Open source vs proprietary: What is best for business?

What is best for business? Proprietary vs. open source software solutions

"Paving for eFuture" Conference - Reykjavik, Iceland, September 13, 2007

This is the a companion webpage of my presentation at the "Paving for eFuture" conference, where I am to represent free/open-source software in debate with Mr Andreas Ebert from Microsoft. Given the limited time of presentation/discussion and assuming a business audience with little previous experience with free and open-source software (I'll use the acronym FOSS here), I add some links about the background as well.

The presentation slides

... are available in three formats, thanks to the capabilities of OpenOffice.org:

Additional material for slides

Linux support and warranty

TCO

David A. Wheeler. Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers!

Linux vs. Microsoft Acquisition Cost Analysis (@EMU Software)
Some business cases (@ComputerWorldUK)

Security

A comment on Jim Allchin's infamous statement (Vista is so secure it does not need antivirus)

Malware analysis from Kaspersky Lab (March 2007)

80 per cent of home PCs infected - survey (@The Register)

Reliability, flexibility

Insurance Companies: Open Source is safer than Windows (@WindowsITPro)
Top 500 supercomputers

My choices

Windows vs. Linux vs. OS X: CIO John Halamka Tests Ubuntu (@CIO Magazine; reached similar conclusion to mine)
Why not Vista (a bit outdated, but most points are still valid)
Microsoft admits Vista failure (@The Inquirer)

Basics of FOSS

David Williams. Software Freedom Day and the open source way. ITwire, September 11, 2007 - a very good introductory article about FOSS
Free Software Foundation - the ones that started it. A bit radical but true to their ideals. Especially read

Open Source Initiative - the business-friendly pragmatists

Debian Social Contract - a practical realisation of FOSS ideas
The Cathedral and the Bazaar (and other writings by Eric S. Raymond)
Why Open Source Software / Free Software? Look at the numbers!. A research paper by David A. Wheeler

FOSS in business

The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source - a book by Martin Fink

Business cases

Amazon.com (@C|Net)
Google (@The Guardian)
Cendant Corp (@ComputerWorld)
Developing the Linux Business Case for Financial Services

Copyright, patents etc (the so-called 'intellectual property'; critical works)

Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine (2007). Economic and Game Theory Against Intellectual Monopoly.
Kembrew McLeod (2005). Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity. Doubleday/Random House.
Anna Nimus (2007). Copyright, Copyleft and the Creative Anti-Commons: A Genealogy of Authors' Property Rights - an essay by some rather radical left-wing people; a good proof (albeit from a bit surprising angle) that FOSS is definitely not anti-business (the authors are in fact criticising it for that)
Brian Martin (1998). Information Liberation: Challenging the Corruptions of Information Power. Freedom Press, London.

Hackers - in the historical, positive sense

Jargon File, a major hacker lexicon. Currently maintained by Eric S. Raymond
How To Become A Hacker (aka Hacker-HOWTO) by Eric S. Raymond
Hackers: the Heroes of the Computer Revolution - a book by Steven Levy. Two first chapters are available at Project Gutenberg.
Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age - a book by Pekka Himanen

Business or monkey business?

The Swedish OOXML scandal
A News.com story from November 2004 about Microsoft backing up SCO Group
Documents from the Comes v. Microsoft case - including some really telling ones
Why I Hate Microsoft - a ranty but very detailed essay by Frank W. van Wensveen
The Halloween Documents - Halloween I and II were internal memos that leaked in 1998 (around Halloween) and displayed some more monkey business
The Web Archive copy (Feb 2006) of the infamous Get The Facts campaign

Various aspects of the Free Culture

Note: These are full books that are available online under a free license.

Peter Barnes (2006). Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. ISBN 1576753611
Yochai Benkler (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
Larry Lessig (2004). Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. The Penguin Press.
Larry Lessig (2006). Code v. 2.0. Basic Books.
Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls and David Weinberger (2001). The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. Perseus Books Group.
Herkko Hietanen, Ville Oksanen and Mikko Välimäki (2007). Community Created Content: Law, Business and Policy. Turre Publishing.
Ron Goldman and Richard P. Gabriel (2006). Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy. Online version. Morgan Kaufman Publishers

Copyright (c) 2007 Kaido Kikkas. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or later.