Open Dialogue Code

I originally wrote this entry on September 19, 2004 and published it on blogs.sun.com.

It's funny how certain corporate strategists pay more detailed attention to the press than to their own corporate purpose. (Some may even believe that all their problems stem from bad press.)

So, now we read in the reports (Reuters and the WSJ) that Microsoft has decided to open source its Office software to certain governments and under certain conditions. The same reports say that Microsoft has apparently done this to combat the advances of Linux, its "open-source" desk-top OS rival.

Under the program, Microsoft doesn't completely lift the veil. Governments are able to see 90% of the source code. The bulk of the rest is code where a third party owns the copyright, according to Microsoft. The company also holds back from exposing code that relates to antipiracy technology. (The WSJ, Sept. 20, 2004)

Even if source code is to be shared with more governments and under much less strict conditions, the strategic threat that Microsoft faces will persist. The problem is not an inability to see the code but an inability to participate in the dialog that ends up in it.

As I've said earlier, what matters is not openness of the source (whatever that means) but the openness of the dialogue about the source code, its use and evolution.

And here is another question worth thinking about. Would government regulations around the world ask for "open-source" code or "open-dialog" code? Most probably, it would be the former because "open-source" is a property more measurable.

Software & Economics

It is good to see someone who has a relatively good understanding of Transaction Cost Economics write about the topic of open source software or software in general:

There was a time when a single determined individual could write the core of a single operating system for a primitive computer. But given the demands of computer applications and the capabilities of hardware technology at present, that is no longer conceivable. The task needs to be divided somehow. This immediately raises a ... core political economy question, about coordination of a division of labor within a centralized, hierarchical structure--that is, a firm. Within the firm an authority can make decisions about the division of labor and set up systems that transfer needed information back and forth between the individuals or teams that are working on particular chunks of the project. The boundaries of the firm are determined by make-or-buy decisions that follow from the logic of transaction cost economics. The system manages complexity through formal organization and explicit authority to make decisions within the firm as well as price coordination within markets between firms.

That's from Steven Weber's The Success of Open Source.