4 ms·

I would actually say it's not that hard to compete with free software. Here are a few reasons: - Open source is free (as in beer). This means that there's no s

by mixmax 18y ago

I would actually say it's not that hard to compete with free software. Here are a few reasons: - Open source is free (as in beer). This means that there's no support, no training and noone to blame if things go wrong. As anyone who has worked at a semi-large business will attest that is bad from a corporate buying perspective. - The UI design of open-source software is often terrible. Open-source values code, not pretty design. I've never heard of an open-source solution that has gone through formal usability tests. Often customers don't care about pretty code, they care about a pretty UI. - There's noone to turn to with feature requests, etc. And no, for most companies submitting a request to sourceforge or just coding it up yourself is not an option. - There's no marketing for open-source software. Marketing sells producs, otherwise companies wouldn't spend trillions a year on it. - You have no guarantee that your open-source software will be updated in the future. It might just be abandoned. And again, for most companies just doing it yourself is not an option. In summary, using open-source software requires you to know what you are doing, being able to overcome installing and maintenance hurdles without support and living with the knowledge that the software might not be updated. And you'll have to actively go out looking for it, because noone will try to sell it to you. Most business-types, who are the ones with money to spend, don't even know that there is such a thing as open-source software, and if they did many of them wouldn't use it for the reasons stated above.

edfrghjk 18y ago
-This means that there's no support, Buy support! C/C++/SQL/Java are free with no support, but you don't choose to only program in JCL4800 because Burroughs sold it. - The UI design of open-source software is often terrible. Ever seen in house or enterprise software - There's noone to turn to with feature requests Yes because I have Bill's cell phone # for new windows features I want - There's no marketing for open-source software. Depends whether you look for software on the web or in the WSJ - You have no guarantee that your open-source software will be updated in the future Whereas you have a guarantee that MSFT will stop selling XP - Most business-types, don't even know that there is such a thing as open-source software That's why they have staff. They don't know how an IP datagram gets to their web server but they still have a web site. Or possibly they don't - they will be running DecNet or SNA because you can't trust this free TCP stuff.
- tptacek 18y ago
  The reality is: * The UI for most software is often terrible. There are dynamics that can even push OSS towards better UI's than commercial; for instance, OSS code often uses more modern UI toolkits, and commercial code often gets away shipping on stuff that looks like Foxpro. * You're no more likely to get your feature wishlist with commercial software than with OSS. Commercial vendors pay product managers to pick the features that will expand their market and close deals with their top N customers; if you don't fit the bill, or (worse) if they farm the product for revenue, you're S.O.L. * The cost of marketing software has changed drastically; nobody buys their software from the WSJ anymore. Read Eric Sink on advertising, and go back to the BoS board and read other people's stories on advertising. A well-trafficked blog can generate more leads than a $20k/mo marketing budget. * The constant cycle of pointless updates is an irritant, not a win. Look at graphic design, where professionals often stick with archaic versions of Adobe tools and bitch about CS2/CS3/CS4/CSx.
- mixmax 18y ago
  It's obvious that you, and most people on this site, are hackers. We are, however, a minority. My post was primarily aimed at explaining the difference in mentality between hackers and business people. Maybe I failed to convey that properly. Business people have another mentality, different core values, and different goals and reasons for doing things than hackers. If you can grok this mentality you will find that you can outperform free. Both as in beer and as in freedom. I once worked with a business guy that had a yearly budget of around $200 million, and his stance was that if someone wanted him to use something they had better sell it really well or he wouldn't use it. The whole process of selling, procurement, contracts, delivery, etc. was important to him. Both because this is what he valued (just like people here would have a hard time buying something they knew was coded in a flaky way) and because it gave him plausible deniability and removed responsibility in the sphere of corporate games. If he had used open-source software there would be noone to point the finger at if it didn't work - it sould be his responsibility. And buying decisions are usually placed with business poeple , not hackers. If you want to sell software to companies you need to understand these processes.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  You're missing his point. He's not making a 'closed source is better than open source' argument, he's saying that each of these areas are easily exploitable competitive advantages; ones that people will pay for. Don't let fan-boyism cloud your ability to form a rational argument.
