Openness: July 2004 Archives

Upon reading Hidden costs of open source one starts wondering as to what are the 'hidden costs' the article insinuates? The author suggests that the cost associated with learning how to use (install, maintain, and run) a particular software is a hidden cost.

"There we are. Cost again. If it's so easy to use and it is reliable (one assumes it's reliable since apparently Nasa is using it to run mission critical applications, although that would put me off becoming an astronaut), why am I asked to shell out $1,500 for entry-level support? And support costs can go as high as $62,400 - hardly a cheap option."

But this is nothing new with either commercial packages or open source software. Using any software that is complicated requires learning and maintaining, independently if it is closed or open source. The expense of learning and maintenance hardly classifies as 'hidden cost'. And guess what, you don't have to by the support from the actual developers of the open source. You can learn it on your own and do it yourself, or hire other competitive training and support consultants. Sometimes you wonder why this article is even published as a serious discussion point. Hmm…

From Unix's founding fathers:

"It is that interplay between the technical and the social that gives both C and Unix their legendary status. Programmers love them because they are powerful, and they are powerful because programmers love them. David Gelernter, a computer scientist at Yale, perhaps put it best when he said, “Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defence against complexity.” Dr Ritchie's creations are indeed beautiful examples of that most modern of art forms."

My emphasis in bold; couldn't have said it better. After all, we knew that coders and programmers are not "lone scientists". :)

From IST Results - Swift searching for open source:

Excerpt:
Finding the open source code you need can often seem like searching for a needle in a haystack. But with the development of the AMOS search engine finding your way through today’s maze of software code has just become considerably easier.
Aimed at programmers and system integrators but with the potential to be used by a broader public, the AMOS system applies a simple ontology and a dictionary of potential search terms to find software code, packages of code and code artefacts rapidly and efficiently. In turn it assists open source program development through making the building blocks of applications easier to find and re-use.

Personal view: Open source may be next business revolution reviews the new book "The Success of Open Source" by Stevens Weber, a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley.

Have not read this book yet, but it seems like interesting reading from this article. Here are some excerpts:

"His claim, and it's a bold one, is that this isn't just a good way of developing software, it's a new way of organising businesses. Open-source software breaks the links between developing a product and owning a product, which is the way business has traditionally organised itself. That could have startling consequences.
It's rare to find a professor of politics discussing software. "People in academic subjects are very conservative about their disciplines," Weber says. "So people are intrigued, but also a little bit nervous about an approach like this."

"Think back to the invention of the steam engine. By the standards of the time, building a railway was so complicated and so costly that none of the existing organisational forms could handle it. So the joint-stock company and the stock exchange rose to prominence. Something similar may be happening now."

Alan Kay's food for thought as reported in A PC Pioneer Decries the State of Computing, regarding personal computing:

But I was struck most by how much he thinks we haven't yet done. "We're running on fumes technologically today," he says. "The sad truth is that 20 years or so of commercialization have almost completely missed the point of what personal computing is about."

But what about all those great things he invented? Aren't we getting any mileage from all that? Not nearly enough, Kay believes. For him, computers should be tools for creativity and learning, and they are falling short. At Xerox PARC the aim of much of Kay's research was to develop systems to aid in education. But business, instead, has been the primary user of personal computers since their invention. And business, he says, "is basically not interested in creative uses for computers."

Note the emphasis that computers could/should have been used more for creative process and learning. The potential is there, however, the social construction of the computing technologies has been mostly lead by commercial goals. Thus, the interplay of computing technology and social structures has mostly served commercial interest and less so with the potential of creativity, inventions and innovation.

The question arises then how to get to more creative use of technology for learning and novel ways of innovations? Open source computing perhaps, where computing tools geared more towards learning that act as stimuli for creative innovation. But then, anything creative that can make money is imprisoned within the commercial realm and looses it potential for learning and creativity. A way needs to be found such that creativity is left to bloom within its realm free from commercialization. Proprietary software (due to being in closed environment) is responsible for slowing down innovation and creativity. I would say: the way is towards open computing …