Proprietary software - as long as its black

Jun 21, 2007

Proprietary software - as long as its black

Like Ford Model T, vendors think software buyer will buy or download any software they want as long it has some “open source” moniker attached to it. Abuse or use of this term is so pervasive that eventually CIOs will need tools to do forensic exercise to figure out the real TCO for their open source investments.

It all started with Dana posting news about CentricCRM getting Intel venture financing. CentricCRM looks and talks like open source but their license is anything but open source. Confusion is a good business model and if the objective is to achieve 2% of a huge market then its working for lot of companies. Markets work at multiple levels. United Airlines and Jetblue both are making money. They just fly different corridors and come with different frills. Same model in open source CRM - just fly with different open source license and fly with different architecture. Nothing wrong in this as long CONFUSION market still exists.

This emerging confusion around the term “open source” has Michael Tiemann all riled up. As the lead proponent of OSI he has valid reasons to voice anger. :

It is logical precisely because there really is not room in the market for Yet Another Proprietary CRM system. It is fallacious because THESE LICENSES ARE NOT OPEN SOURCE LICENSES. This flagrant abuse of labeling is not unlike sweetening a mild abrasive with ethylene glycol and calling the substance Toothpaste. If the market is clamouring for open source CRM solutions, why are some companies delivering open source in name only and not in substance? I think the answer is simple: they think they can get away with it. As President of the OSI, I’ve been remiss in thinking that gentle but firm explanations would cause them to change their behavior. I have also not chased down and attempted to correct every reporter who propagates these misstatements (the way that Richard Stallman does when people confuse free software with free beer, or worse–to him–open source). I have now come to realize that if we don’t call them out, then they will get away with it (at least until customers realize they’ve been fooled again, and then they’ll blame both proprietary and open source vendors alike; they probably won’t be particularly charitable with the press or careless industry analysts, either). If we don’t respond to those in the press who fall (or are pushed) into these logical traps, we are betraying the community.

Unfortunately OSI made a pretty big blunder early on by not trademarking the term “open source” and to correct that will be a huge undertaking. “Marketplace of ideas” solution Michael talked about is slow and confusing. What we need is a strong push back from software buyers.

Otherwise we will very soon see AppExchange kind of listings on RedHat exchange and we will wonder what happened to all the big ideals of open source. I am not saying there is anything wrong with this approach but just don’t put strong font to your “open source” claims.

If you are open source give community the code and get out of the way. We are doing precisely the same with our open source project and will keep it that way.

Technorati Tags: open source, centriccrm, OSI