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Feature: Management
Low-key leaders are essential to open source success
By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
on
February 11, 2005 (8:00:00 AM)
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Commentary: Executive personalities have more effect on the software industry than they have on almost any other business segment outside of the entertainment industry. A former coworker once said, "It's not that Microsoft's management is sane, just that in a business where insanity is normal they're a little less insane than most others. And that's why they do well."
When we discuss Sun these days, we don't talk about technology development. We don't ask, "Is Java a superior technology to .Net?" Nope. We wonder, "What will Joltin' Jon and Slaverin' Scott do next? Who will they go up against in this week's tag team match?"
This isn't business. It's professional wrestling!
Ford's CEO has never dressed up as a giant battery to show that he loves electric cars despite having said bad things about them in the past.
Meanwhile, we're seeing a change in open source and free software spotlighters. Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond are losing influence in the public/media sense, while the bland/corporate, sales-oriented Stu Cohen is being trotted out more, usually with a newly media-friendly Linus Torvalds standing next to him. And the tactic is working. "Such and such company joins OSDL" was once news. Now it's a twice-a-week ho-hum press release. Everybody but Microsoft seems to be joining up.
Even Unisys, the original anti-open source patent pirate (remember the GIF "submarine patents?") now has its logo on the OSDL Web site.
Suave HP executive Martin Fink is more likely to headline a modern, corporate-oriented Linux conference than community spokesperson Bruce Perens.
At some point, given the um ... colorful ... nature of the executives running many of the world's largest proprietary software companies, open source may be seen as the buttoned-down, conservative choice, not as the quirky outsider. As a case in point, contrast Oracle's Larry Ellison with MySQL's Mårten Mickos. Mårten comes across as a serious, trustworthy executive who keeps his mind on MySQL, while Larry comes across as a big basket of ego who is at least as interested in fast cars, girlfriends, airplanes, and racing yachts as in producing quality software.
I suspect that outside of the Silicon Valley culture, where giant egos are considered normal, Mårten Mickos comes across as more businesslike than Larry Ellison, and that this perception -- which is based on my personal observations of both men, not on PR-created biographies -- will go a long way toward making MySQL a direct competitor to Oracle.
Beyond impressions of people who run companies and open source projects, there's another safety factor in open source: That the project leader's personality isn't nearly as important to an open source project as a CEO's personality is to a proprietary software company's products. When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, under oath, during Microsoft's antitrust trial, that if he didn't like the judge's decision he'd withdraw Windows from the market, it was a credible threat because no one besides Microsoft is allowed to make, distribute, modify, or update Windows.
Linus Torvalds and Stu Cohen can't threaten, Ballmer-like, to take Linux away from the world on a whim. They could only take the name away. The kernel and everything that surrounds it would go on without them.
The freedom to make, maintain, and distribute your own version of a critical program is a major "safety valve" built into all open source and free software. In the long run, it is the biggest reason a concerned corporate manager should choose free or open source software over proprietary alternatives.
Your company may not have the resources to maintain an operating system or other major piece of software on its own, but if that software is essential to your business, it is likely to be essential to many others with whom you can cooperate to keep it alive and growing -- and your company's share of that new project's costs will almost certainly be less than you'd spend to purchase equivalent proprietary software.
So we have a double bonus with free and open source software: First, we're starting to see open source product leaders and spokespeople who are saner and more businesslike than their proprietary software industry counterparts. And second, with open source software, the project leader's whims can't affect that software's users nearly as much as the whims of a proprietary software company's CEO can affect its customers.
This pair of open source advantages hasn't yet penetrated the software-using mainstream. But it will.
And when it does, proprietary software businesses are going to have an awfully hard time competing against open source in the corporate market.
This isn't business. It's professional wrestling!
Ford's CEO has never dressed up as a giant battery to show that he loves electric cars despite having said bad things about them in the past.
Meanwhile, we're seeing a change in open source and free software spotlighters. Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond are losing influence in the public/media sense, while the bland/corporate, sales-oriented Stu Cohen is being trotted out more, usually with a newly media-friendly Linus Torvalds standing next to him. And the tactic is working. "Such and such company joins OSDL" was once news. Now it's a twice-a-week ho-hum press release. Everybody but Microsoft seems to be joining up.
Even Unisys, the original anti-open source patent pirate (remember the GIF "submarine patents?") now has its logo on the OSDL Web site.
Suave HP executive Martin Fink is more likely to headline a modern, corporate-oriented Linux conference than community spokesperson Bruce Perens.
At some point, given the um ... colorful ... nature of the executives running many of the world's largest proprietary software companies, open source may be seen as the buttoned-down, conservative choice, not as the quirky outsider. As a case in point, contrast Oracle's Larry Ellison with MySQL's Mårten Mickos. Mårten comes across as a serious, trustworthy executive who keeps his mind on MySQL, while Larry comes across as a big basket of ego who is at least as interested in fast cars, girlfriends, airplanes, and racing yachts as in producing quality software.
