From: Jack Hughes
Subject: National Competitive Advantage via Open Source
Tim,
If open source is a better way to produce software (and I believe it is) do countries that embrace open source usage as a part of government policy gain a competitive advantage over those that do not? Could the embracing of open source by Peru, for example, bring her the kind of competitive advantage that Japan enjoyed in manufacturing by fostering innovative processes and a cooperative ethos?
Could a repeat of the malaise that blighted manufacturing in the 1970s and 1980s happen again in the U.S. and in the software sector worldwide as a consequence of the continued use of less efficient software development methodologies (ie. closed source approaches)?
Cheers,
Jack Hughes
Hi Jack,
I agree that open source can certainly be a competitive advantage for a nation that adopts it. Open source lowers the cost of computing, and can increase the rate of innovation. Much as commodity computer hardware led to an explosion in the size of the computer industry, and drove value "up the stack" to software, commodity open source is leading to a new explosion of innovation as value is driven up the stack to various kinds of next-generation computer services. (I'll point out that services such as Google, Amazon, PayPal, et al, are all built on top of the commodity open source platform. The services delivered on the open source platform need not be free, any more than the software delivered on the commodity PC needed to be standard and low-cost.)
But I'm wary of governments mandating open source. Perhaps I should make a distinction. I have no problem with government agencies requiring it for their procurements, if their staffs find it best meets their needs. I just hate to see legislation involved. Laws last a long time, and technology moves very quickly. Open source is a means to an end. Governments should mandate outcomes, not means, and they shouldn't be picking winners and losers. What's more, governments should be looking at a longer time horizon.
The long-term outcomes that governments should be concerned about include freedom from lock-in by predatory vendors, access by citizens to their own data, and the like. If proprietary software vendors can meet criteria for interoperability of programs and data, they should be considered. Open source is a method for preserving various user rights and fair competition in the industry. Governments should mandate things like interoperability and data access, not open source per se.
That being said, governments might want to enter into source escrow agreements with any proprietary software vendors whose products they use, just like commercial users do. Escrow protects against a vendor going bankrupt, but it also protects against a vendor abandoning a software product or forcing an upgrade. This kind of protection is common when dealing with smaller vendors. It should also be applied to monopolistic industry giants.
Tim
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It is also interesting to speculate how having a pre-existing proprietary software industry will affect the take up of open source software. What if creating an open source hacker destroys one or more proprietary software engineering jobs? If I live in a country without a pre-existing proprietary software industry the chances are that this isn't going to concern you very much. But if you do have a proprietary software industry you may well take the view that there is little incentive to swap a proprietary software engineer for an open source hacker.
It occurs to me that this isn't a new problem. The US and UK had precisely the same problem with manufacturing post the 2nd World War. Both countries had old plants with entrenched working patterns. In Japan and Germany, on the other hand, both largely started from a clean slate. New plants were built and new working methods developed. Both, whilst now experiencing economic difficulties, are still the leaders in high value engineering.
The country with an utter hegemony in the software industry is the United States, nowhere else even comes close. The US has constraints upon its behaviour as a consequence of its hegemony that few other country have. It will be interesting to see how this affects take up of open source in the US generally, and in government in particular.
Jack Hughes
CTO, OPENXTRA Ltd.
http://www.openxtra.com/