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Google vs Oracle ≠ open vs closed, or good vs evil
Matthew Aslett, August 16, 2010 @ 10:06 am ETIf there was one thing that could be guaranteed about Google’s response to Oracle’s patent lawsuit, it was that the company would paint the claims as an attack on the open source community.
Ever since SCO launched its ham-fisted legal claims about Linux the response of any OSS-related vendor targeted by legal claims has been to encourage open source developers, users and advocates to leap to its defence.
Google duly obliged with the statement: “We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit. The open-source Java community goes beyond any one corporation and works every day to make the web a better place.”
In truth though it needn’t have bothered – the troops were already deployed and the legal claims being positioned as an attack on the whole open source community.
The idea that Oracle is out to get open source is understandable given that it is difficult to understand what it hopes to gain by its actions and also since it has also signalled its disinterest in OpenSolaris (to offend one community may be considered misfortunate, to offend two appears deliberate).
Putting aside for a moment the question of what Oracle hopes to gain from its patent claims against Google (even Stephen O’Grady in his excellent analysis stops short of attempting to answer that question) the issue I want to address is whether Oracle should now be seen as anti-open source.
I believe this theory is flawed. Firstly, because it assumes the open source community is a single, sentient being. As Matt Asay notes: “There is no Santa Claus. No Easter Bunny. And no such thing as an open-source community separate and distinct from the profit-driven free market that drives software development, generally.”
Secondly, because it assumes an emotional relationship between Oracle and open source that is equally non-existent.
As Simon Phipps has explained, corporations are reptiles that react instinctively to survive and thrive. Google’s call-to-arms of the Java open source community can be seen in the same light, especially since Google’s prior relationship with the Java community in relation to Android has been somewhat tenuous (rather than repeat what has been written elsewhere I recommend reading Carlo Daffara for the details).
Carlo also notes that Oracle has always been an opportunistic user of open source, a statement that is no more negative than saying the company acts like a reptile. All software vendors are opportunistic in their engagement with open source – choosing the projects and contributions, and the strategies for engagement, that will give them the most benefit.
As Glyn Moody notes, “there seems little doubt that Google was being quite opportunist in the way that it implemented Android, guessing that Sun wouldn’t complain about Google’s cheeky approach of writing its own “clean room” “Dalvik” virtual machine… rather than paying to use the official one.”
And let’s not forget that Google’s approach to using open source resulted, at least in part, to the creation of a whole new license, one that the company has actively discouraged.
The statement by Oracle’s chief corporate architect Edward Screven, that “Oracle doesn’t really have an open source-specific strategy” must be understood in the context of this opportunism. The company’s engagement with open source is tactical, and changes on a case-by-case basis. It is wrong, therefore, to expect continuity in Oracle’s approach to different open source projects.
Of course, some contributions are more beneficial to a project’s wider community than others and some companies will go out of their way to benefit all participants (although again it must be noted that the company stands to benefit from doing so). And so it is that Oracle’s opportunistic approach to open source stands in direct contrast to Sun’s strategic attempts to re-engage the developer community through open source.
Certainly the legal claim against Google, followed swiftly by the abandonment of OpenSolaris, does not look good. But my sense, as Andy Updegrove suggests, is that Oracle is simply “making sure that it maximizes the return for it’s stockholders on every asset on a case by case basis”.
I’m not trying to excuse Oracle’s actions with regards to either Java or OpenSolaris, but I think each must be considered separately. [update - to clarify] Any Oracle related open source project should be approached with caution but… while we should all be mindful of equally cautious about being encouraged to see the patent claims as a matter of good versus evil or open versus closed.
This is a legal matter between two corporations both of which are opportunistic in their approaches to open source engagement (unless it suits them to be otherwise).
In other words, as Matt Asay explains: “This isn’t about open source for Oracle, really. Nor is it about open source for Google, however much it may want to publicly posture as such.”
Comments (9) Categories: Business strategies,Software
Matt,
you’re right and the assumption that you cannot trust a (big?) company which commits itself to FLOSS also applies to Google and esp. IBM (even when they announced their $1B investment in Linux in 2001).
This truth is kind of depressing to face and I’m asking myself: Isn’t it possible for a giant like IBM or Google to commit itself to the philosophy of FLOSS and everything that comes with it (developer community, ecosystem of companies doing support/consulting/development, etc.)? Does “maximizing return” imply that you can’t fully support FLOSS?
Max
As Matt Asay notes: “There is no Santa Claus. No Easter Bunny. And no such thing as an open-source community separate and distinct from the profit-driven free market that drives software development, generally.”
This reminds me very much of some commentary I heard on the Finnish version of “Have I Got News For You”. Supposedly some British scientists had came out and said that they are sceptical of whether that famous G-spot actually exists at all. But next week this was debunked by French scientists, saying that just because the Brits couldn’t find the G-spot in their research doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist!
The moral of the story: Just because Matt Asay cannot distinguish an actual open source community that transcends the commercial interests of any specific company, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. This is a man that sure blogs a lot, but let’s face it. He is a hard core Apple user who more than once has called Red Hat a proprietary software company. (This last time he was man enough to openly admit his mistake, and there is no reason to beat that dead horse anymore, I’m just saying maybe Asay needs to get more into the open source community before we give him the authority to define what it is and what it isn’t.)
(And my point is, the open source community, which does exists, does have an opinion about attacking open source software with software patents.)
When did the open source community meet and agree this opinion?
The Open Source community is permanently meeting all over the Internet. This includes the comment section of this blog!
Thanks for another great read Matthew. There is so much to agree with in what you’ve written. And yet…
I think your bias towards a commercial view of open source leads you to dismiss the emerging pattern and assert that each crocodile attack is an isolated incident that should not affect our willingness to swim in the waterhole.
There may not be a single open source community but there is definitely a meta-community that’s experienced the network effects of open, transparent, egalitarian and co-operative behaviour around each free software commons. The open source effect is a network effect that grows exponentially with the number of collaborating participants. The only people who deny such a meta-community exists and is the future of software are the people who stand temporarily to win from pretending “open source” also means a proprietary (or open core) license-only no-co-development worldview where community=customers.
It doesn’t. And the waterhole is not safe while we ignore the crocodile.
I don’t think I explained my perspective properly. I’m not saying anyone should ignore the crocodile – clearly any Oracle related open source project should be approached with caution but they shouldn’t assume they are safe just because they happen to be swimming with Google. Reptiles come in many shapes and sizes.
While I agree that there is such a thing as a meta-community, assuming that it has a single viewpoint is a lazy journalistic cliche. Allowing corporations to assume to speak for such a meta-community undermines the whole concept. For corporations, the “open source community” is a flag of convenience, and should be treated as such.
Patent law itself is bogus. Every patent lawsuit is bogus.
[...] Google vs Oracle ≠ open vs closed, or good vs evil While Matthew's essay is another useful contribution to the discussion that I recommend you read, his bias towards a commercial view of open source leads him to dismiss the emerging pattern and assert that each crocodile attack is an isolated incident that should not affect our willingness to swim in the waterhole. [...]
[...] Aslett attempts to answer the question of whether Oracle should now be seen as anti-open source: I want to address is whether [...]