No Place for Political Mandates in Enterprise Software Market

Apparently Scott McNealy of Sun (JAVA), not sensing the Obama administration’s urgency on the matter, is late with his white paper on open source software in government. Or perhaps other information technology (IT) executives who were not asked to submit a white paper felt they needed to play catch-up. Either way, in these troubled economic times with people losing jobs and homes, it is disturbing to see some software-company executives try to manipulate both the U.S. government and the open source culture with an “Open Letter to Obama” that is really just incomplete and unsubstantiated advertising.

I don’t believe enterprise or open source software has a nationality. But it is a fact that IT users worldwide and particularly in the U.S. are for open choice in software, not open source, in the good old fashioned red-white-blue sense of the words. And the developers of all types of software we use in the U.S. are as diverse ethnically and in terms of national heritage as the USA is.

To a very small extent, some American and worldwide IT users will only deploy open-source-licensed software just the way some people will only drink French wine or wear Italian shoes. That’s their right. But overwhelmingly, IT in U.S. enterprises chooses whatever technology it takes to get the job done most cost effectively. Private-sector IT in the U.S. has not needed government mandates like the ones suggested by these software-company executives. The U.S. government does not need mandates either. Such mandates would be a prescription for more economic problems.

IT chose Linux over proprietary versions of UNIX developed by IBM, Sun and others because Linux did a better job (and IBM—but not Sun—quickly figured out this was a good way to hold down R&D expenses). IT chose the Apache HTTP web server over the Netscape server at the beginning of the Internet revolution because Apache did a better job (and IBM, Oracle (ORCL) and others gave it away with their middleware). Similarly, IT chose IBM transaction processing software from the UK, SAP R/3 software from Germany, Business Objects business intelligence software from France, Microsoft (MSFT) Office software from Washington state, Oracle database software from California—all leaders in their categories and all developed by companies based all over the world—because the products get the job done, not because of their license restrictions or software-engineering organizational structure or manipulation of the political system.

All of these products have good user interfaces, well implemented data structures and are platform-independent (depending on what the authors of the open letter to Obama mean by that paragraph). How they were licensed has made no difference to how they help businesses be more cost effective and be better suppliers to consumers and other businesses.

IT has embraced open source-developed software for its functionality, not its politics. There is no place for political posturing in the software market. It would be catastrophic to see the U.S. fall into European style IT development where governments dictate what developers work on, and preordain who will buy the product, by mandating that the government will only buy certain types of products, however that “typing” is done.

Obama has taken "Buy America" out of the stimulus package. Let's hope he doesn't put "Buy advertising slogans" into it.

Comments

[Seeking Tru...:]

Is there a specific deadline on this open source paper that McNeely is supposed to write? Why do you claim it's late? Please source.

Feb 11 10:08 AM

[Seeking Tru...:]

Ah, just checked some of the posts on your other op-eds. Apparently you are not inclined to respond to readers' requests for you to supply facts and evidence to support your opinions.

Feb 11 10:50 AM

[TO CAPTAIN ...:]

Again Dennis takes the paid basher view of open source . Can you argue against free Mr Byron? If you had your way we would forever be hostage to Microsoft and Oracle for software . We would also not be able to write software applications to suit our purposes in a more efficient and less costly basis . As I see your Op eds are all negative when it comes to anything having to do with Sun MIcrosystems . In this article you attack Mr. Mcnealy by telling us that he is somehow being a traitor because his letter to President Obama is late . I am just glad nobody has asked you for advice on open source . Please ask the vendors of proprietary software about open choice and see if they are not lobbying the government on their own behave . The Obama campaign used MYsql , a free open source database software , to manage their web needs . Maybe that is why they have asked Mr. Mcnealy his views on open source . Would you prefer the goverment ask Bill Gates or Larry Ellison to write a paper on open source ? Would they not tout their proprietary software or would that be wrong since people are losing their jobs and homes . Please refrain from your biased rants against open source and its developers unless you divulge all of your stock holdings and finances from corporations . Neither advertising nor lobbying for your company are illegal, immoral or even treason as you imply . DISCLOSE YOUR SPONSORS !

Feb 11 12:30 PM

[RLLH:]

In previous articles (by you) I did tend to think you were very much anti open-source software. However I think this article was quite reasonable and balanced. I don't see how one can be for open source software, and yet be for government mandates on what you may use.

Feb 11 03:09 PM