It is time we stop the term open source from getting hijacked. I recently wrote about how tech media doesn’t get open source. The events in the last week or so have confirmed my thesis further. During the OSCON, Microsoft announced that they have submitted some licenses to OSI for approval as open source license. Even before Bill Hilf of Microsoft could complete his speech, the saviors of open source in the tech media started talking as if the “holy god” has bestowed his power on us. They were grateful as if the President of United States has come down to shake hands with a small kid (well, whether the small kid will want to shake hands with the current president is a topic of different debate and let us not get into it now). These are the same people who said that open source is dead in the SaaS based world. I don’t understand why they think that Microsoft applying for open source licensing glorifies open source. If at all there is any glorification process involved (which I don’t think is necessary), it should be the case of Microsoft getting glorified by adapting open source. Open source is the President of United States and Microsoft if the kid waiting to shake hands. It is disgusting to see the so called saviors of open source kneeling in front of a company known to strangle the freedom of users. I am not against Microsoft. In fact, I will be very happy if Microsoft becomes the torch bearer of open source movement. But Microsoft should take in the concept of freedom, as it is defined in a saner democratic society, than their own twisted definitions of freedom. Let us listen to the reaction of Michael Tiemann, President of Open Source Initiative, on Microsoft’s application for approval. (more…)

I was talking with Deepak Singh and Mike Koss at the “The Naked truth” party after the panel discussion. We were talking about coding, open source, etc. At that time, Mike made a comment that got me thinking. When Deepak was talking about his ex-company’s dilemma in open sourcing their code, Mike said that if we have to open source our code, we have to make sure that it is a very good code, as our reputation is at stake.

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The problem with the tech media (conventional media and tech blogosphere) is that they are way too deep into proprietary software and hit based economic models. This has resulted in way too many misinterpretations about open source. We saw how Nicholas Carr had completely misunderstood the functioning of open source. We also saw how Dan Farber and others used the term open source to purely imply a business model whereas open source is a platform on which various business models plays out. When the open source movement was formed, it was done with an idea to create an environment where various business models can be implemented on top of a platform developed by the free software movement. The proponents of open source, at least most of them, didn’t roll out open source as a yet another business model. Rather, they created an environment, with a pool of more accommodative licenses, so that the business community (and consumers) could benefit from the advantages of the freedom behind the free software. The underlying principle between both the free software movement and open source movement is the freedom to do anything you want with the software, the freedom to choose any version of the software, the freedom to choose any flavor of the software, etc. Open source movement has taken this freedom to business community and their customers with their accommodative approach. Unfortunately, the tech media doesn’t seem to get this point at all. This misunderstanding (or, rather, non understanding) is the reason why we have Nicholas Carr, Dan Farber and, even to some extent, Tim O’ Reilly making predictions about the demise of open source. If they understand that open source is just a platform on which various business models compete with each other, they will be able to avoid making such predictions about the death of open source and concentrate on finding out business models that can better utilize the freedom offered by open source, thereby offering consumers with better user experience. (more…)

Recently, Bryan Richard and Tim O’Reilly proclaimed that GPL has no future in this networked world where software is to be delivered as a service. You can also read Tim’s previous post on the topic here. I am not comfortable with their postions. The software as a service is at very early stages and it is too early to determine how it will play out in the future. I have no doubt that the user data will be residing on the web and the browser will be the main point of entry for the users. The role of the software will either be realigned to work with data on the web (as advocated by proponents of Rich Internet Applications) or completely removed (as advocated by the proponents of purely web based apps). There will definitely be a paradigm shift towards data on the web. Yes, I would prefer to call this shift as data on the web rather than software as a service. (more…)