Impackt '08

Ever since the formal adoption of the term in 1998, Open Source has experienced growth and adoption rates that defy pressures and suggestions that it’s a viable option for enthusiasts and geeks only. Governments, corporations as well as small businesses have begun to choose Open Source over proprietary software. However, with the global economy facing an uncertain future, how will open source be impacted? Can it continue to grow despite this?

With these questions in mind and more, Packt approached some people at the heart of this movement to understand their take on the future of open source.

We interviewed the following people:

• John Resig, (Founder, jQuery)
• Scott Goodwin, (President, The Open Source Collective, Inc.)
• Lenz Grimmer, (Member, Community Relations Team, MySQL AB)
• Douglas Paterson, (Author and Sr. Acquisition Editor, Packt Publishing)
• Tony Byrne, (Founder, CMS Watch)

For this year's edition of Impackt, we decided to obtain views on a wide range of issues including general questions about Open Source as well as the individual projects the interviewees are associated with. This page features all the general questions; for specific information related to respective projects, please visit the following pages:

• Impackt 08 — Interview with John Resig
• Impackt 08 — Interview with Scott Goodwin
• Impackt 08 — Interview with Lenz Grimmer
• Impackt 08 — Interview with Douglas Paterson
• Impackt 08 — Interview with Tony Byrne

Packt: A number of reports forecast bleak economic conditions in 2008 in the US and an overall global imbalance. How do you think this would impact something like the Open Source movement, which is primarily based on donations? In other words, during a recession if the donations dry out, do you have a strategy in place to sustain the community?

John Resig, (Founder, jQuery): I don't think this will be a major issue. As it stands jQuery doesn't make very much money from donations. At this point our primary revenue source is affiliate sales of the different jQuery books. But none of that matters terribly since our only major expenditure, hosting, is completely donated to us by Media Temple. And if they are ever not able to help we have a number of companies waiting in the wings, itching to help us. Instead we're trying to leverage what little money we have and to use it towards good projects. A far bigger concern, if you want to look at it from a financial perspective, is the willingness of contributors to donate their time towards the project, when they could rather be doing paid contract work. Obviously this is a large challenge, but it's one that, I feel, we're pretty good at tackling. Of course, during a recession, that means there's less people working and more people interested in contributing to Open Source (it does make for a good resume booster, after all).

Scott Goodwin, (President, The Open Source Collective, Inc.): I don't think a business cycle recession will adversely impact the overall open source movement at all.  Only if it became extraordinarily bad out there, do I think it would adversely affect the movement.  Only then simply because it would be affecting so many ancillary activities of the developers.  The majority of the developers of open source content management systems do so on their own time, free of remuneration, for the most part.  There are very few developers of these systems, if any, that live off the donations of users.

opensourceCMS.com earns not much more than what is needed to pay our own bills, much less sustain a community.  If you become involved in this to get rich, you've made a terrible mistake.

Lenz Grimmer, (Member, Community Relations Team, MySQL AB): I actually think that this will further boost the adoption and development of Open Source Software instead! Let's face it - for the majority of users, the beauty of Open Source Software is not so much about the "free as in free speech" aspect - OSS has become popular because it is available at no cost and usually gets the job done equally well than commercial applications. The openness and independence is a nice additional benefit, which usually is something that users start to discover and value later, once they have become familiar with the concept.

And it should be noted that donations don't need to be in financial form - this is the beauty of Open Source! Anybody can contribute - either by writing code and submitting patches or by supporting a project by other means. This includes writing documentation like HOWTOs and guides for beginners, supporting other users by answering their questions, or doing free marketing by spreading the word about the project.

And all of this can be done from everywhere across the globe - it's quite common for OSS projects to have contributors from a wide variety of countries, including development countries. So especially in areas that are already facing bleak economic situations, Open Source Software is a way for them to catch up and participate, which helps to reduce the imbalance.

Douglas Paterson, (Author and Sr. Acquisition Editor, Packt Publishing): Open Source projects receive their support in many ways, not just financial donations. For example, some projects have contributions made by developers given some company time to work on the project - if companies fall on hard times, then this time will obviously go back to "core" activities.

On the other hand, it may seriously encourage companies to look around for alternatives to their existing applications, if they are expensive to maintain or license. If they can save on licenses and still get the features they are looking for, this is a good thing. This may drive further development of certain types of open source projects as companies try to adapt them to their own particular needs.

With the increased competition in the job market, there may be some developers that see being contributors to open source projects as a definite positive for their resume. That sounds like a topic for discussion on Slashdot...

