm) that " "the most valuable (most qualified and motivated) people tend to discover the " "projects for which they fit well relatively early in the projects' life " "cycles, with a corresponding fall-off later on." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2179(para) msgid "" "Hard data are lacking, but on the basis of experience I strongly suspect the " "assimilation of talent over a growing project's lifetime tends to follow a " "classical logistic curve." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2183(para) msgid "" "[SH] Shawn Hargreaves has written a " "good analysis of the applicability of open-source methods to games; Playing the Open Source " "Game." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2187(para) msgid "" "[DPV] Note for accountants: the " "argument that service costs will eventually swamp a fixed up-front price " "still works if we move from constant dollars to discounted present value, " "because future sale revenue discounts in parallel with future service costs." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2193(para) msgid "" "A similar but more sophisticated counter to the argument is to observe that, " "per-copy, service cost will go to zero when the buyer stops using the " "software; therefore you can still win, if the user stops before he/she has " "generated too much service cost. This is basically just another form of the " "argument that factory pricing rewards the production of shelfware. Perhaps a " "more instructive way to put it would be that the risk that your service " "costs will swamp the purchase revenue rises with the expected period of " "usefulness of the software. Thus, the factory model penalizes quality." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2203(para) msgid "" "[WG] Wayne Gramlich >" "Wayne@Gramlich.Net< has proposed that the persistance of the factory " "model is partly due to antiquated accounting rules, formulated when machines " "and buildings were more important and people less so. Software company books " "show the computers, office furniture, and buildings as assets and the " "programmers as expenses. Or course, in reality, the programmers are the true " "assets and the computers, office equipment, and buildings hardly matter at " "all. This perverse valuation is sustained by IRS and stockmarket pressure " "for stable and uniform accounting rules that reduce the complexity of " "assigning a dollar figure to the company's value. The resulting drag has " "prevented the rules from keeping up with reality." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2217(para) msgid "" "On this view, pinning a high price to the bits in the product (independent " "of future service value) is partly a sort of defense mechanism, a way of " "agreeing for all parties involved to pretend that the ontological ground " "hasn't fallen out from under the standard accounting rules." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2223(para) msgid "" "(Gramlich also points out that these rules underpin the bizarre and often " "self-destructive acquisition sprees that many software companies tear off on " "after IPO. ``Usually the software company issues some additional stock to " "build up a war chest. But they can't spend any of this money to beef up " "their programming staff, because the accounting rules would show that as " "increased expenses. Instead, the newly public software company has to grow " "by acquiring other software companies, because the accounting rules let you " "treat the acquisition as an investment.'')" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2233(para) msgid "" "For a paradigmatic example of forking following " "defection, consult the history of OpenSSH. This project was belatedly forked " "from the an early version of SSH (Secure Shell) after the latter went to a " "closed license." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2239(title) msgid "Bibliography" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2241(emphasis) msgid "[CatB]" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2242(ulink) msgid "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2245(emphasis) msgid "[HtN]" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2246(ulink) msgid "Homesteading the Noosphere" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2249(para) msgid "" "[DL] De Marco and Lister, " "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (New York; " "Dorset House, 1987; ISBN 0-932633-05-6)" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2254(title) msgid "Acknowledgements" msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2256(para) msgid "" "Several stimulating discussions with David D. Friedman helped me refine the " "`inverse commons' model of open-source cooperation. I am also indebted to " "Marshall van Alstyne for pointing out the conceptual importance of rivalrous " "information goods. Ray Ontko of the Indiana Group supplied helpful " "criticism. A good many people in audiences before whom I gave talks in the " "year leading up to June 1999 also helped; if you're one of those, you know " "who you are." msgstr "" #: magic-cauldron.xml:2264(para) msgid "" "It's yet another testimony to the open-source model that this essay was " "substantially improved by email feedback I received within days after " "initial release. Lloyd Wood pointed out the importance of open-source " "software being `future-proof'. and Doug Dante reminded me of the `Free the " "Future' business model. A question from Adam Moorhouse led to the discussion " "of exclusion payoffs. Lionel Oliviera Gresse gave me a better name for one " "of the business models. Stephen Turnbull slapped me silly about careless " "handling of free-rider effects. Anthony Bailey and Warren Young corrected " "some facts in the Doom case study. Eric W. Sink contributed the insight that " "the factory model rewards shelfware." msgstr "" #. Put one translator per line, in the form of NAME , YEAR1, YEAR2. #: magic-cauldron.xml:0(None) msgid "translator-credits" msgstr ""