Alexander Schunk's Blog

OpenSource Software: You get what you not pay for?

OpenSource: A definition

To begin with my thesis i would like to provide a definition of opensoucre software since some people might have a different concept of it. Under OpenSource software i understand any software that is either released under the GPL and / or GPL equivalent license.

According to this definition most projects at this page and most of the Apache projects are opensource software.

I am not aware about how many Java opensoucre projects exist - i do develop one of my own at linalg.dev.java.net - but i think its not a small number compared to non opensoucre projects.

Thesis: OpenSource software is low-quality

A common opinion of many people is or seems to be that opensource software - as understood above - is bad or not you get what you pay for. I dont know how many of these people develop web applications but in the Java web domain there are many good or even great opensource libraries available that are easy to use and provide good productivity.

Also - if you visit some of the websites of apache projects - you will discover that opensource developers do care about information on releases, milestones, updates, bugs etc. Sometims it seems that people stating the opposite did never use a good opensource software. Sure there ís opensource software that does not provide these information but you can say the same for many high price software products.

I think most people stating this thesis have used some sort of GNU software - i dont say GNU software is bad - but using GNU software can really be a silly adventure. Yet i do believe that most opensource developers do have an idea of professional software development and since there is a growing competition among opensource software open source software developers too have to distinguish themselves from other products. So you wont "sell" your opensource software until you care about your customers needs and provide a little bit of basic information etc. that make possible users convince your product will help them in their daily work.

Anti-thesis: High price software is good

Now lets get back to the antithesis which runs: "High-Price software is good". Ok. How many people use Microsoft software and how many people would sign the thesis that all Microsoft software is worth the price paying for it? On the other hand. Compare the price of a Mac and what you get for it - oh ok, dont get me on the current Mac / Java story - but basically consider all the features and software you get for the price of a Mac - compared to MS Windows and their tools. Excellent.

And how many people would say that Microsoft user support is great! So, personally, i think that today it does not matter if a product is opensource software or not. The quality of a software does not necesseraliy depend on its license but it does mor and more depend on the people who develop it and on how they treat their users / customers needs.

Comments

• I don't think any of the apache projects is under a GPL-equivalent license.

  They are pretty much all under some variant of the Apache license, the 2.0 version of which can be incorporated into GPL'd code (promoting the code to be under the GPL), but the Apache licenses allow the code to be incorporated into closed-source/proprietary projects.

  This makes them distinct from the GPL and similar licenses, where the code cannot be incorporated into proprietary code, due to the copyleft provisions.

  Posted by: fugu13 on November 12, 2007 at 10:47 AM

• 
  Most open source software is bad and of low quality. There's are just GBs of open source software from all sorts, most of it is bad, in pre-alpha, abandoned, etc.

  
  The large OSS communities software is of much higher quality. Apache stands out because of its internal governance. You might find something horrid in incubation or as a side project, but the toplevel projects are all of good quality.

  SourceForge is full of garbage, simply because it will take anything. This is more a caveat emptor thing regarding SourceForge. They provide a valuable service, but offer no pedigree. You can assume some reasonable level of quality just with the Apache branding (though far from perfect), but can assuming nothing for SourceForge.
  So, to be blunt, most OSS code is junk. But, most OSS code has no visibility or traffic. Most "popular" OSS is good. That's why it is popular.
  

  Posted by: whartung on November 12, 2007 at 11:18 AM

• As far as i know the apache license is compatible to GPL - though compatible may not be the same as equivalent. At least this is what i know from the opensource license homepage.
  But anyway there are some great Apache projects like Axis for webservices that are widely used in development.

  Posted by: alexanderschunk on November 12, 2007 at 12:28 PM

• Ah. Dont forget OpenOffice. I think one of the best opensource software products available. And of course the mirriad of KDE / gnome tools in the Linux. Ah and dont forget Linux itself.
  One interesting OpenSource Java software is JPC - a softwar emulated PC in pure Java. And of course, dont forget OpenJDK :).

  Posted by: alexanderschunk on November 12, 2007 at 12:46 PM

• there are questions without global answers, and OSS is one of that questions.In Switzerland, OSS is a matter of philosophy, point of view or whatever. People decide to use or not due to moral and strategic reasons. To pay or not to pay software is a mind decision, a free decision.The same OSS provide a complete different opinions in Africa, Latin America and other very poor regions in the world, where people depend on OSS to have a chance to even use computers :) The core idea of the OSS is to provide access to software for the most number of users as possible - and it is goes far beyond the discussion about if it is good or not, it goes in the direction where you simply don't have any chance to pay, so the only choice is to get free... legal, illegal or any other way you can .. :)

  Posted by: felipegaucho on November 13, 2007 at 12:25 AM

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