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Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Main Topic: The Economics of Open Source Software --or-- "Show Me the Money"
Our speaker is: David J. Scholl
"I believe that IT spending will not necessarily decrease, but it will be directed in different ways, through different kinds of companies. Overall, the trend should be toward greater economic efficiency, which means more customization of a more broadly shared code base, and fewer high-priced software salespeople on expense accounts. If I am right, I expect that people are already starting to see this beginning to happen. Furthermore, increased customization works better with more technical people on the ground locally, so it does not map to offshoring as well as a one-size-fits-all product."
Dave
Abstract
Despite the long-term financial success of a number of businesses based on Open Source Software (OSS) development, only in recent years has OSS been recognized by outside observers as an activity of economic significance. The skyrocketing IPO's of VA Linux and RedHat in 1999 were thought by some to be irrational exuberance on the part of investors, and the public claim by IBM to invest $1B in Linux in 2001 was dismissed by many as anti-Microsoft FUD. More recently, the dominant mind-share of the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl-Python-PHP) in the venture-capital space has been hard to dismiss, as has the publicly-proclaimed reliance of Google, Inc. on Linux and MySQL. The straw that has really broken the camel's back, however, is the recent public threat by Microsoft (in the pages of Fortune Magazine, no less), that Microsoft would strike out against OSS by filing patent infringement lawsuits against its own best customers. Everyone agrees that where there's smoke, there's fire (for some definition of smoke). When arguably the most successful corporation in the history of capitalism, from the heights of its market dominance and profitability, makes a public threat to sue its own best customers, even the most complacent industry observer can start to detect a whiff of burning embers.
Now that we smell the smoke, our next task is to locate the fire. It simply can't be the routine legal and regulatory hassles that appear with such frequency in the news media. Microsoft has given comfortable proof, for years now, that the profits to be accrued from disreputable corporate behavior far exceed the costs of such behavior in fines, adverse judgments, and settlements. Fortunately for us, a European economist with expertise in non-monetary transactions, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, has been uncovering and explaining fundamental structural changes now underway in the software economy. By "showing us the money", and the new ways that economic value is flowing through the software industry, Professor Ghosh's work locates the fire that is causing such visible distress for Microsoft's management team, and that promises transformative change for creators and users of software.
Secondary Topic: UBUNTU 8.04
Our speaker is: Jorge Castro of Canonical
If you have topics for future meetings you would like us to cover please email the board, thanks.
Where:
The MUG meetings are held at:
Farmington Community Library - Main Branch
32737 W. 12 Mile Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48334-3302
Click here for a map of the area.
When:
the meetings are on the 2nd Tuesday of each month.
| 6:00pm | Doors open, registration |  |
| 6:30pm | Meeting starts, Mug business |
| 6:45pm | Main presentation |
| 8:15pm | 2nd Presentation |
| 8:45pm | Meeting adjourns |
| 9:00pm | Dinner at a local establishment |
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