I suspect that outside of the Silicon Valley culture, where giant egos are considered normal, Mårten Mickos comes across as more businesslike than Larry Ellison, and that this perception -- which is based on my personal observations of both men, not on PR-created biographies -- will go a long way toward making MySQL a direct competitor to Oracle.
Beyond impressions of people who run companies and open source projects, there's another safety factor in open source: That the project leader's personality isn't nearly as important to an open source project as a CEO's personality is to a proprietary software company's products. When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, under oath, during Microsoft's antitrust trial, that if he didn't like the judge's decision he'd withdraw Windows from the market, it was a credible threat because no one besides Microsoft is allowed to make, distribute, modify, or update Windows.
Linus Torvalds and Stu Cohen can't threaten, Ballmer-like, to take Linux away from the world on a whim. They could only take the name away. The kernel and everything that surrounds it would go on without them.
The freedom to make, maintain, and distribute your own version of a critical program is a major "safety valve" built into all open source and free software. In the long run, it is the biggest reason a concerned corporate manager should choose free or open source software over proprietary alternatives.
Your company may not have the resources to maintain an operating system or other major piece of software on its own, but if that software is essential to your business, it is likely to be essential to many others with whom you can cooperate to keep it alive and growing -- and your company's share of that new project's costs will almost certainly be less than you'd spend to purchase equivalent proprietary software.
So we have a double bonus with free and open source software: First, we're starting to see open source product leaders and spokespeople who are saner and more businesslike than their proprietary software industry counterparts. And second, with open source software, the project leader's whims can't affect that software's users nearly as much as the whims of a proprietary software company's CEO can affect its customers.
This pair of open source advantages hasn't yet penetrated the software-using mainstream. But it will.
And when it does, proprietary software businesses are going to have an awfully hard time competing against open source in the corporate market.
Comments
on Low-key leaders are essential to open source successNote: Comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for their content.
RMS Stallman is growing by the day. I don't understand why somebody would say he is losing. Even news.com and zdnet are running these days story's about him. He is invited by presidents of contry's...
Please keep to the facts even if you don't like RMS
Please keep to the facts even if you don't like RMS
yep. you are absolutely correct. as an FSF member I get RMS's talking schedule by email and I cannot stop being amazed at all the lectures he gives worldwide and at the level of the people he meets. He seems to be having a meeting of some sort almost every 3-5 days and the location was all over the world. He was in South America recently and he will speak in Belgium next.
But the likely for the silly statement in the article is not at all anything based in reality, but the delusions of the author who mistakes his fantasies with reality: DRV!
But the likely for the silly statement in the article is not at all anything based in reality, but the delusions of the author who mistakes his fantasies with reality: DRV!
"Linus Torvalds and Stu Cohen can't threaten, Ballmer-like, to take Linux away from the world on a whim. They could only take the name away. The kernel and everything that surrounds it would go on without them. The freedom to make, maintain, and distribute your own version of a critical program is a major "safety valve" built into all open source and free software. In the long run, it is the biggest reason a concerned corporate manager should choose free or open source software over proprietary alternatives."
For which we all, including you, have to thank Richard Stallman and his (and his collaborator's!) creations: GNU, GPL & FSF.
For which we all, including you, have to thank Richard Stallman and his (and his collaborator's!) creations: GNU, GPL & FSF.
And the software succeeds, not simply because it's Open Source, but because, as Stallman envisioned, it's *Free*.
So basically we're seeing the "rubbing off effect". Were one hopes what the other has will "rub off" onto them. That's one of the reasons people jumped onto the MS bandwagon.
Two the thing about leaders really isn't an OSS thing. Although we do have a lower tolerance than closed source for assholes.
And last your "safety valve" applies to all things digital. In other words you can't lock bits up.* People have tried to lock them up. But those attempts mostly fail. That's something the MPAA/RIAA is finding out, and even MS with their XP registration knows that.
*That's why the BSD is as good as the GPL in this regard.
Two the thing about leaders really isn't an OSS thing. Although we do have a lower tolerance than closed source for assholes.
And last your "safety valve" applies to all things digital. In other words you can't lock bits up.* People have tried to lock them up. But those attempts mostly fail. That's something the MPAA/RIAA is finding out, and even MS with their XP registration knows that.
*That's why the BSD is as good as the GPL in this regard.
very creative and imaginative article there
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 12, 2005 12:18 PM
Too bad it has nothing to do with reality.
Remember back in the early early 80s when Atari was reaching its peak with the VCS/2600 and then you started seeing really weird games like Kool-aid man and Chace the Chuckwagon (Purina)? This was a good example of a time when everyone saw that there was a good thing happening and tried to jump on the bandwagon. Sometimes ending in very strange results.
