Things have been delightfully busy here at OpenNMS, and with Dev Jam coming up the level of excitement around the project is pretty high.

One of the people coming to Dev Jam, Matt Raykowski (OGP) send me a link today to a Slashdot article bringing up the “open source vs. open core” debate again, this time with respect to SugarCRM. Apparently some of the new features of the product are only available to paying customers.

I’ve been staying out of the recent resurgence in the “open core” debate (check out the 451 Group for a summary). If these fauxpen source vendors would simply call their product “open core” versus “open source” there wouldn’t be anything to talk about, but they need to market themselves as “open source” as opposed to “just another commercial software company with a great API” to get any traction.

The Slashdot article quotes Martin Schneider of SugarCRM stating “We are an open source company and it’s why we’re better than proprietary companies” which is total crap. Just being open source doesn’t make you better, but the fact that he would sum up his pitch that way just goes to show how much the term “open source” is tied to their marketing.

In contrast, take a look at OpenNMS. OpenNMS is a very powerful, flexible and scalable network management application platform that happens to be free and open source software. For many large enterprises and carriers, that makes it a better solution (especially when the alternatives charge per managed device), but for many smaller companies they’d be better off with Solarwinds’ Orion, a commercial software product, or something similar. Just being open source doesn’t automatically make OpenNMS the right choice and better than a proprietary solution for everyone.

Personally, in the case of SugarCRM, we struggled with the community edition for six months before signing up with Salesforce. For us it wasn’t a better solution even though Salesforce isn’t open.

In looking through the comments on the Slashdot article (yes, I know, I know) it seems there is some debate over if the paid version might really be open source. If it is, that seems like a really stupid business model, since if the paid version is freely distributable (a requirement of the OSI’s open source definition which I’m sticking by until someone offers a better alternative) then they could theoretically only sell it once and that person can choose to make it available to everyone. I doubt that Larry Augustin (the dark lord of open source) would do something like that since if anyone can make a buck from open core it’s him.

Anyway, in my mind Brian Prentice of Gartner put the whole open core debate to bed with his “Emperor’s New Clothes” post, so enough about that.

What I want to whine about today is two problems I continually face running a business on free and open source software, namely that pesky term “free”. If only Richard Stallman had added three more letters to coin “freedom software” my life would be so much easier.

The first issue is that when people here “free” they think cheap or not very good. In the best case they wonder “what’s the catch?” In many of our deployments we’ve replaced OpenView and Tivoli simply because they could not do what OpenNMS can, so even though it is free software that doesn’t make it any less valuable.

The second one arises when it is time to actually spend money on free software, such as with a support contract or professional services. A common deployment scenario is that a network manager or system admin needs a tool like OpenNMS. They go to their boss and ask if they can install it, and the boss asks how much it costs. When the answer is “free” they go, “Sure, knock yourself out.”

Now once the system is installed and there is a need for services or support, they go back to their boss and ask to spend some money, to which the boss says “I thought you said it was free?”

Open core is dead – the writing is on the wall – what with companies like Compiere going back to their commercial software roots and the VC market that funds it rapidly shrinking. The challenge now is to get across the value of free software coupled with commercial services in lieu of a commercial software solution, open core or not.

I’ve been saying for years now that open source is more than just a marketing term, and I’ve probably bored most of my three readers by harping on it.

While it may not seem to matter to most people, it is dreadfully important to my business that open source not become synonymous with fauxpen source (or to use the more politically correct term – open core). It is hard enough to educate the market on the values of open source software (if it is free, how can it be good?) without having the waters muddied with the confusion brought on with the hybrid open source/commercial software model.

But then again, I am not a powerful voice in open source (at least based on my Twitter followers) so why should people listen to me?

However, as far as analysts go, there are few that are held as in high esteem as Gartner. Today, Michael Coté sent me a link to a Gartner blog post by Brian Prentice called “Open-Core: The Emperor’s New Clothes“.

Wow.

There is a gem of a quote in every paragraph, so just go read the article, but here are some of my favorites:

You’ll soon realize that the fabric making up the garb of their stated innovation is a fabrication. They’ll then be exposed for exactly who they are – a good old fashion software vendor. Just like every other one you’ve come to know.

I have asked, on numerous occasions, for someone from the open core front to explain to me the different between their model and the traditional software model of having an open API to add functionality while keeping the best parts of the application closed. HP was able to create a huge environment around OpenView this way, without claiming to be open source (even though they use “open” in their name).

Furthermore I have personally been told by one such open-core provider that the reason a new feature, which was clearly of value to all users, was only being provided in the paid-for, proprietary version was that they “had investors they needed to satisfy.”

This sounds familiar. (grin)

Open source projects such as OpenNMS can provide a powerful, scalable and flexible solution. While I never want to lead with it when talking to potential clients, it also has a large cost benefit. The problem with the open core model is what Gartner calls the “super-size trigger”.

Besides, what you already know is that this type of functional separation creates what Gartner refers to as a “super-size trigger.” The minute you require a feature only available in the full version then the entirety of your commitment needs to be scaled up and re-costed to the full-cost offering.

Since open source is not a marketing term, these hybrid vendors are only trying to ride the hype. Brian addresses that, too:

This is where the hype starts to creep in. The idea that a functionally complete, proprietary solution is somehow unique because it was built atop an open source base fails to recognize the fact that many proprietary solutions are being built using open source components

But what about the communities around these open core projects. Aren’t they different than a commercial software product?

Even the very definition of “community” is being adapted to suit the open core narrative. What has largely interested the corporate IT world is the concept of a community as a collection of code contributors working outside a normal project/company structure. But now open core providers are extending the term community to include users and even resellers. That, of course, is what we’ve all been calling a software ecosystem for the last twenty years. Same old, same old – just co-opted terminology used to describe it.

I have no real problem with open core as long as they don’t use the term open source. It is simply another commercial software business model. But when they refer to it as open source it causes confusion in the marketplace for my business, and that’s what bothers me. From the article:

Be clear, there’s nothing nefarious going on with open core. It’s just that there’s just nothing particularly new or innovative going on either.

I believe that all commercial software companies will start focusing on creating a much larger “software ecosystem” which will include access to some source code, new APIs, social networks, etc. But it will not represent an open source business.

It’s nice to see Gartner putting it out there in such a straightforward and blunt manner.

Geoff Davis, a friend of mine from high school who now works at Google, wrote a post about how open source software projects can be used to build up a social network.

I sometimes get jealous of college kids today. When I was in school, computer networking was pretty much limited to BBSs and 2400 baud modems (although the college did have Internet access). I wonder what would have happened to me if open source had be prevalent in those days. All the time I spent drinking beer could have been turned into something more productive. (grin)

As Geoff points out, not only does working on open source projects give you something to put on your resumé, it allows you to make the connections to get that job in the first place.