How can I best serve you? Open source vs. reality
I’ve been on hiatus, recovering from the deaths of four close family members from sudden illnesses last year, including my sweet father. But I find that I am starting to be able to think about other things again, at least sometimes.
My dad worked at Consumers Union for nearly 40 years, so I am not surprised that I was deeply affected by Eben Moglen’s plenary at this past NTEN NTC in April. In fact, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it since. In his address, he talked about how our current cultural and economic situation has come about, in part, because corporate America has made profit the primary goal. The world would be better run on an open source model, where everyone can see how things are made in the kitchen because it has glass walls. In this world, knowledge is freely shared and freely available. People are not required to purchase knowledge, but will pay what they can for what is most valuable to them.
The open-source vs. proprietary software debate rages on among nonprofit techies. NTEN’s fearless leader, Holly Ross, addressed this recently in a nuanced blog post about the importance of re-framing the debate to be about prioritizing data sharing and collaboration rather than focusing on open source vs. proprietary. The comments her post generated are a great conversation in themselves.
I believe in the moral principles of open source software (summed up nicely in this comment). I minimize the business I do with Apple because I believe that Apple’s main goal is to serve the Apple Corporation. To use their (beautiful) software you need to join their corporate cult, buy their (gorgeous) hardware, depend on their support. I agree with what Moglen has been quoted as saying, that nobody has more contempt for their customers than Steve Jobs.
But I am always wary of any argument framed in black and white terms. I think binary thinking is an evolutionary adaptation, a way for our brains to simplify things so we can take in information quickly. Marketers use binaries as a way to manipulate people and sell them products (clean/dirty, safe/unsafe, etc.). Activists use binaries to motivate you to take action immediately (right/wrong). The fact is, though, that binary thinking erases complexity.
The middle place of complexity and ambivalence is where the truth usually lies, and where most of us dwell. Especially as non-profit techies. It is all well and good to say we will only use open-source software, but what if that gets in the way of serving our mission? Activists will say that we all need to make a change, even if it’s hard, or the culture will never shift. I don’t believe it’s that simple. I believe that change can happen incrementally. And though I run Community Partners‘ site on Drupal, I no longer run my own crashing, spam-infested mail server on my org’s tiny shoestring budget. I now run our org’s email through the free (no ads) Google Apps account that Google gave us. We have the world’s best spam filter and the server (almost) never crashes.
My org is paying for our Google Apps account, of course, just with data instead of dollars. Is that a fair trade-off? Am I entirely comfortable with it? No. But right now, Google Apps, Twitter, Facebook, Groupsite and other proprietary platforms allow me to serve more people for less money and in less time. And that’s why my org is here–to ensure that as many people in Massachusetts get the health care coverage, doctors and medicines they need, when they need it.
So here I am, once again, in that middle-place of compromise. I think many nonprofit techies are here with me. In the long term, I believe in collaboration, data sharing, the principles of open source. I believe in open APIs and open content models. And those beliefs guide my long-term decisions. But in the here and now, my immediate question to the people who need our help must always be, “How can I best serve you?” If your family needs coverage yesterday and the best tool I know to make that happen is via Facebook instead of Drupal, then for the moment, I will have to use it. As non-profit techies, we have to take every situation as it comes, scan for the best existing solution, and then keep re-assessing and looking for more collaborative opportunities, with our eye on our ideals the whole time. This is not easy, but I think it’s the only real way forward.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Johanna – wow. That was beautiful! And you said in a much nicer way some of the stuff I think all the time. I don’t have time for folks who approach open with religious zealotry and call me a hypocrite for using Google/Apple/Microsoft products. I don’t think we can AFFORD to be that narrow minded (even if it is “right”). Let’s just keep pushing for more openness, transparency, and collaboration while we use what works for us, in this moment.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
God this is brilliant–gives me lots to think about, & I will refer many!!
