OSBC and What It’s All About

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

Medost nepal — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:16:27 GMT

Microsoft’s open source strategy is only committed in business promotion in my opinion. I am from Nepal which is developing country and we people are don't have much knowledge but according to my experience with Microsoft till now i can assure this.

and ye, i would also like to thank the speakers.

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

Iminianof — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:00:32 GMT

Howdy! i have been following the website for awhile. I wanted to introduce myself:)

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

Eleonora — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:40:37 GMT

Hack again?!

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

eleonora — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:55:08 GMT

Sell inventions, sell patents and sell ideas - Ever

wondered - how can I sell my ideas and how can

I sell my inventions or how can I sell my patent.

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

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re: OSBC and What It’s All About

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Port 25 — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:22:35 GMT

For those who've been participating on Port 25 since the beginning, you may have noticed two recurring themes. One, Microsoft has a focus on generativity - or the ability for technology to be extensible to others, be they community or commercial developers.

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

MichaelF — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:04:37 GMT

@Fluke: No, we didn't record the sessions although we might consider it next time around. The panel discussion was very interesting/informative but I'll refrain from paraphrasing what the panelists said. What you can't see from the agenda is that not only did we have a great turn-out from open source software companies but we also had a number of thought leaders from the Open Source community in the audience who actively participated in the session which made for a very engaging discussion.

Maybe if I ask nicely I can get one of the panelists to join us for a podcast...I'll see what I can do.

FWIW, since you didn't make it through the process, the discount OSBC provided was 50%.

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

fluke — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:52:47 GMT

@einhverfr:

To get a true representation of Open Source *Business* as it happens today, you need to have the quasi-proprietary vendors. I see it as a bigger consern when names like Oracle show up (I wish Bryan would post "And Now There’s an Oracle in My Pudding").

It is nice to see companies like Bank of America and H&R Block consider themselves part of the OS/B egosystem. I recall Martin Roesch of Sourcefire explaining that investors where not getting the concept that a company could sell services around intellectual properity they did not strictly control (and could be downloaded, used and modified for free).

There is definately a better way than quasi-proprietary but that situation still seems to be part of the path some companies have choosen to get to FOSS. At the same time, there are companies like Red Hat, Sourcefire, Trolltech, MySQL, Zend Technologies, XenSource, Ingress and Vyatta that where at the OSBC.

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

einhverfr — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:22:52 GMT

Personally, I don't particularly like the way that the open source ISV market has evolved. In short, my objection is that most of the companies (including SugarCRM and MySQL) seem to be developing proprietary software under the GNU GPL, and then using the copyleft part of the license to do some free advertising, even asking people to contribute code (and their rights to their contributions) back to the founding company. In these cases, the core community is synonymous with the single vendor.

The OSBC seems to be dominated by quasi-proprietary vendors (like SugarCRM) and investors (like Bank of America).

My own feeling is that there is another, better way. The quasi-proprietary model (usually relying on dual licensing or releasing a more advanced non-open source varient) is only really possible when you have VC money and only when you can retain all the talent you need within that company. Many smaller vendors cannot do this longer-term and may not have the VC money to develop in advance/collect in arrears.

As I said, I believe there is a better way. It does not lead to as much initial growth, but I believe that it offers better pay per employee than any other model. This is to realize that the greatest singular truth of the software market is that all software, proprietary or open source, lives or dies based on its community. As a corrolary, those closer to the center of the community are better positioned to monetize their efforts. In my view, I would recomment to those starting open source businesses the development of a multi-vendor, community-based solution where the actual code is owned by the community, where the community is actively fostered, and where the core community is larger than the core company. This is because you can get other people to do a lot of the work, etc. and their advertising is your advertising.

If you can't start an existing solution, start on the edges of another community while you get started. Find a gap in the market-- something people need and don't have. Then become the center of the community around that solution. It may be an addon to another project or a project by itself.

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

fluke — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:36:48 GMT

@MichaelF: Thanks for the correction/information. So will there be videos of the talks from the OS ISV Forum posted? The first talk of "A View from Inside the Open Source Software Labs" probably doesn't contain information we haven't already seen on Port 25, but I would really like to see the "Open Source/Microsoft and Market Opportunity Discussion" talk.

I now recall seeing the Port 25 deal code under "Getting Ready for OSBC" but it required putting in a lot of personal information before it would display the amount the deal code subtracted (making it impossible to judge if it brought it down to my price level). It just seemed like one of those situation where if you needed to know the size of the discount ahead of time then it probably is too expensive. :) InfoWorld does do a good job with the conferences they put on but I still miss having COMDEX/Windows World in my own city.

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

MichaelF — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:05:53 GMT

@fluke: I'll let Bryan address your other comments but I wanted to correct your assertion that the folks who attended the Open Source ISV Forum paid a fee to do so. In fact they did not. There is a fee to attend OSBC, as is standard for conferences, but that fee was in no way tied to the Forum. We did work with OSBC to provide a generous discount on the OSBC conference fees to people who wanted to attend OSBC as well as our event. Big thanks to the events team at Infoworld for helping make that happen.

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

norberto — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:50:57 GMT

The Microsoft Way

http://www.theregister.com/2007/06/05/microsoft_mvp_threats/

re: OSBC and What It’s All About

fluke — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:58:29 GMT

"And certainly a lowlight was the concern many people expressed around whether Microsoft’s open source strategy has changed (no, it hasn’t, another reason why going to OSBC and having those conversations is important)."

