PANDAY.NET - The New Software Movement Article

The New Software Movement

PC World Article (March, 2002), by the PANDAY.NET Webmaster

The late 90's witnessed another revolution alongside that of the Internet explosion. Also brought about by hackers (which mean technology enthusiasts, not cyber-criminals, as misused by most journalists), this revolution again seeks to give more power to the individual instead of it being hoarded by large monopolistic organizations. The Open Source Movement or Free Software Movement aims to promote open development of software by making it freely available to developers and programmers everywhere to improve on, use, and distribute. This movement runs against the mode of large software companies in the IT industry who provide commercial software as copyrighted and closed-source products for sale, instead of offering software as a service.

In the Philippines, awareness of the benefits of Open Source / Free Software is beginning to take place. Various entities ranging from individual Filipino hackers to small and medium Philippine IT service companies are coming together, evangelizing and educating people on the various open source / free software available and the benefits of using them. Significant focus is given to GNU/Linux, the flagship software of the movement, an operating system began by a Helsinki University student named Linus Trovalds that, by late 1993, competed in stability and reliability with many commercial operating systems.

The Open Source / Free Software Movement in the Philippines is particularly focused on the use of these software for e-governance, a move by the national government aimed at harnessing and utilizing information technology as an enabler for development. These groups wish to provide a compelling option to the current government, that, instead of spending taxpayer's money on licenses for operating systems, server applications and databases, it may instead use those funds on operational expenses such as service fees and skilled labor, thereby contributing to the growth of the local IT industry. In a time of global recession and IT slowdown, such a move may indeed be an oasis for many of our local IT service providers.

OPEN SOURCE / FREE SOFTWARE DEFINITION

For a lot of Filipinos that have gotten used to seeing commercially branded software being sold in the market on a per-license basis, the concept of open source or free software sounds radical. The term "free" is almost always associated with a good or product that is given away without a fee, as in "freebies". In the term free software, however, the emphasis is on freedom, not price. Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, would like people, in talking about free software, to think about "freedom, as in free speech, not free beer". The definition of free software is a program that offers the user the freedom to run the program for any purpose, to modify the program to suit his needs, to redistribute copies either in gratis or for a fee, and to distribute modified versions of the program so that the community can benefit from his/her improvements.

There are various categories of free software. Copylefted software is free software whose distribution terms do not led redistributors add any additional restrictions when they redistribute or modify the software. Non-copylefted software, on the other hand, allows redistributors to add additional restrictions to it, such as distributing it as a proprietary software product. Some software are semi-free. Their license allow individuals to use, copy, distribute and modify it, but only for non-profit purposes. Freeware is often mistakenly labeled as free software. Although it allows users to redistribute the software, it is not open to modification, and their source code is not available. Shareware is even more restrictive in that although it allows users to redistribute copies, it limits the usage of the software only for limited features or for a limited time.

These other software categories are, for open-source advocates, deemed inferior. They see that the case for open-source software lies intrinsically in making its source freely available and modifiable, attributing it with engineering and economic advantages - better quality, higher reliability, lower costs and increased choice.

TRUSTING OPEN SOURCE / FREE SOFTWARE

Because of the revolutionary nature of open source / free software, having been made or built by independent programmers and tinkerers instead of large commercial IT organizations, a lot of IT users tend to avoid using them because they doubt their reliability. There are, however, structurally fundamental reasons why open source / free software offer matching or exceeding quality and reliability compared to commercial software. Open source / free software are built by a community, and it involves them working together to fix problems. Users of open source / free software, some of them being programmers, not only report bugs. They often send in fixes that are incorporated in the next release of the software. New versions are released more often in open source / free software than in commercial software. While free software packages do not compete commercially, they compete for good reputation, which makes the lot of programmers involved in the project care about quality and reliability as much as companies

There is also the issue of accountability and ownership. Corporate users are reluctant to use software without a respected commercial organization behind it. Enlightened users, however, see this as a blessing. Without dominant software vendors behind open source / free software, it cannot be controlled to suit any vendor's agenda. Its growth and development will be driven by usability and performance, rather than economic and business pressures.

Having no accountability or ownership, however, is not to say that it will be absent of technical support. In fact, organizations that support open source / free software see providing technical support to users as one of their leading source of income. Quality technical support is available to companies who seek to get them with a fee. This has reassured business users that they won't be at a loss in using open source / free software.

The Web offers an impressive number of case studies on mission critical applications of free software. One need not look farther than the Philippines for these. A lot of local ISPs run GNU/Linux almost exclusively on its back-end, handling network traffic and business applications such as accounting and billing. Even large software and hardware vendors such as SAP, Oracle, and IBM, are beginning to see the massive growth potential of GNU/Linux in the IT community.

