COMMENT Open source is not wholly different to commercial software development. But, says Martin Brampton, it can lead to some unusual and complicated situations you wouldn't see elsewhere.
At times, open source demonstrates both startling contrasts and underlying similarities with commercial software. I've had this brought home to me forcefully in the last couple of months. My involvement with the Mambo open source content management system suddenly changed in a wholly unexpected way.
One intriguing aspect of the contrast is the extent to which purely ethical considerations are debated. The standard open source contracts are brutal in relation to developers. If you work on open source, you can copyright what you create but you can only release it as open source. When you release it, you give up just about every kind of control over it. The sole guarantee is that it will remain open source.
Naturally, defenders of the open source contract say that this is intentional. A critical element in the movement is the idea that nobody takes charge of anything. If someone else can pick up the baton and run further or faster with it, then they must be free to do so. We then find ourselves with two stark contrasts with commercial software.
One is that if software still has potential, it is much less likely to stagnate in the hands of an owner who has ceased to know what to do with it. Moreover, the idea of the fork in a software development, creating two or more rival products, is radically different from the commercial world.
Takeovers (and most mergers are really takeovers) invariably produce fewer and larger units of organisation. The occasional 'de-merger' is usually just the selling off of an unwanted business group to some other large company. In the exceptional case of management buyouts, the intention is usually to run the operation for only a short time before selling out to a large corporation.
These aspects of the commercial software world work in favour of the familiar situation of dominant products that have an effective monopoly. This is widely accepted to be against the broader economic interest. In this sense, the open source model is economically more efficient, since it enables a market to become more diverse rather than less.
The other contrast is the emphasis on ethics. The commercial world shows little sign of paying attention to ethical considerations, which are the antithesis of popular notions such as 'playing hardball' or the 'professional foul'. These seem to imply not only a distaste for ethical considerations but an advocacy of unlawful behaviour provided it leads to overall advantage.
One might be sceptical about the chances of too much emphasis on ethics surviving for long. Yet the character of open source is hard to pin down, with developers motivated by a variety of non-financial considerations. Even when financial considerations do come into it, they are indirect and more complex than in most commercial situations.
In the Mambo case, all these issues have combined to create a muddled and hotly debated situation. While the name and related IP belonged to an Australian company, Miro, an effort to make Mambo into an independent entity controlled by a non-profit foundation ran into difficulties. Before the foundation could reach stability, the company and the open source developers found themselves in irreconcilable conflict.
There is now an offspring of Mambo that is being furthered by the former development team, and claims to be the true successor to Mambo, with a mere name change. There is also a new development team for Mambo, for which, with some trepidation, I have become team leader. Many angry words have been spilled over who has done the ethical thing to whom. I don't know who is right and probably never will.
What I do know is that we now have an interesting situation where two development teams are pursuing quite different philosophies on the furtherance of basically the same product - a situation that could not easily happen in the commercial world. Involvement in it stands to be an interesting and illuminating experience.
Comments
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1. Lawrence Meckan
Michael,
As one of the ex-3PD Standards & Guidelines team shown the door by Mambo management, the dual natured role of Mambo Communities Pty Ltd, run by Miro itself, and the Board you have just joined, I ask what benefit does the current board have in it's makeup and direction for Mambo.
I have suggested to your new PR team leader that if Miro wanted to truly step away from controlling Mambo, it had the means to do so through outsourcing the management of the domains to a truly independent third party. This wasn't done, and it has been Mambo Communities, which Miro Pty Ltd, has ownership of, that has resulted in numerous developers being shut out and censored, of which I remain one.
Whilst your skills and experience within the Mambo open source area has been beneficial with Remository, nobody from the Board, through the new Core, to the PR team or general discussion on the various Mambo related forums can give me a straight answer as to how the actions of the current Board and direction that has been taken are are in any way beneficial to those who frequent the forums.
And the last thing you need is yet another subtle rule change between your agreement with the Foundation and the rules that are at play on the forums where you support Mambo.
2. Philippe AMELINE
Hi Martin,
Basically, this is a story of a group that must part for, probably, many painful reasons.
I can guess that if happened when a non profit organiation was to be established, the suddain need for such an organization is probably already the symptom of a rampant problem.
Since your article has been written in order to make a case for open source, I would like to tell you that my feeling is that this problem may not occur because of the "standard open source contracts" for developers, but rather because of the lack of contract to reward the "invention process".
In the venture capital domain, the inventor knows that succes will involve his dilution as a shareholder, but a major growth of his capital.
In the open source world, I have seen inventors been diluted by a sudden increase of the developpers community, and just gaining an increase in workload. This leads to major disappointment, and, if unable to cope with this, open source would be in danger because inventors would no longer exist.
You say : "What I do know is that we now have an interesting situation where two development teams are pursuing quite different philosophies on the furtherance of basically the same product - a situation that could not easily happen in the commercial world.". But doesn't it look like the way IBM lately tried to regain it's inventor rights when releasing the PS/2 model, and Compaq led the competitors group.
I see the same bad initial conditions: an unprepared success leading to a disappointing not rewarded dilution for the concept originator.
Maybe, in your case, should the non profit organization been created at the very begining, maybe with rules that can permit the inventor to be granted.
May this contract be unfair, then no developpers community would lead to no succes.
Just a guess.
3. anonymous
Martin, given that things have changed and you have announced your resignation from the Mambo Foundation Board, do you still hold the same views about the future of Mambo?
I've read that people are saying the Foundation and the team do not own rights to the sites where the forum, forge etc are hosted.
Isn't this untenable, without the possibility of commercial interference?
4. Martin Brampton
With the help of other committed people, I have created the Mambo Guru set of web sites as in independent resource for support and discussion of Mambo. You can find a good many comments there, both by me and by others. The sites include a forum and a blog - you're very welcome to join in. The anchor site is at http://mamboguru.com.