The Inherent Dishonesty Inside Open Source

The core theory behind the open source development model for software (or any open thing) states that there should be universal access for all to a product or services design. From this openness we are able to gather community contributions (often known as commits) that will lead to product refinement and enhancement that serves real users needs. Or so the theory goes.

An open system of innovation and development is characterized by a goal-oriented community of loosely coordinated participants. These users will fulfil a variety of roles including design, architecture and hard coding expertise as well as non-technical roles from communications to international language translation and beyond.

Openness is (not always) next to godliness

But openness is not always next to godliness. It is not uncommon for a project (even one as big as the Android mobile device operating system) to be populated with deviant and essentially unsupported skews and forks that find their way out into the total population of code on Earth. Not quite akin to a virus, this is code that has use but is not as useful as code (or product design of any kind) that has been subject to testing and quality control validation.

Then there is so-called openwashing i.e. providing trace elements of open source somewhere on a business model so that a company can attest to and demonstrate its philanthropic side. Purists argue that there is a big difference between opening your data and making it available; the open source list of besmirching malpractice is a long one.

The cod liver oil of open source

Consider the recent developments with the Facebook driven TODO project, aimed at making open source projects work better for big business. TODO describes itself as an open group of companies who want to collaborate on practices, tools and other ways to run successful and effective open source projects and programmes. But TODO has been criticised by open source purists as a kind of crass commercialisation of the open message. So is TODO the cod liver oil of open source such that companies swallow a little and then get on with making real proprietary money?

Theres something inherently dishonest about how these companies are using open source asserts Rafael Laguna, CEO, Open-Xchange, a company that develops web-based communication, collaboration and office productivity software.

Rather than help create open and interconnected systems, they are using open tools to build closed siloes that threaten the very nature of the open Internet. The driving force behind the free and open source software movements is to liberate technology and keep it open and accessible for everyone. Facebook, or Google for that matter, has no interest in making its ecosystem accessible from the outside. Its whole business model is based around it being the sole beneficiary of the data it continually builds higher walls around.

Laguna asserts that the recent tactic of Google, Facebook, et al, has been to create new alliances and cooperative projects to try and prove their open source and privacy credentials. In the last few years weve already seen the Open Computing Alliance, Open Invention Network, Open Data Center Alliance, the AllSeen Alliance which, claim the naysayers are vehicles for the big tech companies to convince us of their openness.

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The Inherent Dishonesty Inside Open Source