tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post4578061044140906912..comments2023-08-18T08:27:06.472-07:00Comments on The Keene View on Computing: Death by Cloud - How Amazon is Killing Open Source SoftwareUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-73743958114460935692012-04-25T11:35:19.457-07:002012-04-25T11:35:19.457-07:00"open source software has traditionally accou..."open source software has traditionally accounted for 40-50% of the revenue streams for companies like MySQL "<br /><br />I am not sure where you got this number for MySQL, but it is quite inaccurate and does not reflect the MySQL business model (or where growth was).Brian Akerhttp://krow.net/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-39708236734040292802011-04-19T09:13:24.138-07:002011-04-19T09:13:24.138-07:00Chris,
Another way to look at this may be that OS...Chris,<br /><br />Another way to look at this may be that OS companies need to look at selling cloud/paas or whatever you want to call it to their customers. OSS can just be the lubricant onto their hosted platform or they can sell value added services around an OSS framework. It seems like selling any type of software license whether for OS or otherwise is becoming harder and harder. It was interesting to see Adobe's recent announcement around subscription pricing for Creative Suite. It seems if you're selling to developers it's easier to convince them to pay for a hosted service than a license or support agreement.<br /><br />My 2 cents.<br /><br />Andre.Andre Charlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975965411636762485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-71262139535048574062011-04-18T10:30:48.164-07:002011-04-18T10:30:48.164-07:00@will You are exactly right on both counts: open s...@will You are exactly right on both counts: open source as a social movement is alive and well and the traditional *commercial* open source model is in big trouble.<br /><br />This is only an issue if you are trying to make money from open source software, which may have been an oxymoron from the beginning.<br /><br />I see this as an opportunity for smart entrepreneurs to do what they always do - adjust their business model to meet changing business conditions.Christopher Keenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04452233158192995749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-4771130681734172612011-04-18T03:05:54.598-07:002011-04-18T03:05:54.598-07:00Open Source software is alive and well. Go and che...Open Source software is alive and well. Go and check out <a href="http://github.com/" rel="nofollow">github</a> for plenty of examples.<br /><br />The issue (if there is one) is that companies that make money from open source software have business models that are fragile.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02999174665320815870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-54074637004749792502011-04-17T20:22:51.657-07:002011-04-17T20:22:51.657-07:00@anon You are absolutely right - people are free t...@anon You are absolutely right - people are free to use open source in their own projects without paying. The distinction always comes when someone uses open source in a project that they then turn around and commercialize.<br /><br />The commercial use of open source tends to depend on the license. An Apache license (which is what Wavemaker uses) allows this. A GPL license (which is what MySQL uses) does not.Christopher Keenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04452233158192995749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-40420109769504005082011-04-17T18:51:30.367-07:002011-04-17T18:51:30.367-07:00I might have missed something, but I thought Open ...I might have missed something, but I thought Open Source was just that, open, free, and able to be used as is in any way one sees fit. If you modify it, improve it, etc, then the license wants you to return the modified code to the codebase. The danger with open source was that one could always use it unmodified in a closed application, without needing to pay anything (regardless of how much money you make out of it.)<br /><br />How many big sites out there use Spring, Hibernate, or many of the other open source initiatives. They use as is, and do not pay a cent. <br /><br />Maybe the MySQL people should have been first to create cloud database services ? Is that the point ? I read it as they were late and missed out. Maybe the postgres people can make a cloud db platform and avoid a third party beating them to it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-60105087460699376642011-04-15T12:14:42.922-07:002011-04-15T12:14:42.922-07:00@rob I agree that it is a challenge for open sourc...@rob I agree that it is a challenge for open source companies to become profitable. I don't think that is always the objective however. The objective is to build momentum and mindshare while generating enough revenue to keep attracting venture investment. If you look closely, this is how 90% of tech startups operate.