Tony Byrne, (Founder, CMS Watch): It’s not clear to me that a recession (which we may be in already) will impact the open source movement in one way or another.  The best open source projects have clear lines of governance, with some sort of a decent funding model.  But in the end, it’s the contribution of time and labor that creates the most value for the community.

Packt: For a large number of Open Source applications there is no authorized support; it is provided through forums, mailing lists, and IRC channels. This could be a concern for some users who prefer the personal assistance provided by commercial software vendors. How do you address this issue, and is this something that you find is still relevant?

John Resig: Yep, this is absolutely a concern. For jQuery core we've been pretty lucky with this not being an issue. Since we keep the core lean and focused there's very little room for serious support issues. For our large users (sites like Google, MSNBC, Adobe, Wordpress, Drupal, etc.) we often tailor support to them, specially. This is done completely for-free and is seen as more of a long-term marketing move than anything (happy users means that'll be used on more sites means that more users will see it in action).

Scott Goodwin: This issue has always been the Achilles' heel for open source content management systems being adopted by commercial entities.  Joe Public is fine getting support through forums, and most forums are very, very helpful.  I don't see this as an adoption stumbling block for those people.  Most of the people in IT departments would be fine using an open source CMS. Management, however, generally doesn't understand open source and are certainly frightened by not having a commercial, legally binding contract with the CMS vendor should something go wrong or questions arise.  Management always prefer that the vendor who developed the software also support it, and stand behind the software in a quantifiable and accountable way which only a contract provides.  It's completely understandable from a business perspective.

It's really basic economics in the minds of management.  A commercial vendor is in business to make a profit.  That vendor is very sensitive to profits and losses.  The threat of losses, and ultimately bankruptcy, motivate the commercial vendor to provide the best service possible while keeping support centralized and monitored.

Most support for open source content management systems are not directed by the opportunity for profits, or the threat of losses.  In the minds of management, that is a required struggle.  It is inconceivable that there would be real, accountable, support without that basic business struggle.  It is what it is, whether right or wrong.  I could go on and on about commercial adoption of open source software, but will spare you.

Lenz Grimmer: I don't agree that there is no "authorized" support for Open Source Software.  Of course it depends on the particular application, but all of the major OSS vendors like Red Hat or Novell provide support on various levels for all of the applications they ship on their distributions. Most OSS applications that are backed by single companies also come with optional support and service offerings. In addition to that, all of the large IT companies like HP, IBM, Sun and others do provide support for a wide range of OSS applications. And organizations like TSANet facilitate collaboration between these various support organizations to addresses mutual customer problems.

So if a customer does not feel comfortable with the "free" support he can get through the projects' own facilities like Forums or mailing lists (which is usually of exceptional quality, since it's directly from the source), there are usually several other options available.

Additionally, the open nature and low access barriers to the software make it possible for many small companies to start their own business in providing commercial support and services for OSS applications! This way, Open Source software actually gives the user more freedom - he is not bound to a particular service provider or vendor. This freedom of choice also puts additional pressure on these service companies to alway provide the best service possible — otherwise customers can easily switch to some other vendor or supplier.

So I don't think this is something that is still relevant - Open Source has clearly changed the rules of the game here as well.

Tony Byrne: I think the issue is real.  Of course, many commercial vendors have poor support as well.  The only way to know, as a prospective customer, is to test it before you buy.

Packt: During 2007, websites such as Wikipedia, Facebook, and MySpace became increasingly popular through developing and encouraging content and networking developed by its users. Do you think this phenomenon has peaked or do you see it continuing throughout 2008?

John Resig: I'm not sure if there will be a peak to this movement. Both Facebook and MySpace are very US-centric so their peak may be more imminent but for truly, socially, generated content like Wikipedia markets like India and China remain virtually untapped. I definitely expect to see this growing.

Scott Goodwin: The social web has been great for the Internet.  I don't think this facet of online life has peaked.  I think it may just become ubiquitous.  Facebook, MySpace, and other such sites are highly addictive and have just become a part of everyday life.  These are great ways to keep up with your friends from within a centralized location.  I don't see any reason why this phenomenon would end in 2008.  Just recently the “old” people online are catching up and joining MySpace in droves.  Half of the site's users are 35 or older, according to comScore Media Metrix's analysis of its U.S. Internet traffic measurements.  I'm of that generation too, and it's funny the friend requests I get from those in my past who just now got a handle on all this.

Of course the kids are moving on to the next greatest thing.  It's always the younger generation that drives innovation.  It's my understanding that Facebook is really popular with the younger group, and how can you blame them.  Facebook has done an outstanding job of innovating in their niche.

