open source revenue

I ended up reading this post because it talked about SourceForge (albeit the Enterprise software).

First, I don't agree that "serious" numbers are "multi-billion dollar" numbers. For one thing, of the 120k active information industry corporations which filed tax returns in 2002, only 264 of them received $0.25 billion or more in that year. (source) Personally, I can only think of 5 software giants which actually break into billions in terms of annual revenue - Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Electronic Arts, BEA. There are probably some others but I'd be willing to bet it's no more than a dozen or maybe two dozen.

So one point I would make is that software revenue doesn't have to be concentrated in order to be serious. After all, the 119,476 information corporations that make <$50 million per year (under which VA Software falls) can account for, very roughly, $188 billion of annual revenue.

The second point I would make is that the nature of open-source is such that its value is hard to quantify with $. Different people may value an open-source software package at $1 or at $200 or at $2,000. But they all pay $0 for it, so it's hard to measure the value, but it's obviously not 0. I realize this has nothing to do with revenue, but recognition of this fact is a prerequisite to building a good open-source business model, which has everything to do with revenue.

Finally, one goal of open-source is to lower the cost of software to users. In principle then, open-source companies shouldn't be as big as proprietary software counterparts. The goal of open-source is to grow the economic pie while at the same time requiring a smaller slice for the software industry. This is directly opposite to proprietary software which desires more and more money to pour into the software industry - whether or not the economic pie is growing at all.

Basically, revenue-focused analysis is not simple in the open-source world.

(some) economics of open-source

Either fittingly or surprisingly, I came across a great blurb re: economics of open-source while reading The Long Tail.

George Gilder:

In every industrial revolution, some key factor of production is drastically reduced in cost. Relative to the previous cost to achieve that function, the new factor is virtually free. Physical force in the industrial revolution became virtually free compared to its expense when it derived from animal muscle power and human muscle power. Suddenly you could do things you could not afford to do before. You could make a factory work 24 hours a day churning out products in a way that was just incomprehensible before the industrial era. ... The whole economy had to reorganize itself to exploit this physical force. You had to "waste" the power of the steam engine and its derivatives in order to prevail...

From there, Chris picks up:

That suggests a way to put this in an economic context. If the abundant resources are just one factor in a system otherwise constrained by scarcity, they may not challenge the economic orthodoxy. They are then like learning curves and minimized transaction costs - drivers of production efficiency that serve to lower prices and increase productivity but do not invalidate the laws of economics.

So, how about open-source?

The open-source "revolution" has, among other things, made a factor of production virtually free - software programs. It costs someone somewhere maybe $0.000001 to produce another copy of ajaxMyTop and send it to another user. But, Information Technology and Information Systems (effective ones) involve more than just software programs. Open-source does not invalidate the laws of economics in IT.

In light of this, there are 2 very different lessons to take away.

For those who think open-source is economically infeasible, the analogy demonstrates that thriving markets can and do operate on virtually free goods. It merely takes some learning to understand where and how to charge money.

For those who think open-source is just a first sign of an inevitable economic reversals, the analogy shows that economic principles continue to hold. It is rather market actors and their perceptions which are upheaved.

MST3K is back!

One thing superior about this approach is that Mike can do any movie he wants to since he's not re-distributing any copyrighted material. It actually works pretty well. I set the laptop on the coffee table, start the DVD, and then start the mp3 when Mike says so. What a great mash-up.

Camino is fired. Firefox is re-hired.

Okay, while I admit it's very cool to browse the web with a native Mac-style interface, I can never go back to using a browser without plugins. I mean, even IE7 supports add-ons. Camino is the kind of project that only an Apple myrmidon would (or can!) love. There's absolutely NO way to justify tossing plugin architecture out of a product just so you can get the spiffy razzle-dazzle of Mac OS X inside your browser.

So while I'm easily an Apple convert (I have bluetooth'd an Apple logo over to my Razr to serve as my mobile wallpaper), I'm not a zealot.

P.S. I'm not sure why I don't use Safari.

Technorati?

I must be the last blogger on earth to register at Technorati...but here it goes anyway.

Technorati Profile

Ghost in the shell | Free Software Magazine

Ghost in the shell | Free Software Magazine: "

For centuries we have relied on books and other external memories, but the Internet, through the ease of searching, has invaded our actual thought processes. There are things I think I know, but I don't. What I know is how to instantly retrieve them when my global external memory is attached. As I become reliant on this kind of extended identity, losing my Internet connection is like a lobotomy�I feel an almost physical sense of loss as a portion of my intelligence is removed. I've become dependent on a new brain center that isn't located inside of my body.