ionfish 18y ago
I've never heard of an open-source solution that has gone through formal usability tests. WordPress has. http://wordpress.org/development/2008/10/usability-testing-report-25-and-crazyhorse/ http://wordpress.org/development/2008/10/usability-testing-r...
- mixmax 18y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks for the link!
- masomenos 18y ago
  and Drupal: http://groups.drupal.org/files/DrupalUsabilityResearchReport.pdf http://groups.drupal.org/files/DrupalUsabilityResearchReport...
- hernan7 18y ago
  GNOME too, at least back in the day http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject KDE too, apparently: http://usability.kde.org/ http://usability.kde.org/
- cookiecaper 18y ago
  http://www.openusability.org http://www.openusability.org
kragen 18y ago
The problems you're describing are independent of whether software is open-source or not. There's plenty of proprietary software with no support, no training, nobody to blame if things go wrong, with terrible UI design, no way to get new features you need, no marketing, and no guarantee of updates. Any random Computer Associates product from 1999 would qualify for nearly all of those, as would most custom software, and that's before we even get into proprietary shareware. And there's plenty of free software that's at the opposite end of the spectrum.
yason 18y ago
- Open-sourcing has nothing much to do about being free. Using software is never free in terms of money and time, not even for end-users. However, open source software commoditises applications and removes an artificial barrier that prevents the program from evolving. It effectively de-values software by removing it from the hands of a single vendor and limited customer base in order to generate a greater value of it, to all people. It is possible to exploit the near-sighted greediness of people in order to sell more closed source programs _now_ rather than work towards a common goal together. I'm afraid this will end in a decade or two, though. - As for support, I've used many open-source solutions with great support, and seen money move around there. Support is generally bad in any software but as long as there's a company willing to give support, this is no problem for businesses. For example, Canonical provides support for thousands of programs available via their Ubuntu distributions. Many of them provide support of their own as well if there's need for a more in-depth support. But it's easier for a company with a marketing budget to advertise the illusion that they actually provide support eventhough it usually turns out to be worth nothing much. - UIs tend to be mostly bad both in commercial and open-source programs. The problem is more in the general acceptance of how important a good user interface is. Both open-source and closer-source makers have an incentive to make good UIs if they choose to see the lack of them as a problem. Besides usability is generally so bad that you don't even need a trip to a damn usability laboratory to make the first leap a huge one. Just someone with interest and insight can do wonders and make the user interface tolerable for most people. Investing in a good is really not a competitive advantage against open source software: it's a cheap but greatly unharnessed competitive advantage against any software, available both to open source and closed source software. - I would say that feature requests are much eagerly fulfilled in the open source world than with commercial closed source software. On the other hand, open source projects will make trivial enhancements and features often _too_ gladly. Closed source companies tend to evaluate the usefulness of a feature against development costs. Not really an advantage for commercial vendors, I would say. - Marketing for most open-source solutions is non-existent. This is they key reason for open-source being a minor player. Marketing can make wonders in smoothing out all the issues you pointed out; the quality of the actual product then becomes tangential. - You have absolutely no guarantee that a commercial company won't turn red in the near future. They usually take their software down with them and I've seen this happen so many times that this is actually one of the key reasons why many companies would turn into open source. Not really an advantage for closed source software, rather quite the opposite! In summary, there's a huge market for companies that sell the missing pieces of open source software, channelling all support and commercial whatnot through a single desk and market it as such. The business-types really don't care what's running on their computers but they care about money. An open source codebase can afford these middlemen to sell the software cheaper and make a profit from it. Just let the companies battle in the realm of marketing and conveniently have them grow existing open source software better as a side-product. Everyone benefits from that.