Lenz Grimmer: I think that while we may see some consolidation among websites that all provide similar services (e.g. social networking or foto/video sharing), the general trend will still be on expansion and extension of what is possible.

Since the underlying infrastructure and software to set up such sites is so easily accessible, everybody with a great and unique idea can start a new and exciting service without much initial investment except for his own time.

But as with Open Source Software, some kind of Darwinism will always take place — only the ones that manage to build up enough momentum and community will really be able to make an impact and will attract enough people to make a difference and stay around.

Douglas Paterson: People are unlikely to stop talking about things, wanting to watch footage from Resident Evil 4, or even see Steve Ballmer delivering keynote speeches in his own inimitable way.(This is not how I spend my day of course).

Of course, the number of choices can become rather overwhelming - every time you log into your Facebook account some one has invited to do something on their wall, look at some pictures, look at some pictures of pictures, join some group, join another group to ban the members of the first group you were invited to join, etc. I can see the possibility of some kind of "Social Networking Fatigue" syndrome, where people just seem to be unable to engage in any more activities on these sites. We are also seeing user generated applications on the likes of Facebook, creating new ways for people to interact.

These sites will evolve to meet their needs of their users, with the possible creation of some brain-implant device that allows you to upload your blog post with a single thought. Or maybe less than a single thought for some blog posts.

Tony Byrne: As far as the public web, I think it has peaked, though the phenomenon is not going to disappear.  On the other hand, I think we are all just beginning to the see the promise (and peril) of social software behind the firewall.

Packt: What do you mean by promise and peril of social software?

Tony Byrne: Well, it is a phenomenon we can all recognize with new, hyped technology: there’s the kernel of some usefulness (in this case better collaboration and more relevant communication services), along with the peril of throwing tools into environments unready to take advantage of them.  Many new capabilities – I’ll cite wikis in particular – seem much needed and in fact long overdue, but most of the tools remain quite immature, especially from an enterprise perspective, where you have to concern yourself with security, performance, archiving, and such.

Packt: There is growing concern that Wikipedia is unreliable as a source of information, because it is largely unverified content supplied by anonymous individuals. Do you think that user generated content undermines the authority and validity of the internet as an information source?

John Resig: I think, for people's sanity, they'd like to see that happen (knowing that something is backed by authority makes them feel good) but nothing that I've seen indicates that this is a good idea. All that ends up happening is that the points of failure decrease - but so do the number of checks-and-balances. I think the current system is overwhelmingly "good enough" and that's what people need to wrap their minds around.

Scott Goodwin: Wikipedia can include bad information.  Newspapers and TV news can provide bad information too.  I think, for the most part, Wikipedia is reasonably reliable with its community oversight.  Information on Wikipedia can change from day to day (but not necessarily more accurate) so it may not be appropriate to cite only Wikipedia with an absolute degree of certainty though.  I use Wikipedia all the time to gain knowledge about something.  It is included as a part of a whole body of work I will seek to gain a better understanding of a topic.

When everyone can speak, sometimes there is a tower of babble effect.  Like anything in life, you have to be able to filter the nonsense.  The only problem with filtering the nonsense is that it takes wisdom, and wisdom only comes with age.  I think the Internet is an excellent place to get information.  Should it always be your only source?  No.

Lenz Grimmer: Again I have to disagree with your assumption - I think that similar to Open Source Software development the concept of peer review actually leads to better and more accurate and reliable content. Sure, everybody can post something on the Internet, but if it's blatantly wrong, there will soon be plenty of people that will point out the mistake or publish corrections/rebuttals, usually citing other resources as references.

Of course it's up to me to make up my mind and to verify statements made by others by comparing several sources, but that is by no means different from educating myself by just reading e.g. one local newspaper vs. several different magazines with a wider reach.

And to me the authors of a printed encylopedia are anonymous, too - with Wikipedia I can at least learn more about most of the authors that have contributed to an article and follow their discussions and reasonings on why they wrote it the way they did! This allows me to get a much bigger picture than what I would get by consuming information from a single resource only.

Douglas Paterson: The reader will always have to exercise their own judgment about what they read. If you are using the Internet as a substitute for professional advice, then you should be careful. If you are using it to find out about zombie films, you will probably not be quite so concerned. At no point in history did beginning a sentence with "I was reading on the Internet that" ever give a person an air of genuine authority or credibility, and I don't see that changing.

There is the possibility of divergent universes being created of course; in one of these universes everything that you read on the Internet is actually true.

Tony Byrne: Of course not.  All content is “user-generated” by someone.  You have to learn about sources and trust your instincts.

Packt: Thanks to you all for your contributions.

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