OPEN SOFTWARE / FREE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

While the Philippines is gaining maturity as an open software / free software user, it has yet to see companies that do open software / free software development. In fact, this is the greater challenge that the movement poses to our IT industry. In a struggling economy that has challenged even those with solid business models, the economic benefit in open-source development is very much in question.

Much of the hesitation to venture into open-source development is not really the lack of a clear business model, but rather the overpowering popularity of the for-license software business model. It is ironic, though, that although such is the prevailing mentality, only a handful of our local IT software developers actually rely purely on their software development license sales. Much of local software development are, in fact, largely for in-house code, which have little reuse value outside the organization it was developed for.

This fact is highlighted by Eric Raymond, in his landmark open source essay, The Magic Cauldron, which expounds the economic value of open-source development. In that essay, he begins by explaining the delusion of most in treating software as a manufactured good. The software industry, according to Raymond, is largely a service industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry. Such a perception has resulted in encouraging price structures that are largely out of line with the actual breakdown of development costs.

For companies that have commissioned software development houses for special applications to be used in their business, the only rational reasons to keep source closed are if they want to sell the package, or to keep them from competitors. With the fact that 95% of the software development costs are actually for proprietary use by those companies, the former reason tends to become useless. As for the risk of competitors benefiting as free riders on development initiatives that have been spent for by the sponsoring companies, it is rather a question of weighing costs over benefit. Opening source can, in the end, be a way to cut down costs as it takes advantage of free help from a community. It will also benefit in the long run by not having to rely on the service provider they have commissioned for future enhancements. Development costs, too, should be treated as sunk costs. Whether a project application's source-code will be kept open or closed shouldn't be relevant. This reason, however, will only hold if

OPEN-SOURCE BUSINESS MODELS

Raymond puts forward various economic models for open-source development. The first is Loss-Leader / Market Positioner. In this model, open-source software is used to maintain the position of proprietary software. He gives the example of Netscape, who, faced with creeping competition from Microsoft's Internet Explorer, decided to open the source of its Mozilla browser early in 1998 to keep the competition from dominating the field completely. Doing so has extended the lifespan of the Netscape browser indefinitely, despite the aggressive marketing and bundling practices of Microsoft. Others have provided open-source software that promote the use of for-pay services like subscription-driven websites.

The second model is Widget Frosting. Hardware vendors often treat device driver development as additional or extra cost. By opening the source of their drivers, they have lowered costs of development of these necessary products, and at the same time allowed users to tweak and patch the software as needed.

The third model is what Raymond calls Give Away the Recipe, Open A Restaurant. This model will probably work in the Philippine economy, more than the other business models described in the essay. The idea is to create a market position not for closed software, but for services. Red Hat Linux, for instance, uses this business model. They do not charge for the sale of the software. Rather, they charge for packaging, documentation publishing, assembly, implementation and consulting services. This business model would be very effective in a service-oriented IT industry, such as what we have in the Philippines.

Another business model for open-source development is Accessorizing, including free software in a for-sale product such as books, as practiced by O'Reilly & Associates.

In yet another business model, companies can initially release both the binary and the source of software in a closed license, allowing users a view of the source code, but prohibiting commercial use without a fee, eventually opening the license in the future a year after release or if the company folds. Doing so will provide the software unlimited life, making it more attractive to the consumer.

A speculative business model for open-source is retaining a test suite or set of compatibility criteria for implementation of their created open-source software. Doing so will be like freeing the software, but selling the brand. Certification adds credibility to the implementation, and it will be something companies would be willing to pay for, or "buy". Such a business model, however, will only be viable once the software has already enjoyed a certain amount of popularity among corporate or business users.

Yet another speculative business model for open-source is freeing the software, but charging for content. This is for subscription-based services wherein users can freely get, use and modify the code to retrieve content, such as stock-tickers, whose subscription they have to pay for.

THE FUTURE OF OPEN SOURCE / FREE SOFTWARE IN THE PHILIPPINES

As of the moment, it would be difficult to see the future of such an industry in the Philippines. There is as much uncertainty in its macro-economics as there is in the participation or position of IT service providers in this movement. While many see hope in open-source software for our IT service industries, others feel that adherence to the large commercial vendors will make the industry friendlier to globalization, and investments by these companies into our country. Much in question also lies in the openness of local IT companies to not only be users of open-source software, but also be contributors to it. They will have to take any of the above-mentioned business models to heart, and hold fast to it, especially in a challenging economy as we have right now. There will also have to be cooperation in the local IT industry, honoring the open licenses and using them properly, keeping it free from foul-play and politics, for the overall benefit of the community.