Posts Tagged: "red hat"

President Obama reportedly asked McNealy to prepare a report on how the federal government could employ open source software, but as yet, some 26 months later there has been no mention of the report or across the board government adoption of open source software. The fact that open source software is given away to be used freely demonstrates the problem with finding a sustainable business model and may explain why the Obama Administration hasn’t yet presented the report on how the government can use open source software to decrease costs. You really have a hard time staying in business and focusing on the research, development and product advancements when the product you offer is given away to be used free, or the underlying code that makes it work can be copied and used by competitors without consequences.

There is an important role that open source could play moving forward, and that role is to set the foundation of innovation and technology, which is no small task in terms of importance and seems to perfectly fit with open sources strengths. But too many open source regimes are like the Borg of Star Trek fame, or a little like the Mafia. Once you are a member you simply cannot get out. With too many open source regimes once you join and take then anything that you produce must be free to be taken by other members of the consortium. It really is akin to a patent deal with the devil, and ignores human tendencies. Ingrained in almost everyone is a feeling they should be able to profit from their own work, and most would feel injured if they worked and others were allowed to take without some kind of in kind return.

Whether the “open source means free” community ever chooses to acknowledge it, the truth is that a patent is a business tool; an asset. If you are serious about being in business in the software space you absolutely must have patents. Yet, there are those in the “open source means free” community, which simply a naive anti-patent sector, would have those throughout the open source community incorrectly think patents are evil. They complain that patents shouldn’t be protected by patents and copyrights are enough. They claim it is too hard to figure out if you are infringing. What they are really saying is that they choose not to operate their business affairs in a business appropriate fashion and in order for them to succeed while ignoring best practices and being responsible like every other business and industry they need patents on software to cease. This chicken little approach proves only that they are not business savvy, and that they aren’t paying attention to developments in the industry.

If patents are good for Microsoft and the tech giants, patents are right for Red Hat and the open source community and patents are demanded by investors, as Dean Kamen explains, when small businesses seek funds, why would they be bad for independent inventors and small businesses? When you start out in business you don’t model yourself after those who fail, but rather after those who succeed, and the one thing successful businesses with proprietary and open source business models agree on is that patents are important enough to obtain. Simply stated, those who refuse to acknowledge the power and protection afforded by patents ignore reality and must be assumed to have an agenda.

The trouble with freeware is that there is no margin on free, and while open source solutions are not free, the race to asymptotically approach free is on, hence why I say the race to zero is in full swing. As companies continue to look for the low cost solution, quality is sacrificed.