Mugwiki
Start of topic | Skip to actions
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Main Topic: The Economics of Open Source Software pdf --or-- "Show Me the Money"Our speaker is: David J. SchollAbstractDespite 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 8.04Our speaker is: Jorge Castro of Canonical Jorge has yet again agreed to do a presentation. This month he will be talking about the just released Ubuntu 8.04. As always I'm sure Jorge will amaze us with a multitude of cool features.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 Branch32737 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.
|
to top
Edit | Attach image or document | Printable version | Raw text | More topic actions
Revisions: | r1.5 | > | r1.4 | > | r1.3 | Total page history | Backlinks
Revisions: | r1.5 | > | r1.4 | > | r1.3 | Total page history | Backlinks