What Mark doesn't recognize - either out of pretence (meaning, he
knows better but pretends otherwise) or out of ignorance (because
Ubuntu isn't yet being used in the enterprise, so he doesn't yet know
better) - is that the so-called closed binary is an important
requirement for making Linux work in the data center, and across the
enterprise, generally. No one writes applications to the source RPMs
because no one wants to do so. Enterprises buy Red Hat (or Novell's
SUSE) because they want certified stability and performance.
Application vendors write to Red Hat and SUSE for the same reason.
They don't want the brand of freedom Mark argues for. They want a
product that works. And they have the same benefits of diminished
lock-in that Mark tries to claim exclusively for Ubuntu.
Mark writes on his blog:
We
have to work together to keep free software freely available. It will
be a failure if the world moves from paying for shrink-wrapped Windows
to paying for shrink-wrapped Linux.
We have to work together to keep free software freely available. It
will be a failure if the world moves from paying for shrink-wrapped
Windows to paying for shrink-wrapped Linux.
As free software becomes more successful and more pervasive there
will be an increasing desire on the part of companies to make it more
proprietary. We�ve already seen that with Red Hat and Novell, which
essentially offer free software on proprietary terms - their �really
free� editions are not certified, carry no support and receive no
systematic security patching. In other words - they�re beta or test
versions. If you want the best that free software can deliver, a rock
solid, widely certified, secure platform, from either of those
companies then you have to pay, and you pay the same price whether you
are Goldman Sachs or a startup in Rio de Janeiro.
That�s not the vision we all share of what free software can achieve.
That's
a nice false dichotomy, Mark. Nice, but false. It's not reflective of
reality, and I think Mark gets it wrong where essential freedoms come
into play.
Freedom matters when you're assembling the raw materials for a
product, software or otherwise. Freedom matters when you're a buyer
contemplating which product to purchase. And freedom matters
post-purchase so that you can leave Red Hat to move to SUSE, or
something else (including Ubuntu).
These freedoms, importantly, exist (in spades) for Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu. But they arguably exist more for Red Hat and SUSE than for Ubuntu because these offer an additional freedom:
Freedom from worry.
Worry that the "free-loving" Ubuntu won't work with my SAP
application. Worry that all of my other applications aren't certified
and tested to work with an essential, freedom-based operating system.
Does Red Hat charge for this service? Of course they do. Can you get
the bits without the service? Yes, absolutely, making the product just
as "free" (in Mark's sense) as Ubuntu, but adding the additonal freedom
from worry that Mark can't deliver (or chooses not to). The bits are free, the service is not.
This is no different from me buying groceries vs. buying an entree
at a restaurant. Nothing stops me from buying all the ingredients of a
meal I can order at a local restaurant. But nine times out of 10, I'm
going to buy it at the restaurant, because I don't want to futz around
with the "bits" myself. It's worth it to pay for the service. Is the
service "proprietary?" Yes, in a sense, but not really.
It might make good press to castigate Red Hat and Novell for
delivering value-added service for free software, but it won't take
Ubuntu into the enterprise. For that to happen, Mark needs to speak the
enterprise language: stability, safety, performance, and TCO. Red Hat
and Novell have this - Ubuntu has some work to do to package itself for
the enterprise. Mark will learn this...in time.
Read the original article: http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/01/ubuntu_founder.html
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