Oh yeah, baby. The Open Source "debate" is heating up big time, partially because it is seeing BIG deals discussed and partially because the IT press can't find much else to talk about since On Demand is now de rigeuer and just ho-hum news (unless they are attacking each other, the putzes). But, I'll tell you, the more I find on open source the more that I think that it has some industry-defining characteristics attached to it so I'm going to start writing about it more frequently - today.
I think that the battle over who "owns" open source is now beginning to shape up much to the detriment of all, but an inevitability in this new experience-based customer ecosystem and it will tell us in the end whether the Davids slay Goliaths or vice versa or all can co-exist peacefully alongside the 2006 Torino/Turin Olympiad pronunciation debate.
Open Source 101
If you want a detailed definition on Open Source that is nearly entirely incoherent and contains what Wikipedia calls "weasel words" go to their definition here. I have to say that this is the worst definition of anything I have seen to date in Wikipedia. Its worth going to if you have any curiosity as to what in the hell a "weasel word" is, though. But if you want a solid definition from the keepers of the flame, go to the Open Source Initiative's definition of what is now version 1.9 here. Far better and actually coherent. For better or worse, I'll give you the kind of media-standard version that is the one that you most likely have heard.
Open Source means the availability of freely distributed source code and applications, services and operating systems freely available operating systems, applications and services that are built around that source code. The modification of the source code is "allowable" though there is some definitiion built around "how allowable" but the licensing of open source applications must permit the creation of derivative works. Its kind of similar to the idea of Creative Commons licensing for music in that the owner of the source code continues to own it (as with the music) but allows the modification either unrestrictedly or not of the source code (or music). There is no restriction on creating open source applications for free or no restriction on how the modifications are distributed as long as they are noted as such.
This Means Freely Distributed War, Mr. Christian, Uh, Torvalds
When it comes to open source, Linux made it popular and thank you Linus Torvalds for that, you nice man you. By freely distributing source code for the Linux operating system to developers to improve and build on, he not only built what has become a threat to Windows as an operating system but he kicked the "open source" culture into gear that is much of the reason that things like salesforce.com's Apps Exchange, NetSuite's apply named NetFlex and of course, SugarCRM's CRM suite are vigorously in churning out creative applications and services and subscription based pricing models and happy apps developers who love Linux, love open source source code and have profound crushes on Linus Torvalds, who was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time in 2004 and placed #16 on the 100 Greatest Finns list in 2005, after a poor time in the first trial of the mens single luge (oh, wait a minute, I think I'm mixing up something). He WAS named the 16th greatest Finn of all time though - ahead of 9 time Olympic Gold Medalist in the 1920s Paavo Nurmi (#21). He seems like a cheerful sort of idealist kinda guy so I like him too.
An Open (Source) Relationship
If I took out the word "source" in that headline, wouldn't you want to read what was in this section even more? Yeah, you would. Who wouldn't? Adding (Source) parenthetically makes it sound so not sexy though....Sorry.
In any case, there is a burgeoning open source community that is appropriately made up of developers who are using the code that they are so happily provided to develop other applications, services, widgets, etc. It's democratic in nature and comes with all the inherent strengths and weaknesses of any code-available community. If you're working on the operating system, it means on the one hand, upgrades are frequent and nearly instantaneous so you don't have to wait to fix problems with code updates. On the other, amateurs who get ahold of code, even with bad intent can screw things up, though often there is a self-policing mechanism to the participants in the developers community because they don't want to screw up a good thing. So for example, The Open Source Technology Group (formerly the Open Source Developers Network) was founded in 1996 to be a clearinghouse for open source and Linux developers networks, commercial exchange networks, and any other open source community. They "own" and coordinate what are the coolest and most popular of a variety of networks such as Slashdot, SourceForge.Net, Linux.com, Newsforge.com and a host of others.
To highlight how far into the popular mind that these sites have penetrated, let me throw out a couple of examples. If you are a blogger, the way to drive your site traffic through the roof is to have Slashdot mention some news item that was on your blog. That's like being named one of the 100 Greatest Finns of All Time - or something. If you want to find applications for about anything under the sun available to you with the Creative Commons licenses in mind, go to SourceForge.Net and find it, dammit! For example, the easiest to use, most popular audio editor is a free one called Audacity, which you get at SourceForget.Net and is perhaps the most commonly used sound editor for podcast beginners - like moi. But SourceForge is just where you go to buy all kinds of mojito-like cocktail applications. Slashdot is the club that bloggers get into to be seen but you are carded at the door sometimes. So these open source community sites can be the kind of 21st century geek club version of "Isn't that Lindsay Lohan? Wait!! I think her source is open!!!"