"

I'll admit I was just surfing around looking for something to blog when I came along this. It really struck a chord with me. I'm an internet-addicted cyberpunk. And I'm a huge fan of Ghost in the Shell, and I recently read Synthetic Worlds by Edward Castranova.

I think it's obvious that our online identities are inextricably linked with our physical identities. But not just because our physical selves use physical interfaces to act as our virtual counterpart. Like Terry points out, when we use an interface so much, the boundaries between self, interface, and "avatar" start to blur. Sometimes even so much so that the online avatar feels more real than we ourselves feel at times.

In any case, this was also a test of a nifty firefox extension I came across for blogging. I'll be testing a couple of these soon so there might be a few more random posts in the future.

Software Engineer, SourceForge.net

I have accepted a job offer from SourceForge.net. I'm thrilled to death. This is basically my dream job. I won't say anything else beyond that until I get with them re: blogging etiquette. Hopefully I'll blog a little more frequently since I'll have cooler activities to blog about.

GoogleForge ?

http://code.google.com/p/ajaxmytop/

Couple first impressions:

Easy and simple to set up and get going.
Clean, simple, easy interface for creating issues.
Project blog is nice. (Edit: but apparently broken?)
No support for file-releases other than Subversion?
No ability to upload screenshots?

I'll be playing with it some more to try it out.

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ajaxmytop

I've been trying to work more on ajaxMyTop recently to smoothe some of my nervousness and anxiety from the last few weeks (source of which I'll reveal soon).

It's pretty nice to get back into it, but it's always frustrating when you're trying to improve something that already works, because you end up breaking it before improving it. I'm trying to move the filtering to occur before sorting so that the sorting process has fewer records to sort. But now I've broken the filtering and can't quite figure out why. I need a better way to debug the PHP side of things in Eclipse...

That is all.

HOWTO: Debug Javascript in IE

Posted this to digg. I'm having an IE-only javascript problem and I found this useful for debugging purposes.

It's fairly laughable, though expected, that you have to have an upgraded version of Office to get a pretty basic tool.

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javascript woes

I've been complaining about some javascript stuff lately. Specifically, the way javascript drops "this" variable scope when making asynchronous (XMLHttpRequest) calls, and apparently also when using setTimeout() or setInterval() functions. Even though nobody reads this blog, they might stumble upon it when searching and hopefully in the future, these links will point to possible solution(s).

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10

Novell has released SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. I'm going to try this out very soon because I think Novell & SUSE are doing very well w/r/t usability and user-experience. In that respect, they're emulating Apple's approaches and designs, which r4wk.

It features integrated search via Beagle, and a 3d-accelerated desktop environment via Xgl. Only downside is that SUSE is always pretty large (5 CD's!), so it always takes me a long time to get a version downloaded and burned. I really need to get a DVD-burner.

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Dear Google, I need an iMac

After writing a blog post titled �Dear Google, You�re Giving Me a Headache�, Google sent the author a small pack of acetaminophen, with a message saying "I hope this helps you keep up with the many Adwords changes."

I think an iMac would really contribute to my Google experiences. My wife is looking to start a photography business and I'd like to see if I can experimenting with iPhoto + Picasa to make a website where she can sell photos.

Or something.

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ClickTale

It's a closed beta, but it LOOKS like a pretty sweet product/service. And a good excuse to re-test the integration of my digg account with my blogger account.

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Mark Cuban on Grokster

the mass of sites, comments, blog links, etc. that crop around these issues are making me start to think that the old "people are stupid" argument is weakening.

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digg adds blogging features

so my blog will now basically be a luke-filtered digg site.

New to digg today: the ability to digg stories to your blog. Choose a story that you wish to blog, then click "blog". digg will instantly post that story to your website. If you don�t like the way a story is worded, you also have the ability to rewrite your blog post. Supported blogs: Typepad, Live Journal, Blogger, Moveable Type, and WordPress. (note: you must be a registered user to see these features)

read more | digg story

free mini mac

I want one, if just to play with OS X.

http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=14082520

MySQL CEO: Open source & MySQL will rise, legal foes will fall

MySQL CEO: Open source & MySQL will rise, legal foes will fall. interview with Mickos...how can you go wrong?

$bluke->start();

You should all already be using Firefox, and This Extension started this blog, so you know it's good.

as opposed to my WS-RandomThoughts, now at WS-Comments, this one IS going to be completely random, short posts about all kinds of things I find on the internet that interest me.