Re: Open source WO - offer

Hi Marc (et al.),

On 25/08/2006, at 9:23 AM, Marc Oesch wrote:

>> Open sourcing WO is not a good thing for Apple and won't happen - it
>> will cost them more than the return on that investment
>> and is not in- line with their general business strategy.
>
> I don't follow you here: The base case with a closed WO 5.3
> also costs Apple money every day.  WO is free today, no revenue for  
> Apple.
>
> Where is the return on investment with WO for Apple today ?

It is a part of their "development platform."  It helps sell Macs.   
But if you saw another thread recently ("Apple, Microsoft, Java and  
the Web") I don't think Apple wants a Web development platform now as  
a part of MacOSX (of course, they still want WO for iTMS and Apple  
Store etc).

Open sourcing WebObjects and keeping the quality high, and  
maintaining the right direction, and contributing developers, and  
maintaining it as the Mac Web development platform (as others have  
indicated) would cost a lot more than what they are now doing (post  
WWDC06).

> Soon the tools are deprecated, so a (new) WO developer will most
> likely use WOLips/Eclipse...he can do that on Windows if he wants to.

Most likely?  I think they would be silly not too.

> So the "hybrid" situation will soon be: We have *opensource* tools
> provided by the WO community for a closed, but free runtime product.
>
> How does that fit ?

Yes, seems like a strange situation.  Then again we have "open  
source" applications provided by the Mac community for a closed (and  
not free) operating system (MacOSX).  I guess the difference is that  
it is obvious Apple is highly committed to and actively pushing  
MacOSX forward ;-)

> The business case for Apple if open-sourced has 5 distinct advantages
> over the status quo (after WWDC 2006) IMO:
>
> # 1: Better WO Marketability in the Enterprise, Investment Safety for
> Customer (no Apple consumer brand image attached)

How does that help Apple?   They can develop with an open source WO  
on another platform without paying Apple anything.

> # 2: Community bug fixes in WO, which in return helps Apple.

I think Apple probably fixes all the bugs they need fixed for iTMS  
and Apple Store. I'd guess their developers are pretty good too ;-)

> # 3: Thriving WO Community instead of Shrinking Community. Provides
> better Resources and Human Capital for Apple in the future (Hiring for
> iTMS etc.)

I think they probably have enough developers now.  In fact, they have  
more than they need (since it would seem they've reallocated most of  
them to other projects).

> # 4: Faster adaptability and release turnout in response to trends
> (eg. recent ones such as AJAX)

Again, I think they probably can do as much of this as they want now  
with their own developers.  Any open source (e.g. WONDER) efforts are  
a bonus.

> #5: Growing competition from opensource alternatives (app server from
> Sun, IBM, JBoss and languages such as Ruby on Rails etc.) narrowing
> WOs lead

How does that help Apple? I don't think Apple is in this competition  
(and hasn't been for a long time).  They were way out a head, made  
some bad decisions, and then gave up.

All just my opinion, of course.

> The only advantage of *not* open-sourcing WO after WWDC 2006 is # 4
> mentioned above. Since Apple no longer provides tools, they can focus
> and allocate more resources to the runtime and just support the
> community tools.

Or they can continue doing the small improvements they have been  
doing (as needed by iTMS and the Apple Store) and save a lot of money  
not developing tools etc.

I wonder what Apple would do if WOLips and Project WONDER closed down?

Of course, the open source tools would keep on working for a while  
but not forever (with new releases of Java, Eclipse etc).

The beauty of open source is that Apple could then apply their own  
resources to continuing the projects (since they already have  
developers involved, at least with WONDER).

The same is not true for the open source tool developers if  
WebObjects was deprecated.

If WebObjects is not going to be open sourced (which I believe it  
isn't) then I believe the most sensible approach is to develop an  
open source compatible product.

But I also have concerns about that (as expressed in the previous  
email).

Cheers,
Ashley.