Open source is the new driving force

Barack Obama has chosen it for the White House web site. The London Stock Exchange replaced its previous trading system with it. And Germany has just awarded its most prestigious decoration to Matthias Ettrich for producing it.

So what makes people opt for open-source software?

For many, it’s the price. For others, it’s the freedom that open-source licences offer: the freedom to inspect the code, modify it and distribute it, and the freedom from potential vendor intransigence, incompetence and deliberate lock-in.

Open source’s defining characteristic is not its cost; it is the licence combined with the software development model. To see why this matters, we need to understand why software is often thought to be something it is not.

The realisation comes when an organisation finds it has not bought a software product but rather a software service. What at first seemed to be a shrink-wrapped purchase soon turns into an endless round of training and support, upgrades and bug fixes, new feature requests and integration with other software “products”.

Even as the salesman is leaving with a fresh signature, the IT people hurry after him, asking for more as further needs and new limitations are discovered. Once they’re in his pocket, they have no option but to follow him, asking nicely, paying in proportion to the organisation’s dependence on its software and hoping their powerful business partner will not abandon them.

Economists tell us that if a product can be supplied at zero cost, in a competitive market, its price will fall to zero. Once a software application has been created, subsequent copies can be distributed for nothing. Since software is expensive to develop, it is understandable that software developers want to recoup their investment costs but, in a perfectly competitive market, they will struggle. So, rational software companies seek to lock us into their systems and to lock out competitors. And, far from being deplored, this protectionism has legal support from grateful nations.

Patents were created to encourage innovators to enrich society. Patents work by allowing inventors, for a limited time, to profit from the exclusive rights to produce and distribute their invention. Could software patents with open-source systems be a solution to rewarding development?

Conventional software patents are controversial because they are used by powerful vendors to stifle competition and withhold the benefits of innovation. Perhaps some other method of protecting the rights of the software creators might work? Unfortunately, approaches such as digital rights management seem to be used to lock in consumers.

This is understandable from the suppliers’ perspective, but it is not in the best interests of buyers.

However, governments and large firms offer sufficiently lucrative service contracts that recouping development costs is still possible. In fact, were open-source licences mandated by them, it would make sense for suppliers to collaborate on development and compete on service.

If we can trust the economists, software should be free and we should pay for service. Open-source software licences and development encourage the competitive market necessary to allow service providers to compete fairly.

For governments and large organisations with the power to restrict tenders to open-source licences and open formats, this would appear to be in their best interests. And it seems, in spite of hard lobbying by the major software suppliers, that they are starting to agree.

Dr Tim Watson is head of the Department of Computer Technology at De Montfort University