When you can't beat 'em, spread FUD about 'em. There must have been a marketing seminar for software companies threatened by open source where they all learned the same FUD tactics. I just stumbled on a post by Carl Grant that deals with 9 common FUD statements/questions regarding open source. His post is aimed at addressing questions left unanswered during a panel session at the American Library Association annual conference. Panel participants were CTO's of proprietary integrated library systems (ILS).

Carl's post does a nice job of addressing some of the common questions about open source. It's unfortunate that they are still common questions though. There are still many who profit from the old, closed software regime. They have yet to figure out how to be part of the movement and so they spread these misconceptions that introduce fear, uncertainty, and doubt that stall change just a little bit longer. Some wise words from Bob Dylan seem appropriate here...

Your old road is Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

For someone who spends a lot of time lending a hand, I'm always interested in helping others understand the open source movement. Reading Carl's post this morning got me thinking about why open source is so often viewed with uncertainty.

Perhaps it's because so many of us who are involved in spreading the message are so enthusiastic about what's happening we talk about it as if it's a revolution. I know that I often refer to the open source or community source movement. In some ways it is a movement, and at times it seems worth recognizing some of the revolutionary ways organizations are working together to produce great software. In many ways, open source is simply an evolution of the way we build great software. For most organizations it's aquired the same way any software is aquired, through a software company. There are some differences worth noting, but they are evolutionary differences more than revolutionary.

Take Sakai, for example. Sakai is a community I'm a part of that develops eLearning software. My company, The rSmart Group, sells the rSmart Sakai CLE commercially. For our clients, acquiring the CLE is like acquiring Blackboard or any other commercial eLearning software. There are some qualitative differences worth noting, but it's fundamentally the same process: They pay Blackboard for their software, they pay us for our CLE; Blackboard installs or hosts their software, we install or host our CLE; Blackboard offers training, integration services, etc., we offer training, integration services, etc.; When there's a problem customers call Blackboard for support, our clients call us for support...

So what's different? Our software costs a lot less. Though the total investment in the Sakai CLE may ultimately exceed the investment Blackboard makes in it's software, that investment is shared among a great number of organizations. Our clients probably pay less than half of what they'd be paying if they used Blackboard. Our software is better. The Sakai CLE is built by and for Education. We employ rigorous engineering practices and source code management practices, and we're producing great software at lightning speed with more than 100 education-focused organizations and institutions around the world. Our service is better. Because our software is open, accessible to anyone in the world. We have to compete on the quality of our service. Whether it's our training, installation, integration, hosting, or support, if our clients aren't happy with our service they have options. Our clients are in control of their own destiny. This just isn't true with Blackboard. Blackboard's clients have the options Blackboard is willing to give. Our software can't be taken away. Our clients are guaranteed access to the CLE forever. It can't be taken away. This is also not true of the proprietary competition. I've been involved in eLearning for about 10 years and have seen many aquisitions. The aquiring company almost always takes one of the options away. Blackboard will certainly have to focus their investment on one platform going forward and that will take software and choices away from thousands of colleges and universities.

So maybe it's time to talk more about evolution than revolution. Though I do think we're doing some revolutionary work as a community.