Re: Tim's paradigm shift

Matt Asay wrote:
> So, while I gushed on and on about open distribution, Larry posed a
> troubling question:  "If that's such a big deal, how is it any better
> than simply giving the product away for free (no cost) over the
> Internet?"  I didn't know, and still don't.

How about because if MySQL wasn't open source, it wouldn't be carried
by any of the Linux(tm) distros and thus wouldn't be seen as a "standard"
Linux(tm) component?

By now, Linux is good simply because it's Linux(tm), and MySQL is seen
as a part of that.

If it was the best, cheapest and only database, it might get away with
no cost distribution as a 3rd party add-on to Linux, but it isn't:
PostgreSQL is a very similar competitive product and would win on
ideological grounds alone if MySQL weren't open source.

Also if it _was_ the best, cheapest and only, but not free as in open
source, then someone would've done a decent open source clone by now
simply because writing an SQL database is interesting and feasible for
a small group, and an open source one is quite useful to a lot of
people who wouldn't use one if it weren't.

> If few actually look at source (and the fact is, very few
> end-customers actually do - Microsoft pegs the number at 1% who
> expect to modify source if they had access, and I've yet to see
> numbers or experience that widely differ from this, especially since
> anyone modifying RHAT or NOVL source (or others) would immediately
> violate their support contracts and be left stranded.  Few Fortune
> 1000 companies are going to take that risk), then one is left
> wondering what, other than low cost (as in acquisition cost), is
> driving open source adoption by corporate customers.

For one thing, looking at the source is valuable even if you don't
intend to modify it.  I don't know what percent of individual users
look at the source but I'd guess even that is less than 1% for MySQL.

Although few users look at the source, the fact that they know other
users _can_ look at the source is valuable to those who don't.  When
rare difficult problems are encountered, looking at the source becomes
much more valuable, even if it's the consultant you hire to solve the
problem who'se learned the answer from talking with someone else who
once looked at a tiny bit of the source to learn how a mis-documented
option really works.

It's valueable as a marketing tool (we're Open Source(tm)!), reduced
danger of lock-in (we're not like other vendors!), for that <1% of
eyeballs who look at just enough of the code to solve their own
problems and become consultants for others (oh, _that's_ how that
mis-documented option really works), and for the added support of the
mutual-back-scratching-at-the-pub engineering community among who are
_some_ people who will advocate products which they see as
ideologically/pragmatically better or more friendly -- not least
because they've used them for little personal web sites (for which
Open Source(tm) is a must now -- ideology and convenience causing
things to come together behind the scenes), gained familiarity, and
believe that these things work for larger sites too.

-- Jamie