Thanks for the feedback! You make a good point, and I think it can be well-addressed by several elements that already exist:
First, and for me, most important, is customer service. Open Source has been way behind in this, but there's an obvious and easy solution: the third-party support network (like some of what Red Hat does). Things like Stack Overflow need to be formalized into infrastructure (i.e., vendor-independent services) that offer users the opportunity to make a living as experts answering questions. Again, this reflects the new level of economic democratization demonstrated already by other latent-supply businesses like Uber, et al. (To be clear, a "latent supply service" takes normal people with extra assets, like cars, time and knowledge, and gives them an opportunity to turn those assets into immediate income.) As for marketing, I'm still mashing this around a bit. Most interesting to me is that in a future where everything is open, "marketing" would serve to unify products, rather than divide them. In other words, you wouldn't have GnuCash vs Quickbooks -- you would GnuCash AND Quickbooks, each providing a unique interface over a common, standardized data storage mechanism for extended business data, of which financial data is a part. This would allow users with different personalities to use whatever program (i.e., interface) they want without having to force other users to use the same. That is, it would eliminate the classic "Asana vs Basecamp", "Quickbooks vs Quicken", "MS vs Libre", "Google vs Dropbox", etc. Because collaboration infrastructure would provide very low barriers to standardization and because culture would provide high pressure to comply (already indicated by the Convergence of the Web Browsers and the availability of APIs on paid services like the above), a world where programs are siblings (i.e., interchangeable units) in a "functionality hierarchy" seems perfectly conceivable to me. This is effectively like "programming the real world": You take standard OOP patterns and principles like inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism and composition and apply them to organizations like businesses, government, nonprofits, unions, etc.... Each "class" (i.e., organization) becomes increasingly specific (single-responsibility principle), the elements of the system become more interdependent, and the sharing of common knowledge resources among organizations of the same essential category allows organizations to effectively "inherit" from and "compose" with others. Maybe I'm going a little crazy here :), but programs are the purest representation of ideal systems that we have, and it makes a lot of sense that humans would be evolving to more tightly mimic ideal systems design. The result of this evolution would be greater group cohesion, fewer resources wasted in conflicts, and greater efficiency in converting resources to benefit -- i.e., greater success for the human race (and arguably, eventual disaster for the planet). As a final note, I agree, products like LibreOffice desperately need investment, and not just in the specific program components that make it work. All of what it needs -- the marketing, documentation, customer service, etc. -- can be funded through a service like BountySource (well, BountySource in 5 years when it's really useful). At the end of the day, the user has to pay one way or another -- we just need to connect those dots, and that's not that hard. Kael On 08/01/2016 11:49 AM, [email protected] wrote: > *Gentlemen, > If you believe that the future of Open Source should be in the > application area, your example of using a small portion of Quick Books > revenue to improve an Open Source product are missing the entire > process of having users.... Commercialization, advertising, Customer > service, documentation, help systems... at the end of the entire > process is the technical product (program). The technically most > important part of a product, is almost the least important part of > bringing a solution to the real world. Try looking at the almost > non-existent market penetration of Libre Office / Open Office is due > to the price, FREE, means nobody telling me why I want to use the > product, nobody telling me the product exists (NO advertising), no > training seminars for VARS, no product co-commissions = NO REASON I > SHOULD Hustle my users into the product. I will get to service the > product and get nothing for recommending it. > > John A. Ward > > * > > > > > -----Original Message----- > *From:* [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* Thursday, July 28, 2016 09:00 AM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Osdc-list Digest, Vol 71, Issue 5 > > Send Osdc-list mailing list submissions to [email protected] To > subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/osdc-list or, via email, > send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] You can reach the person managing the > list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your > Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of > Osdc-list digest..." Today's Topics: 1. DRAFT: Manifesto for an > Open Future (Kael Shipman) 2. Re: