Julie Inlow of the University of Maryland has recently interviewed me about FOSS, for her research. I decided to publish this interview in the hope that somebody else may find it interesting, as well. I very much believe in the open-source, so if this posting helps at least one person to consider FOSS more seriosuly, I will feel mission is accomplished.
Why is open source important to you? AKA - why do you care about FOSS?
For me the benefits of FOSS have three equally important facets: business, technological and social.
At the business side, employing FOSS enables to avoid vendor lock-in, removing crucial dependencies on third parties. These dependencies create substantial risks. Unfortunately, not many executives understand that when they base their technology on proprietary components they inherently tie their success to what happens in the vendor companies.
Managers usually comfort themselves with the thought that large vendors (e.g.
Dependency on a vendor is a risk. Whether this risk will be materialized or not is a matter of a chance and gamble is, probably, better left for a weekend in Las-Vegas.
Technological benefits of FOSS include: flexibility, control and visibility. The source code is available for viewing and modification. Theoretically, there are no limits in using a FOSS component. A “side-affect” of the visibility is that often times mature FOSS products are much more bug-free than their proprietary alternatives. The reason is simple - more eyeballs there are looking at the source code, less chance exists for a bug to survive.
FOSS also has an important social impact. It brings people together that would have very little chance to work together, otherwise. In what other model would a young programmer from a “third-world” country be given a chance to work as an equal on the same project that a seasoned professional from, say,
I think we are only starting to understand just how large the social impact of FOSS is.
When did you become interested?
I have been interested in FOSS for a long time, now but probably it became a much larger part of my professional life when I joined the World Bank in 2001. I was lucky to work with a group there that was one of the first, in the Bank, to champion the usage and development of the FOSS software.
What roles have you played / actions taken in the open source community? In what activities have you participated?
I have helped organizations adopt FOSS software, migrate to FOSS software. I have contributed to and participated in several FOSS projects.
From your perspective, what primary factors influence or discourage diffusion and adoption?
It’s a very complex subject that is hard to answer in several sentences. And yet, if I had to name just several of the reasons I would say: lack of knowledge/understanding amongst the decision-making managers, lack of professional support for the FOSS components (there has been significant progress in this regard, lately, though), lack of appropriate legislature, tremendous amount of lobbing and blocking from large proprietary vendors who see FOSS as a threat to their businesses.
In the future, what role do you see FOSS playing? In private sector? In the public sector? In the
I think adopting FOSS is a business decision. We have already discussed what could be incentives for a business to go FOSS way. These incentives are not driven by geographical location or which industry the company is in. Where will people be smart enough to not ignore FOSS and at least seriously consider it? I don’t know. I hope – everywhere, eventually.
As far as the development of FOSS products goes, I firmly believe that FOSS can be a viable business model. Not all software can or may be FOSS, but FOSS products can definitely generate revenue, just as well as their proprietary counterparts do. There are numerous examples of successful FOSS companies so I do not see a reason why others could not do the same.
Do you think government should formally encourage FOSS development via policy vehicles or let market forces drive development?
I absolutely think that governments must encourage FOSS and, as a matter of fact, there are governments that already do it. Governments of
I think the real problem is in the minds of the vendors who are resistant and/or unable to adopt and start thinking the new way. They got used, too much, to capitalizing on patents and intellectual property rights. They don’t seem able to notice that it is not the only and the best way profits can be generated. If you think how ridiculous some patents are, you will not be too surprised that there are people who request software patents to be abolished entirely.
I am far from thinking that all software must be FOSS. No, no and again – no. But FOSS and proprietary software must be put at equal terms. After that, in each particular case, market forces may be able to generate a fair outcome.
I think, this is one of the areas where governments can step up. Old legislature related to intellectual property rights and patents must be changed. It must be brought in consistency to the new reality so that FOSS and proprietary models are put in equal terms.
