451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
What is an open source company?
Raven Zachary, June 19, 2006 @ 10:06 pm ETI spent some time last Thursday meeting with the exhibitors at JBoss World in Las Vegas. One of the exhibitors was FiveRuns, an “open source systems management” company.
FiveRuns certainly will monitor open source systems, and they use open source technology to power their business. They even plan to open source some of their technology in the future. However, the company generates revenue by charging for monitoring per server per month.
Is Five Runs an open source company? There is no set standard by which to gauge the “open sourceness” of a company. One could argue that FiveRuns meets the minimum standards, but many would argue the opposite point – that FiveRuns is a proprietary services company that supports open source, but is not an open source company.
I addressed this topic briefly in my talk at the Software Business Transformation Summit last week, coincidentally in Las Vegas that same week as JBoss World. However, I didn’t have an answer to the question – “what is an open source company?”
Until there is an answer (and maybe there won’t be), there will be a lot of companies that will attach open source to their identity and ride the wave in some form or fashion. We’ll just have to discern for ourselves what exactly they mean by being an open source company.
Comments (33) Categories: Conferences,Software
Think you hit this right on the head. I’ve spent the last half year or so looking at this question of what is Open Source. Given the 57 flavors that exist, it’s often difficult for executives to get their arms around it. At the end of the day, I’m approaching this now more from a benefits view instead of a taxonomy view. I don’t think the discussion will ever be finalized, which is why I don’t think a taxonomy view is helpful. Actually, my last post was on this very topic if you want to check out my site. Would enjoy the opportunity to discuss at some point.
Hi Rob. Thanks for the note. I just read your blog post, “Objects in the mirror may appear more Open Sourced than they actually are”, linked from your name here. You raised some great points on this topic. I’d love to have a taxonomy re: levels of open sourceness, but I this may be a futile process. It’s not on my short-term list, and I don’t really have an interest in calling out those that abuse the title.
Hi Raven,
Thanks for stopping by and speaking with us at JBoss World. We appreciate your interest and agree that navigating the open source landscape today can be somewhat confusing. Rob is correct, it’s a benefits discussion versus taxonomy at this point. We’re not simply leveraging the open source moniker, but feel we’ve truly built an innovative product. Open source alone today is simply not enough of a differentiator to ensure your success. Open source for us is a way of allowing the community to advance the development of our offerings in a way that meets their needs best (i.e., new plugins, etc.) Additionally, we contribute both monetarily and resource-wise to other open source projects (Rico, Ruby on Rails, Gruff) not directly associated with FiveRuns.
Thanks again for your interest.
Steven Smith
CEO, FiveRuns
Hi Steven. Thanks for your interest, as well. It was clear to me from my briefing with your team at JBoss World that your company supports open source, and uses it to power your business. I think that your use of open source in the tagline for your company is what got me thinking about the degrees of open source and how companies associate themselves with it. You have some valid reasons for considering your company “open source” – although if you take a look at the OSI Open Source Definition, I don’t think FiveRuns would qualify, nor would a number of other companies. Take care.
Interesting thread, Raven. As you know, we’re another one that walks this line. OpenMFG goes to great pains to say that our ERP solution is “powered by open source software,” notably PostgreSQL and Qt. We’ve open-sourced our report writer, OpenRPT, which also ships as part of the ERP product. And we’ve got a hybrid development/distribution model, in which customers and partners get full source code, and we bring enhancements back into the main supported product.
But it ain’t OSI-certified Open Source. Which we try to make clear.
Cheers,
Ned
Ned – I was just thinking about you today when I was responding to the comments on this post. In your case, the fact that “open” is in your company name makes this issue top of mind. Thanks for the link to “The OpenMFG Story: A New Kind of License” – great read.
From an analytical point of view, I think labelling a company an “open source company” or not is an exercise in futility which can only spread more confusion than light.
From using some open source components in an otherwise closed offering, to publishing the totality of the offering under the GPL, what we have is an array of business and development models, all of which depend to a varying extent on open source technologies or methodologies. It is, in other words a multidimensional set of sliding scales.
To attempt to divide into ‘open source’ and ‘not open source’ companies, is in my opinion daft and we should try to dissuade people from even asking the question. It’s about as useful as asking someone to listen to a series of symphonies and divide their pitch into ‘high’ or ‘low’.
That’s not to say that I’m anti-taxonomy, I’m all for them – taxonomies are great at clarifying issues and thinking. But “clarifying” should not equate to “oversimplifying”.
Chris – are you equating my profession to symphonies?
What a lovely thought! It was my initial plan – that is, to compose classical music. Technology was a big distraction. It still is!
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Hi Rob. Thanks for the note. I just read your blog post, “Objects in the mirror may appear more Open Sourced than they actually are”, linked from your name here. You raised some great points on this topic. I’d love to have a taxonomy re: levels of open sourceness, but I this may be a futile process. It’s not on my short-term list, and I don’t really have an interest in calling out those that abuse the title.
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