<br /><br />The challenge is that generating "enough revenue" has now become much, much harder for open source companies following the traditional open source monetization model. To me, the answer is for open source companies to build value added features that cannot be snapped up and offered on a cloud vendor platform for free.Christopher Keenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04452233158192995749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-78416109187430838332011-04-14T21:23:24.367-07:002011-04-14T21:23:24.367-07:00I always thought it was a scary proposition to bui...I always thought it was a scary proposition to build a company explicitly for developing an open source software package, since the competition will always be on a more level playing field with you then that of a proprietary software market. <br /><br />Perhaps the only legitimate business model was selling a proprietary license for an otherwise GPL'd application, which is what happened in this case. But I don't see why we should blame Amazon for both creating a service based upon MySQL and complying with the license MySQL granted them. <br /><br />You'll point out they violate the spirit of the GPL. Fine. I will note that it is ironic that the original point of Free Software was to guarantee the user's ability to rebuild the exact binary from the source. It wasn't intended as a mechanism to insert the author into a user's profit stream. That business model came later.<br /><br />Yes, the cloud hurts the valuation of open source companies, but I always thought there was a high burden on open source companies to become profitable regardless.Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04371367541014308288noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-58801370132926273382011-04-14T10:22:48.140-07:002011-04-14T10:22:48.140-07:00@Ben capping valuations just means fewer and small...@Ben capping valuations just means fewer and smaller venture investments in open source projects. This will certainly not slow down the overall open source movement, but it will change the nature of the movement by removing much of the potential for individuals to profit from open source projects. I am sure there are many people in the open source community that will think this is a good thing, but I am not one of them ;-)Christopher Keenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04452233158192995749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-83955989566829085552011-04-14T10:20:15.148-07:002011-04-14T10:20:15.148-07:00@Ewantoo - you raise a good point - in many cases,...@Ewantoo - you raise a good point - in many cases, an OEM or ISV does not have to pay under the GPL license. However, the fact remains that selling commercial licenses for open source software has traditionally accounted for 40-50% of the revenue streams for companies like MySQL and WaveMaker. If that revenue stream dries up, the entire business model is in serious trouble.Christopher Keenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04452233158192995749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-91115193925846562522011-04-14T06:06:24.975-07:002011-04-14T06:06:24.975-07:00Capping valuations doesn't kill the software. ...Capping valuations doesn't kill the software. In fact, valuations that just soar to the moon come with their own problems. <br /><br />In addition, if Amazon needs expertise (well paid) in MySQL, then there will be an ecology of learning, training, and developing that will reward individuals with proven MySQL skills. This will perpetuate the development of MySQL and feed the community. No death there.Bennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-35827779344205596092011-04-14T03:35:00.303-07:002011-04-14T03:35:00.303-07:00The MySQL licensing obligations are still there, t...The MySQL licensing obligations are still there, they are shifted to the people running software on Amazon, who still have to link to libmysql which is GPL/Floss exception. So if you are running proprietary software on Amazon EC2 connecting to RDS you need to buy a license even if you dont actually run the MySQL software yourself.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12888786103536755704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-294880355377903512.post-37568299777163087672011-04-14T02:31:06.384-07:002011-04-14T02:31:06.384-07:00You say "Whenever a company embedded MySQL in...You say "Whenever a company embedded MySQL into their commercial offering, they had to either license their own product under an open source license like GPL or buy a commercial license from MySQL"<br /><br />But for the vast majority of companies and uses, that's simply not the case, though Oracle dearly want it to be.<br /><br />MySQL from mysql.org (the open source package, not the version Oracle sell) can be distributed alongside a commercial package for free, without requiring the purchase of a commercial licence or be open sourced itself. Only when a commercial company wants to mix their own code with MySQL's code does a company need to make one of those 2 steps. Simply shipping an open source package on the same CD as closed code with instructions on how to install it does not breach the GPL.<br /><br />The vast majority of packages would only ever want to connect to MySQL over it's normal interfaces, the same ones Amazon make available, and so have no requirement to link directly to MySQL's source code.Ewantoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07407675256810469243noreply@blogger.com