Almost the same thing is happening now with OSS. You mention CEO's names from places like HP, Sun and Oracle. Dude, these places are so old school now. Keep your eyes out for some brand new players on the scene with new ideas. They will be the next leaders. Remember how Honeywell, IBM and Digital dominated the computer industry with these old Unix and Vax systems? Then here comes young wippersnappers Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. New leaders in the field. Defining where an entire industry would be lead. The same thing is happening all over again, but this time with OSS.
First our leaders where Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, et all. now its time for some new young whippersnappers to step up to the plate. Do something that will lead our community into the next generation of OSS development.
Almost the same thing is happening now with OSS. You mention CEO's names from places like HP, Sun and Oracle. Dude, these places are so old school now. Keep your eyes out for some brand new players on the scene with new ideas. They will be the next leaders. Remember how Honeywell, IBM and Digital dominated the computer industry with these old Unix and Vax systems? Then here comes young wippersnappers Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. New leaders in the field. Defining where an entire industry would be lead. The same thing is happening all over again, but this time with OSS.
First our leaders where Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, et all. now its time for some new young whippersnappers to step up to the plate. Do something that will lead our community into the next generation of OSS development.
When the good ol [arguments] get involved.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 12, 2005 05:02 PM
"Remember how Honeywell, IBM and Digital dominated the computer industry with these old Unix and Vax systems? "
Primarily workstations and mainframes.
"Then here comes young wippersnappers Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. "
Primarily personal computers.
"New leaders in the field. Defining where an entire industry would be lead."
History as usual is much more complicated than can be contained in a soundbite.
"The same thing is happening all over again, but this time with OSS."
Not quite.
Primarily workstations and mainframes.
"Then here comes young wippersnappers Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. "
Primarily personal computers.
"New leaders in the field. Defining where an entire industry would be lead."
History as usual is much more complicated than can be contained in a soundbite.
"The same thing is happening all over again, but this time with OSS."
Not quite.
Some high profile, microphone-hungry leaders will be taken down a peg, others will do just fine. We just saw what happened to Ms. Fiorina, but Mr. Jobs is on the cover of the current issue of Fortune.
And I have a feeling we'll be hearing from Mssrs. Stallman, Raymond, Perens, and de Icaza, for better or worse, for a long time to come.
And I have a feeling we'll be hearing from Mssrs. Stallman, Raymond, Perens, and de Icaza, for better or worse, for a long time to come.
Quote: "...will go a long way toward making MySQL a direct competitor to Oracle. "
Indeed, a long way !
Postgresql on the other hand...
Indeed, a long way !
Postgresql on the other hand...
With things like <A HREF="http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/ubuntu-hoary/virtual-warty.png" title="btconnect.com">http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/ubuntu-<nobr>h<wbr></nobr> oary/virtual-warty.png</a btconnect.com>
(what do you get when you cross a Live Linux with an Open Source PC emulator ? Warty for Windows !) Linux is willing to share and play ball with anyone.
(what do you get when you cross a Live Linux with an Open Source PC emulator ? Warty for Windows !) Linux is willing to share and play ball with anyone.
Instructions at <A HREF="http://www.ofset.org:8080/freeduc-doc/11" title="ofset.org">http://www.ofset.org:8080/freeduc-doc/11</a ofset.org> , prebuilt ISOS (boot or autorun) at <A HREF="http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/torrents/" title="btconnect.com">http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/torrent<nobr>s<wbr></nobr> /</a btconnect.com> .
You may have to register (free) at <A HREF="http://linuxtracker.org/" title="linuxtracker.org">http://linuxtracker.org/</a linuxtracker.org> to get the torrents.
<A HREF="http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/suse-for-windows.png" title="btconnect.com">http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/suse-fo<nobr>r<wbr></nobr> -windows.png</a btconnect.com> SuSE for Windows, too !
Re:Linux and Windows - Friends for Valentine's Day
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 15, 2005 12:47 PM
Running Linux on Windows is like forcing a fish to ride a bicycle through a Penguin colony.
Re:Linux and Windows - Friends for Valentine's Day
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 15, 2005 07:31 PM
Agreed. But if you have a fish, a bicycle, and a penguin colony to hand<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and there seem to be hundreds of millions of them around the place, the main problem in the western world is the amount of landfill they take up<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... then why not, if it works ?
There's also the point that when you have learned that trick, managing without the bicycle shouldn't be so hard. You can even recycle the CD .
<A HREF="http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/suse-for-windows.png" title="btconnect.com">http://home.btconnect.com/chrisandcarolyn/suse-fo<nobr>r<wbr></nobr> -windows.png</a btconnect.com>
Re:Linux and Windows - Friends for Valentine's Day
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 15, 2005 07:33 PM
Or alternatively 'Love is blind'<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)
Delirium Roblimensis Vulgaris (DRV)
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 12, 2005 04:27 AM<A HREF="http://www.newsforge.com/pollBooth.pl?qid=30&aid=-1" title="newsforge.com">http://www.newsforge.com/pollBooth.pl?qid=30&aid=<nobr>-<wbr></nobr> 1</a newsforge.com>
HA HA HA HA HA
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