Hot Model, Hotter Battle
So the open source model is truly catching on. Let's briefly look at one of the companies living it, using it, and marketing as it as a commercial venture in no particular order - SugarCRM.
SugarCRM
These guys are the real deal when it comes to open source. I have to admit when I first ran across them months ago, I questioned not their belief in and support of open source as a viable model but their actual business model which I saw as pretty traditional and not much else. But, I ran into them at Gartner, and had a number of conversations with their very bright Marketing Director (and an original or close to original employee) Tara Spalding. She convinced me to take a much closer look at them. Which I did and I've been suitably impressed ever since - though I still have no doubt that their pricing model is pretty conventional and not particularly cheap. For example, their recently released SugarCube - preconfigured "behind the firewall" version for 35 Sugar Professional licenses, a MySQL Pro database and a one year subscripton, plus some hardware starts at $23,455.00. But I have no problem with that. They are a business and they are honest in their representation that they are "Commercial Open Source Customer Relationship Management," Its their development model and their delivery model, plus the fact that they provide a free version AND they have lots of good functionality and an incredibly lively developers community that they actively engage in the creation of new modules/models/widgets/features/source code tweaks, etc. that makes me like them a lot. I'm going to review the actual applications in depth if I can ever get the friggin' time - either on this blog on or on my podcast (YAWYE's coming, hide your heart, girl - end of February) - but for now suffice to say, they are true open source believers and practitioners and well worth looking into as an alternatiive.
Oh yeah, one other important thing about SugarCRM. Yesterday, they signed a deal with Microsoft to increase interoperability with Windows Server putting them in a bit more conventional camp than expected, but again the reality is that they are a business. What this means even more so is that even Microsoft is seeing the power of the open source movement and they've chosen to tie SugarCRM to their Microsoft Community License - MS's open source initiative. SugarCRM 4.5 will be released under the MS Community License, the first major product to be so - at least in CRM. I'm not sure what it means yet except that mainstream acceptance of the open source "concept" is now a reality. Look, much of the on demand leadership - salesforce.com with AppExchange and NetSuite with their NetFlex initiative are taking the open source concept seriously, even though I wouldn't call their initiatives open source by definition. They are both smartly understanding the value of a community of developers engaged in the co-creation of value for them. While this will drive up price since each application/service developed will be priced by the partner developing it, it still provides a faster smarter model for the enterprise applications world that should be duly noted and kudos thrown at both salesforce.com and NetSuite for their thinking about this in at least in innovative, if not strict, way
Oracle, Oracle, Wherefore Art Thou, Oracle? Unfortunately, Right HERE
So how does enterprise gasbag giant Oracle decide to handle the open source world? Buy it of course. Rumors are floating everywhere based on what seems to be a BusinessWeek story that Oracle is going to buy up three open source companies - JBoss, the open source middleware company; Zend, the "inventors" of PHP which is used on the web for pretty much all the blogging and podcasting and wiki-writing apps you can imagine; and SleepyCat Software, which does something with open source databases that I'm not too clear on and am currently a little too lazy to find out. What makes this particularly interesting, aside from Oracle scarfing up another industry category which is their "way" is that it has industry "poltical" overtones too because about six months ago, JBoss, which seems to be a somewhat arrogant company too, signed a deal with Microsoft to make the JBoss Java apps. servers work better with Windows. So this has REAL interesting possibilities for the creation of some new Gates v. Ellison pugilism. Heh. Heh.
The Reality is That Open Source Is Here to Stay
....and even Oracle and Microsoft are seeing that. SAP has been putzing around with open source since the millennium began - in fact their open source database SAP DB, was cross-licensed with MySQL, which is as popular an open source database as PHP is an open source web creation programming language. It later became MaxDB, which was an SAP certified open source DBMS that MySQL AB distributed. So they've been savvy about open source, tho' I'm not sure what their plans are. But open source is something that CRMers around the universe need to pay attention to.
So, while we're at it, Let's all expel a big old burp for Oracle as they continue to do with open source what their wildly uncreative leadership troika always tells them to do when there is something on the market that competes with them, which is: If you can't think, then eat it.
Stay tuned for more on my take on the current Oracle path in the next few days. Right now, I'm off to Florida to speak at the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) Marketing Event in Sarasota at the Hyatt on Sarasota Bay. I'll keep you posted.
Recent Comments