BSA Study Demonstrates Open Source's Economic Advantage

I love the spring. Not, of course, because of the glorious weather, since we don't have any. But because it's time for the annual BSA report on piracy, which is guaranteed to provide me with hours of innocent fun as I go through finding its methodological errors and dodgy data.

On Open Enterprise blog.

BSA Piracy Study: Mere Shadow Boxing?

So, once again, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has come out with its annual report on software piracy around the world, entitled "Shadow Market" [.pdf]. And, once again, it makes all the same methodological mistakes - it's almost as if the BSA hasn't been reading my critiques of last year and the year before....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Microsoft's Tired TCO Toffee

Those with good memories may recall a phase that Microsoft went through in which it issued (and generally commissioned) a stack of TCO studies that “proved” Windows was better/cheaper than GNU/Linux. Of course, they did nothing of the sort, since the methodology was generally so flawed you could have proved anything.

I'd thought that even Microsoft had recognised that this was a very weak form of attack, so I was surprised to come across this....

On Open Enterprise blog.

When the Microsoft Train hits the Brooksian Wall

For a long time enthusiasts of the open source development methodology have predicted that the traditional method will sink in the sand sooner or later. And since, as far as we can tell, Microsoft still employs such methods, the expectation is that one day its operating system upgrade would be a downgrade.

It's hard to tell from all the noise in the comments, but preliminary results seem to suggest Vista is that downgrade:

Extensive testing by the exo.performance.network (www.xpnet.com) research staff shows that SP1 provides no measurable relief to users saddled with sub-par performance under Vista.

And here's some corroboration that people are beginning to realise that the Microsoft train has hit the Brooksian wall:

Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half said they have no plans to deploy Vista.

Why Open Source Works - Honestly

People often wonder why the open source development process works - why hackers selflessly code for the greater good. There are obviously lots of reasons, but one is captured by this BBC piece:

We all know about honesty boxes. In staff rooms and clubhouses across the country there are boxes for hot drinks or food that rely on members of a community making their fair contribution towards the cost of something.

The principle has been applied in the real world. In the US there are newspaper vending machines that rely on the consumer putting his coin in and not taking more than one paper.

And in Britain, at WH Smith branches in train stations, the customer is asked to make their payment for a newspaper into a container.

According to the company, the "vast majority" pay the correct amount, and one of its shop assistants even reported the boxes make money as people who don't have the correct change over pay. However, they could quite easily pay less or even walk off with the paper for nothing having feigned the act of paying up.

The (Open) Source of Red Hat's Success

Continuing his great series of interviews with key people in the world of business open source, Matt Asay (does this man never sleep?) talks to Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat. I wrote a lot about Red Hat in the early days, but I've not followed it so closely recently (bad boy), so it was fascinating to get an update on what is arguably the most successful and most important open source company. In particular, I found this revealing:

In sum, our belief is that the best management is the peer process, just as in open source. If you measure up to your peers at Red Hat, you thrive. If you don't, you either change or self-select out. When you find people that can do things in an "honest way," without a mercenary view of their assignment, you win. A lot of people don't like this approach, and they leave.

In other words, the best way to run an open source company is to use the open source methodology. Imagine that.