Re: Open Source Developer (Economics)

Julius:

I, too, am new to the list, but your note expressed some sentiment that I,
too, have been exploring.  I'm a small business owner doing technical
consulting -- primarily building custom business applications using Java and
a variety of open source and proprietary technologies.  We've developed some
software and are currently evaluating whether to to the open source road.
We've been looking at some of the types of systems you mention since our
primary business is large, distributed applications.  My perspecive comes
from consulting to large corporations and the Federal Government.

So to tackle some of your points:

First, OSS projects are the children of their creators.  They usually highly
technical people with technical interests.  Things like operating systems,
development languages grows out of their love of core computer science.
These people also have more technical challenges at hand.  Keeping machines
up, keeping intruders out, developing software more quickly with fewer
defects.  Most are somewhat abstracted from the core business requirements.
They work in server environments, so much of their code is directed at what
they know well.  This is a generalization, so is not true in all cases.

I also believe there is a large untapped market for an open source solution
to the programs you mentioned, but there are, from my perspective, a few
barriers.
    - Business applications require business expertise.  OSS developers work
on their projects usually out of interest in the technical area, the
community involvement, and their chance to add to a project larger than
themselves.  These folks don't know what an Oracle financials application
does enough to build it.  Are there business people, say an accountant, who
does accounting for no fee on weekends because it's fun?  I don't know any.
So there may have to be compensation for this expertise.
    - Large companies and government organizations are very risk averse.
They believe, rightly or wrongly, that if they pick a big name and the
project goes south, they won't be blamed.  Many organizations get their
technical information from mainstream technical press which still focuses on
proprietary solution vendors that pay their advertising and even write their
articles.  These large organizations are the only ones that buy those
applications.

So from my perspective there are both customer and developer-side barriers
to such systems being built and accepted.

We are currently looking into developing such systems, but, particularly for
the financial applications, don't have the resident financial expertise.

I, too, would like to hear what others have to think on the subject.

Regards,
Scott Behnke
Principal
Elemental Solutions
http://www.elemental-solutions.net


--snip--
>
> The discussion I wish to initiate is based on various published reports
that
> indicate the lack of OSS with respect to "business critical" or "Mission
> Critical" software that can effectively compete with SAP, ORACLE finance,
> ORACLE HR, SIEBEL,  to name a few examples.
> Why is it that OSS seems to focus mainly on server environments, web
> applications and firewalls? It appears from many reports that there is a
> potential demand in the business world for OSS to participate in these
> market segments with the intent to reduce the TCO of the companies.
> Could possible reasons be related to; Licensing, OSS Legacy environment,
> lack of appropriate skills, or an industry "norm" to avoid these market
> segments?
> If there is an opportunity for OSS to enter this market segment are there
> any specific aspects that we need to take into consideration that could
> either prevent, hamper, frustrate a possible entry
> Are we aware of any such initiatives (real quality) that are currently
> active that require assistance albeit financial, marketing, strategy or
> other
> With Kind Regards
>
> Julius Steyn