by mixmax 18y ago

edfrghjk 18y ago

-This means that there's no support, Buy support! C/C++/SQL/Java are free with no support, but you don't choose to only program in JCL4800 because Burroughs sold it. - The UI design of open-source software is often terrible. Ever seen in house or enterprise software - There's noone to turn to with feature requests Yes because I have Bill's cell phone # for new windows features I want - There's no marketing for open-source software. Depends whether you look for software on the web or in the WSJ - You have no guarantee that your open-source software will be updated in the future Whereas you have a guarantee that MSFT will stop selling XP - Most business-types, don't even know that there is such a thing as open-source software That's why they have staff. They don't know how an IP datagram gets to their web server but they still have a web site. Or possibly they don't - they will be running DecNet or SNA because you can't trust this free TCP stuff.

tptacek 18y ago
The reality is: * The UI for most software is often terrible. There are dynamics that can even push OSS towards better UI's than commercial; for instance, OSS code often uses more modern UI toolkits, and commercial code often gets away shipping on stuff that looks like Foxpro. * You're no more likely to get your feature wishlist with commercial software than with OSS. Commercial vendors pay product managers to pick the features that will expand their market and close deals with their top N customers; if you don't fit the bill, or (worse) if they farm the product for revenue, you're S.O.L. * The cost of marketing software has changed drastically; nobody buys their software from the WSJ anymore. Read Eric Sink on advertising, and go back to the BoS board and read other people's stories on advertising. A well-trafficked blog can generate more leads than a $20k/mo marketing budget. * The constant cycle of pointless updates is an irritant, not a win. Look at graphic design, where professionals often stick with archaic versions of Adobe tools and bitch about CS2/CS3/CS4/CSx.
mixmax 18y ago
It's obvious that you, and most people on this site, are hackers. We are, however, a minority. My post was primarily aimed at explaining the difference in mentality between hackers and business people. Maybe I failed to convey that properly. Business people have another mentality, different core values, and different goals and reasons for doing things than hackers. If you can grok this mentality you will find that you can outperform free. Both as in beer and as in freedom. I once worked with a business guy that had a yearly budget of around $200 million, and his stance was that if someone wanted him to use something they had better sell it really well or he wouldn't use it. The whole process of selling, procurement, contracts, delivery, etc. was important to him. Both because this is what he valued (just like people here would have a hard time buying something they knew was coded in a flaky way) and because it gave him plausible deniability and removed responsibility in the sphere of corporate games. If he had used open-source software there would be noone to point the finger at if it didn't work - it sould be his responsibility. And buying decisions are usually placed with business poeple , not hackers. If you want to sell software to companies you need to understand these processes.
run4yourlives 18y ago
You're missing his point. He's not making a 'closed source is better than open source' argument, he's saying that each of these areas are easily exploitable competitive advantages; ones that people will pay for. Don't let fan-boyism cloud your ability to form a rational argument.

ionfish 18y ago

I've never heard of an open-source solution that has gone through formal usability tests. WordPress has. http://wordpress.org/development/2008/10/usability-testing-report-25-and-crazyhorse/ http://wordpress.org/development/2008/10/usability-testing-r...

mixmax 18y ago
Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks for the link!
masomenos 18y ago
and Drupal: http://groups.drupal.org/files/DrupalUsabilityResearchReport.pdf http://groups.drupal.org/files/DrupalUsabilityResearchReport...
hernan7 18y ago
GNOME too, at least back in the day http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject KDE too, apparently: http://usability.kde.org/ http://usability.kde.org/
cookiecaper 18y ago
http://www.openusability.org http://www.openusability.org

kragen 18y ago

The problems you're describing are independent of whether software is open-source or not. There's plenty of proprietary software with no support, no training, nobody to blame if things go wrong, with terrible UI design, no way to get new features you need, no marketing, and no guarantee of updates. Any random Computer Associates product from 1999 would qualify for nearly all of those, as would most custom software, and that's before we even get into proprietary shareware. And there's plenty of free software that's at the opposite end of the spectrum.

yason 18y ago

- Open-sourcing has nothing much to do about being free. Using software is never free in terms of money and time, not even for end-users. However, open source software commoditises applications and removes an artificial barrier that prevents the program from evolving. It effectively de-values software by removing it from the hands of a single vendor and limited customer base in order to generate a greater value of it, to all people. It is possible to exploit the near-sighted greediness of people in order to sell more closed source programs _now_ rather than work towards a common goal together. I'm afraid this will end in a decade or two, though. - As for support, I've used many open-source solutions with great support, and seen money move around there. Support is generally bad in any software but as long as there's a company willing to give support, this is no problem for businesses. For example, Canonical provides support for thousands of programs available via their Ubuntu distributions. Many of them provide support of their own as well if there's need for a more in-depth support. But it's easier for a company with a marketing budget to advertise the illusion that they actually provide support eventhough it usually turns out to be worth nothing much. - UIs tend to be mostly bad both in commercial and open-source programs. The problem is more in the general acceptance of how important a good user interface is. Both open-source and closer-source makers have an incentive to make good UIs if they choose to see the lack of them as a problem. Besides usability is generally so bad that you don't even need a trip to a damn usability laboratory to make the first leap a huge one. Just someone with interest and insight can do wonders and make the user interface tolerable for most people. Investing in a good is really not a competitive advantage against open source software: it's a cheap but greatly unharnessed competitive advantage against any software, available both to open source and closed source software. - I would say that feature requests are much eagerly fulfilled in the open source world than with commercial closed source software. On the other hand, open source projects will make trivial enhancements and features often _too_ gladly. Closed source companies tend to evaluate the usefulness of a feature against development costs. Not really an advantage for commercial vendors, I would say. - Marketing for most open-source solutions is non-existent. This is they key reason for open-source being a minor player. Marketing can make wonders in smoothing out all the issues you pointed out; the quality of the actual product then becomes tangential. - You have absolutely no guarantee that a commercial company won't turn red in the near future. They usually take their software down with them and I've seen this happen so many times that this is actually one of the key reasons why many companies would turn into open source. Not really an advantage for closed source software, rather quite the opposite! In summary, there's a huge market for companies that sell the missing pieces of open source software, channelling all support and commercial whatnot through a single desk and market it as such. The business-types really don't care what's running on their computers but they care about money. An open source codebase can afford these middlemen to sell the software cheaper and make a profit from it. Just let the companies battle in the realm of marketing and conveniently have them grow existing open source software better as a side-product. Everyone benefits from that.