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Why Proprietary Vendors Won’t Open their Code
By John | August 29, 2007
I am sure that this question has many answers, but here are a few of mine.
- They might be embarrassed by their code. The idea of open source code is that lot of eye-balls look at the source code. In proprietary software companies, fewer than 5 people might actually look at the source code of every program. In fact, in most proprietary companies if the code gets through QA without any issues, the only person likely to see it is the developer.
- They might not have the source for all the models.
I once worked on a beta program for which the proprietary company was trying to port an application to a Mainframe Linux. When I talked to the developer, he told me that the company had to rewrite a number of source modules because no one could find the source. I know at least one large proprietary product that has an embedded interpreter that is owned by one of its primary competitors. This situation occurred because a third-party company was hired to develop the interpreter and was then subsequently acquired by the competitor. - Legal issues. I once worked on a project in which a lot of scripted source code from a previous version of a product was converted for the new release. The obvious answer was to make all the deprecated code available to the customers. When the legal department was involved, however, it found that a lot of the comments in the code might cause risky liabilities.
Topics: 451, OSS, barcampesm, bmc, caos, esm, gartner, groundwork, groundworkopensource, hp, hyperic, ibm, nagios, opennms, opensource, tivoli, zabbix, zenoss |
August 29th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
have you asked/answered this question other way around? why should they open their code? what is in it for them?
Will they make more money?
Are customers demanding it?
I’m also curious about by opening the code whether you mean making it “free”.
August 29th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Will they make more money?
The question is when or if they start loosing money.
Are customers demanding it?
They are starting to demand ROI’s.
I’m also curious about by opening the code whether you mean making it “freeâ€.?
Nothing is free. When I mean open I mean making all of the source code available. There are a number of business models for making money around open source however I am not sure what one is the best
August 31st, 2007 at 4:10 am
Should give some context to what I’m asking to explain better.
- I don’t hear from customers a demand to open source management products. As you’ve stated, they ask better ROI, they want software that actually works :), they want better/easier integration. If anything I see a trend on the other direction to reduce “custom” parts of the solutions they use. Less inhouse/custom development, more vendor maintained product.
- No doubt they would have to react if they start loosing market share and revenues declining. But I see no business model where open sourcing a product would enable them to sustain the revenue streams they have. A lot of business models are being tried right now. If a winning model emerges, it may attract the interest of the proprietary vendors…
August 31st, 2007 at 8:15 am
This is why I started this blog … to have great conversations about ESM. Thanks ïŠ
I am working on an article of how I think the OSS model will work but for now see this post…
http://old.johnmwillis.com/?p=232