Your technically right that MS strategy for FOSS has not changed but your also missing the point. The problem isn't if MS has changed but rather if reality is different from what people thought to be true.

Take for example University of Washington's PINE email reader. It was believed that the PINE group not only talked the talk of the talk of FOSS but also walked the walk. Then the PINE group provided in layman's terms how it intends the license to be interpreted and enforced. There wasn't an issue that the PINE group had changed since the license still remained the same. Instead, rather than the PINE group leaving the FOSS community, it turned out that they where never had the same values as the FOSS community. This doesn't make PINE group "evil," as it was the FOSS community that failed in due diligence, but at the same time PINE could not be considered to be a FOSS community member and had to be removed or given a deprecated status with the majority of GNU/Linux distributions.

With such changes as the introduction of Port 25, Codeplex and Shared Source license, it looks like MS would also being walking the walk of the FOSS community for some of it's projects or applications. But it is important that the FOSS community follow through on due diligence this time and not accept another "PINE" into it's circles. Statements from the Novell deal, CEO Ballmer and the wording of the Open Specification Promise that put up clear red flags. The threat is clear that if FOSS developers don't get on and withen the parameters of the MS IP Bridge then they will get sued. Things that may fall outside of the IP Bridge could be continued development of Open Office since it was clearly stated to violate the most number of MS patents of any GNU/Linux related software.

I have said it before, but I will say it again. I do not consider Microsoft to be a "big evil." And what I am saying here is not an attempt to claim that Microsoft is evil. But the red flags can't be denied and it would be in the FOSS community's interest to pay attention to the red flags ahead of time instead of repeat the mistakes of the past like with PINE.

"The companies who came to the Forum literally did get a free lunch"

It isn't clear if you mean free as in gratis or libre. It seems that companies that came to the forum spent over $1,000 per pass and those that didn't pay for a pass did not get lunch. So, there was not really a gratis lunch. But in terms of libre, I would accept that anyone could modify their lunch as they saw fit (put salt or mustard on it, cut it however they liked).

"Sometimes this means what you can see (free as in open code - simple example WIX)..."

But free as in open code should go beyond just being able to see. The three basic rights of free software is the ability to use, redistribute and modify the software. When something follows the true spirit of free software then the customer has equal say in being able to effect the future of the software as the developer or distributor. WIX is under a true free software license but does not follow the true spirit of free software. While I would like very much to see MSI compete with the features of RPM, the availablity of the WIX code only provides half of the system and from a practical sense still leaves the MSI format closed. The ability to put in the functionality layed out in the _Maximum RPM_ is hindered until someone provide the code to a drop-in replace for the other half of MSI. If MSI is covered by patents held by Microsoft then it might be possible that no third-party can ever legally provide such a replacement or the results will be boxed in by OSP style terms.

"Whether or not your business is built around software that competes with Microsoft products isn’t a criterion..."

"Nor is what type of development, business model, or licensing approach you have chosen."

Microsoft is not going to provide the specs to GNU/Linux developers syncronize data to a MS SideShow device. Again, that doesn't make Microsoft evil but it does mean there is limits to the type of development/business model that Microsoft will support. Part of MS SideShow is that it is tied to Vista. It doesn't technically need to be tied to Vista but part of Microsoft's business model is to keep it a Vista exclusive feature where only a Vista API and not driver specs are provided to the user. To this extent, Microsoft definately make it clear that the development/business model must fit withen Microsoft's fixed parameters to be involved with using the SideShow device.

"From an ISV or partner you’re an 'equal citizen' as a potential partner."

Your an equal to other partner in that you have equal choice to buy into MSDN. The likelyhood that a graduate student from Helsinki, Finland will become a major contributor under the MS community model is not the same likelyhood that the same student could become a major contributor under the FOSS model.

Being a "partner" that bases software off Microsoft applications also does not put the partner on equal footing with Microsoft, even as a commerical/non-FOSS developer. For example, lets say a partner writes a plug-in for Visual Studio and at the time it is written that every Visual Studio user are able to buy and use the plug-in for only the cost the partner chooses. Then Microsoft comes out with Visual Studio Express where users of it aren't permitted to run the partner plug-in. Now users of Visual Studio Express have an additional fee to consider beyond the fee of the plug-in before having the option to use it. A customer that currently considers VS Express "good enough" for their purposes can not even use an evaluation version of the plug-in. Hence, the enviroment has been altered such that additional incentives exist to turn down purchasing the plug-in while the partner has no say in the how the enviroment had been changed.

Another example of MS partners having no control over the worth of their own product built on Microsoft technology, say a partner builds a product based on Microsoft Office VB script. They make sure that the product runs on both Microsoft Office for Windows and Mac. Then Microsoft releases a Microsoft Office for Mac that doesn't support VB script. What options does the so-called "partner" have when the rug is pulled out from under them? It clearly *DID* matter that the type of developement/business model was VB script and included selling to Mac customers despite your assertion that it isn't a criterion. What recourse do such "partners" have?

Under a FOSS model like with Eclipse or Open Office, any previous version can be forked to continue any features/policy that fits the requirements that product depends on. The recourse for a partner is built-in to the license by nature of them having equal rights to redistribute/modify the work in whatever way they require. The same degree of guarantee of being able to alter the roadmap for the products that a partner's product depends on seems to never be provided under the Microsoft model. For whatever reason, it just does not seem to be an area that Microsoft has choosen to compete with the FOSS model yet.