Re: Open source WO - offer

On 25/08/2006, at 11:23 AM, Marc Oesch wrote:

> Hello Ashley,
>
>> 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.

Ok, I am going to play devils advocate here. I totally agree with  
you, WO developers could benefit in various ways from it being open  
sourced. However I don't think Apple would gain anything from such a  
move.

> Where is the return on investment with WO for Apple today ?

The return on investment comes from the ITMS, .Mac and the Apple  
Store. Apple invest resources into developing these applications, and  
WebObjects benefits from this investment accordingly.

> I could follow your argument as long as WO was a product with a  
> price tag
> and even when it was part of Xcode (= Mac hardware needed to  
> develop for WO).

How does having a price tag make any difference? Providing and  
supporting a true opensource relationship for any of the developer  
tools would come at an additional cost. Making it "source available"  
is another matter, and much more achievable.

> [The Apple statement is now online regarding the future of the WO  
> toolset]
>
> 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.

Provided you are running windows on Apple hardware, otherwise you  
would be violating the Developer Tools license agreement.

> 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 ?

You could just as easily replace "WebObjects" with "Java" in this  
statement. Neither are open-source (yet).

> The business case for Apple if open-sourced has 5 distinct advantages
> over the status quo (after WWDC 2006) IMO:

I understand what you are trying to say here, but you are still  
presenting this from the perspective of a WO developer rather than  
from the perspective of a business case from Apple.

> ________
> # 1: Better WO Marketability in the Enterprise, Investment Safety for
> Customer (no Apple consumer brand image attached)

I fail to see how REMOVING the Apple association from the product is  
an advantage in Apple's eyes.

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

This one I agree with, but from Apple's perspective they already have  
an established bug submission process for their developer tools in  
place. It makes no commercial sense for them to treat WebObjects any  
differently.

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

I honestly don't think this is a concern they have on their radar.  
They have plenty of developers, and the training expertise to train  
new ones if necessary.

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

This is less to do with WebObjects as an App server and more to do  
with how you choose to use it. Ajax support, for example, is already  
available in Wonder, so this can, and already is being done as open  
source, without apple having to do anything.

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

Since Apple don't sell WO anymore, and have all but killed off their  
iServices division, they don't have a vested interest in what  
software you choose to use, they just want you to run it on their  
hardware.

> _______
>
> The only advantage if *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.
>
> Now isn't it funny ? That's open source development right there with
> the WO tools future  !

Perhaps. Or perhaps the open source tools made deprecating the  
existing tools a viable option?

> Why stop at the tools long-term ?

Because they need it to run their own Web Apps.

-- 
Seeya...Q

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