commit: 24f7d844461c733909ed25c427a019c7a104b00c
parent 8b39406b57cb33c1e099cacf2133874b18d4993e
Author: Drew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2024 10:56:56 +0200
So you want to compete with FOSS
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+---
+title: So you want to compete with or replace open source
+date: 2024-07-16
+---
+
+We are living through an interesting moment in source-available software.[^sa]
+The open source movement has always had, and continues to have, a solid
+grounding in grassroots programmers building tools for themselves and forming
+communities around them. Some looming giants brought on large sums of money --
+Linux, Mozilla, Apache, and so on -- and other giants made do without, like GNU,
+but for the most part if anyone thought about open source 15 years ago they were
+mostly thinking about grassroots communities who built software together for
+fun. With the rise of GitHub and in particular the explosion of web development
+as an open platform, commercial stakeholders in software caught on to the
+compelling economics of open source. The open source boom that followed caused
+open source software to have an enormous impact on everyone working in the
+software industry, and, in one way or another, on everyone living on planet
+Earth.
+
+[^sa]: Source-available is a general purpose term which describes any software
+ for which the source code is available to view in some respect. It applies
+ to all free and open source software, as well as to some kinds of software
+ which don't meet either definition.
+
+Over the past decade or so, a lot of businesses, particularly startups, saw
+these economics unfolding in front of them and wanted to get in on this boom. A
+lot of talented developers started working on open source software with an
+explicit aim towards capitalizing on it, founding businesses and securing
+capital investments to build their product -- an open source product. A few
+years following the onset of these startups, the catch started to become
+apparent. While open source was proven to be incredibly profitable and
+profoundly useful for the software industry *as a whole*, the economics of
+making open source work for *one business* are much different.
+
+It comes down to the fact that the free and open source software movements are
+built on collaboration, and all of our success is attributable to this
+foundation. The economics that drew commercial interest into the movement work
+specifically because of this collaboration -- because the FOSS model allows
+businesses to share R&D costs and bring together talent across corporate borders
+into a great melting pot of innovation. And, yes, there is no small amount of
+exploitation going on as well; businesses are pleased to take advantage of the
+work of Jane Doe in Ohio's FOSS project to make themselves money without sharing
+any of it back. Nevertheless, the revolutionary economics of FOSS are *based on*
+collaboration, and are *incompatible with* competition.
+
+The simple truth of open source is that if you design your business model with
+an eye towards competition, in which you are the only entity who can exclusively
+monetize the software product, you must eschew the collaborative aspects of open
+source -- and thus its greatest strength. Collaboration in open source works
+because the collaborators, all representatives of different institutions, are
+incentivized to work together for mutual profit. No one is incentivized to work
+for you, for free, for your own exclusive profit.
+
+More than a few of these open source startups were understandably put out when
+this reality started to set in. It turns out the market capitalization of a
+business that has an open source product was often smaller than the investments
+they had brought in. Under these conditions it's difficult to give the investors
+the one and only thing they demand -- a return on investment. The unbounded
+growth demanded by the tech boom is even less likely to be attainable in open
+source. There are, to be entirely clear, many business models which are
+compatible with open source. But there are also many which are not. There are
+many open source projects which can support a thriving business or even a
+thriving sub-industry, but there are some ideas which, when placed in an open
+source framing, simply cannot be capitalized on as effectively, or often at all.
+
+Open source ate a lot of lunches. There are some kinds of software which you
+just can't make in a classic silicon valley startup fashion anymore. Say you
+want to write a database server -- a sector which has suffered a number of
+rug-pulls from startups previously committed to open source. If you make it
+closed source, you can't easily sell it like you could 10 or 20 years ago, ala
+MSSQL. This probably won't work. If you make it open source, no one will pay you
+for it and you'll end up moaning about how the major cloud providers are
+"stealing" your work. The best way to fund the development of something like
+that is with a coalition of commercial stakeholders co-sponsoring or
+co-maintaining the project in their respective self-interests, which is how
+projects like [PostgreSQL][0], [Mesa][1], or the Linux kernel attract
+substantial paid development resources. But it doesn't really work as a startup
+anymore.
