Netscape co-founder, Marc Andreessen speaking at the 3rd annual "Open Source in Government" at George Washington University in Washington DC last week, and came up with his personal top twelve reasons for why open source will boom over the next 5-10 years. Too bad they are all wrong, here is my point by point rebuttal. Here they are:
1. "The Internet is powered by open source."
Steve’s Rebuttal: Not true Mark. Microsoft’s IIS server powers the majority of the internet. On the client side Internet Explorer is the dominate client.
2. "The Internet is the carrier for open source."
Steve’s Rebuttal: True, but also it is a carrier for all other types of software, just browse the internet and there are tons of sites selling the stuff.
3. "The Internet is also the platform through which open source is developed."
Steve’s Rebuttal: I prefer my software development teams all in the same room, not scattered around the world in different time zones. I know it is all cool and “new age” to say you want to have a team all spread out around the world, but it is just not at all efficient. All management gurus are on my side, sorry. This was cool in the dot com phase, time for the industry to grow up.
4. "It's simply going to be more secure than proprietary software."
Steve’s Rebuttal: NOT true. See yesterday’s blog.
5. "Open source benefits from anti-American sentiments."
Steve’s Rebuttal: You are a sad and cynical man to say this.
6. "Incentives around open source include the respect of one's peers."
Steve’s Rebuttal: And NOT profit. This ensures that only cool features get built, NOT the mission critical features. Where is incremental backup and replication in postgress. What about transactions and stored procedures missing for so long in MySQL. See my blog here. Sorry Marc, capitalism works, just ask our friends in the USSR.
7. "Open source means standing on the shoulders of giants."
Steve’s Rebuttal: This is so vaigue, I am beginning to think that you are taking yourself way too seriously. My thoughts are that Microsoft, Apple, SUN, SAP, etc are a giants.
8. "Servers have always been expensive and proprietary, but Linux runs on Intel."
Steve’s Rebuttal: As does Microsoft. TCO for Microsoft is much lower than Linux. I have proven this so many times I am sick of doing so. See my New York City Council testimony.
9. "Embedded devices are making greater use of open source."
Steve’s Rebuttal: This is flat out false.
10. "There are an increasing number of companies developing software that aren't software companies."
Steve’s Rebuttal: What are they then, hobbyists? They are not doing QA then? No code reviews? Is the software mission critical? Are they using Linux? And who cares if they are making software then?
11. "Companies are increasingly supporting Linux."
Steve’s Rebuttal: That is grand. They are also supporting Sun and Microsoft and many other technologies.
12. "It's free."
Steve’s Rebuttal: Not true. Linux is NOT FREE. See my New York City Council testimony.