DRAFT: Manifesto for an Open > Future (Bryan Behrenshausen) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Message: 1 Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 21:28:32 -0500 From: Kael > Shipman To: OSDC List Subject: [Osdc-list] DRAFT: Manifesto for an > Open Future Message-ID: > <[email protected]> Content-Type: > text/plain; charset=utf-8 Hey all! I've been playing with a > project for the last few weeks and I'm at a point where I'd really > love some feedback and/or help on it. As the subject implies, it's > a manifesto that attempts to describe what the Open Future might > look like. I'm creating it as a way to inspire a shared vision to > use throughout the community as we develop technologies, software, > protocols and business ideas. My dream is that once it's done > (i.e., once we've managed to put it through the wringer as a > community and come out with a document we can all more or less > agree on, if that's possible), I can use it to guide the work that > I do now and into the future, and perhaps others might find it > useful for that as well. For example, when I look for jobs, I can > look for companies that represent an opportunity for me to build a > small piece of the open future, or when I look for education, I > can look to cultivate skills that will better allow me to > contribute to it. The manifesto itself is an attempt to provide > three elements: 1) convincing evidence that an open future is > inevitable; 2) an image of what it might look like and how it > might work; and 3) a set of concrete steps we can take now to > hasten its arrival, including building certain pieces of > infrastructure. I'm writing it in response to the frustration that > I've felt in trying to drive open principles forward today. Many > of these principles don't quite work yet because, personally, I > don't believe we have realized quite where we're going with it > all, or just how much infrastructure we'll need to get there. Just > as a basic example, Quickbooks Online now pulls in $30,000,000 > every month. If even 1/10th of the customers who pay for > Quickbooks online instead put a single QBO payment into GNUCash > instead, we'd have a product far better than Quickbooks, and the > whole world would benefit from it -- not just those who paid. The > ROI on this proposition is obvious enough that even a child could > grasp the implications -- yet we don't have systems in place to > leverage it. The action item, then, is to fortify our systems for > linking payments to features (BountySource is an open-source start > to that, but has a long way to go), and to start getting > progressive businesses (probably starting with the ones we work > at) to redirect their software budgets to open-source projects. > There are a number of other concrete things like this that we can > do to start moving in the direction of the Open Future, and I > think having a manifesto in hand that helps us remember what that > future looks like and what we can do to encourage it would be > extremely useful. So, without further ado, here is the unfinished > draft so far: > > https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kael-shipman/Manifesto-for-an-Open-Future/master/Manifesto%20for%20an%20Open%20Future.fodt > (you'll have to download it and open it in LibreOffice) And here's > the full github repo: > https://github.com/kael-shipman/Manifesto-for-an-Open-Future I > look forward to hearing what people have to say! If anyone wants > to help, please do shoot me a line. The irony of drafting a > document like this alone is far from lost on me ;). Thanks for > your time, Kael ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: > Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:32:42 -0400 From: Bryan Behrenshausen To: > [email protected] Subject: Re: [Osdc-list] DRAFT: Manifesto for > an Open Future Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Hi Kael, Neat! I > look forward to reading and exploring this. Openness needs more > manifestos, for sure. In that vein, you might also consider > checking out Robert David Steele's similarly-titled project: > > http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12998524-the-open-source-everything-manifesto > Bryan ------------------------------ > _______________________________________________ Sign-up for our > weekly newsletter: http://opensource.com/email-newsletter > Osdc-list mailing list [email protected] > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/osdc-list End of Osdc-list > Digest, Vol 71, Issue 5 **************************************** > > > > _______________________________________________ > Osdc-list mailing list | This is a place for our readers, writers, moderators > and artists to discuss matters concerning Opensource.com and otherwise do the > work that makes this a community practicing the open source way. > > Sign-up for our weekly newsletter: http://opensource.com/email-newsletter > > Send a message: [email protected] > Change preferences: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/osdc-list > Unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/options/osdc-list
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