+
+[0]: https://www.postgresql.org/about/contributing/
+[1]: https://mesa.freedesktop.org/developers/
+
+Faced with these facts, there have been some challenges to the free and open
+source model coming up in the past few years, some of which are getting
+organized and starting to make serious moves. Bruce Perens, one of the founding
+figures of the Open Source Initiative, is working on the "post-open" project;
+"Fair Source" is another up-and-coming-effort, and there have been and will be
+others besides.
+
+What these efforts generally have in common is a desire to change the commercial
+dynamic of source-available software. In other words, the movers and shakers in
+these movements want to get paid more, or more charitably, want to start a
+movement in which programmers that work on source-available software as a
+broader class get paid more. The other trait they have in common is a view that
+the open source definition and the four freedoms of free software do not
+sufficiently provide for this goal.
+
+For my part, I don't think that this will work. I think that the aim of sole or
+limited rights to monetization and the desire to foster a collaborative
+environment are irreconcilable. These movements want to have both, and I simply
+don't think that's possible.
+
+This logic is rooted in a deeper notion of ownership over the software, which is
+both subtle and very important. This is a kind of [auteur] theory of software.
+The notion is that the software they build *belongs* to them. They poses a sense
+of ownership over the software, which comes with a set of moral and perhaps
+legal rights to the software, which, importantly, are withheld from any entity
+other than themselves. The "developers" enjoy this special relationship with the
+project -- the "developers" being the special class of person entitled to this
+sense of ownership and the class to whom the up-and-coming source-available
+movements make an appeal, in the sense of "pay the developers" -- and
+third-party entities who work on the source code are merely "contributors",
+though they apply the same skills and labor to the project as the "developers"
+do. The very distinction between "first-party" and "third-party" developers is
+contingent on this "auteur" worldview.
+
+[auteur]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur
+
+This is quite different from how most open source projects have found their
+wins. If Linux can be said to belong to anyone, it belongs to everyone. It is
+for this reason that it is in everyone's interests to collaborate on the
+project. If it belonged to someone or some entity alone, especially if that
+sense of ownership is rooted in justifying that entity's sole right to
+effectively capitalize on the software, the dynamic breaks down and the
+incentive for the "third-party" class to participate is gone. It doesn't work.
+
+That said, clearly the proponents of these new source-available movements feel
+otherwise. And, to be clear, I wish them well. I respect the right for authors
+of software to distribute it under whatever terms they wish.[^authors] And, for
+my part, I do believe that source-available is a clear improvement over
+proprietary software, even though these models fall short of what I perceive as
+the advantages of open source. However, for these movements to have a shot at
+success, they need to deeply understand these dynamics and the philosophical and
+practical underpinnings of the free and open source movements.
+
+[^authors]: Though I do not indulge in the fantasy that "third-party" developers
+ exist and are any less entitled to the rights of authorship as anyone else.
+
+However, it is very important to me that we do not muddy the landscape of open
+source by trying to reform, redefine, or expand our understanding of open source
+to include movements which contradict this philosophy. My well-wishes are
+contingent on any movements which aim to compete with open source stopping short
+of *calling themselves* open source. This is something I appreciate about the
+fair source and post-open movements -- both movements explicitly disavow the
+label of open source. If you want to build something new, be clear that it is
+something new -- this is the ground rule.
+
+So you want to compete with open source, or even replace it with something new.
+Again, I wish you good luck. But this question will be at the heart of your
+challenge: will you be able to assume the mantle of the auteur and capitalize on
+this software while still retaining the advantages that made open source
+successful? Will you be able to appeal to the public in the same way open source
+does while holding onto these commercial advantages for yourself? Finding a way
+to answer this question with a "yes" is the task laid before you. It will be
+difficult; in the end, you will have to give something to the public to get
+something in return. Simply saying that the software itself is a gift equal to
+the labor you ask of the public is probably not going to work, especially when
+this "gift" comes with monetary strings attached.
+
+As for me, I still believe in open source, and even in the commercial potential
+of open source. It requires creativity and a clever business acumen to identify
+and exploit market opportunities within this collaborative framework. To win in
+open source you must embrace this collaboration and embrace the fact that you
+will share the commercial market for the software with other entities. If you're
+up to that challenge, then let's keep beating the open source drum together. If
+not, these new movements may be a home for you -- but know that a lot of hard
+work still lies ahead of you in that path.