June 30th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Apple succeeds because they bootstrapped off a stable Unix kernel and kept a close lock on both the software and hardware in their systems — vertical integration. I would strongly argue that this is beneficial to Apple customers — far more stable, far less compatibility issues. If their margins are great, then great! It keeps American engineers working for Apple. Apple does almost all of their R&D in the US, which compared to Cisco, IBM(aka India Business Machines ), Microsoft, etc is quite unique. Who exactly makes a living writing free software? To run a business, do you expect to get free rent in an office? Why should software be free?
Apple gets targeted because in order to use their nice software, you must buy their pricey hardware. Turn an eye towards companies like Google, which have long ago cast aside their “dont be evil” mantra, and been giving away “free” software and services in return for signing away your privacy.
July 1st, 2009 at 3:31 am
Tyler, thank you for this–you bring up some really fundamental issues. But I am not talking about *free* software. No, software should not be free. And I am not saying that all proprietary software is evil (see post above), and I agree that signing away your privacy rights for Google is a Faustian bargain (again, see post above). The principles of open source that resonate with me are about collaborative development and community-driven code. The notion that open source software is “free” is a deeply flawed one. Every time I’ve built a site for an org using an open-source CMS, it’s pretty damn expensive, though the costs are more scalable when the *source code* is available for free and I can build on it from there. This scalability is important for the non-profit sector–remember I am talking about what’s possible/best for the nonprofit sector here more than anyone else.
How might an open source model best thrive? Who makes money writing open source software? The business models that come to mind (and there was recently a great blog post about this somewhere by someone I like, and I need to remember where it is and dig it up) are Red Hat Linux. Also my friend Ryan, who runs PICnet software, and Nonprofit Soap Box, which is a SaaS, hosted, customizable Joomla platform. Configuration, customization and services–those are some ways that developers can make money by further developing open-source code. But the code is still available for iterative development by someone else, and that’s what I like.
And good god, the last thing I want is for people to equate open-source with “free.” Oh man, SO not the case! Different kinds of costs, but never, ever free.
April 18th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Very nice article. And I agree with most of it. There is another viewpoint, though, which is that of the small software author (as opposed to Apple or MS, etc.).
As a website software programmer, I have lost some clients because their associates believe they’re getting ripped off by me because I use my own proprietary software instead of an open source platform. These “open-source zealots” are typically people who want their software for free, and worry about the “hit by a bus” scenario, or inevitable website move in the future, when they decide to redo the website.
It is true, I wouldn’t allow my code to run on someone else’s server (I host all my sites), I am however quite attentive to my client’s needs (the capitalist way) and can usually give them exactly what they want pretty quickly. And the code is usually written specifically for their needs in the first place.
Additionally, I find that some webpeople who rely on Drupal or Joomla or other open source platforms don’t really know what they’re doing. If a client has a specific feature wish, their webperson typically says “No, it doesn’t work like that” either because they’re not a programmer, or they’re afraid of leaving the pack. Any custom code would get overwritten by a future update.
Aside from all that, in the end the client pays either way, either by licensing code and hosting it with the author, or paying an hourly or base fee to a webperson to install open source on a server.
I do use open source software as well, including many code and template libraries, but I prefer to use software I’ve written in most cases. I know every line, and can change the software quickly and efficiently, with a full understanding of the ramifications. But that’s just me.
So, that’s the third viewpoint.
See you ’round town.
April 18th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Mik, thank you for posting. I appreciate your viewpoint. Mine is solidly rooted in my 12+ years in nonprofit organizations. Frankly, nonprofit orgs, in most cases, DO need to worry about the “hit by a bus” scenario for a variety of sector-specific reasons, chief among them intermittent funding for technology projects (though this is slowly improving in some ways as tech becomes more integrated with mission work). I cannot think of a scenario where, in good conscience, I could recommend that a nonprofit client go with a small, self-hosted, proprietary platform for that reason, among others.
I hear you on the “open source zealots”. If you read this post as I intended (and other things I’ve written in the past), then you know that I am very much *not* an open-source zealot, nor would I ever say that OS software is free. It’s not free. As you say, the client pays either way. It’s part of the job of a good nonprofit technology consultant to help orgs understand this very clearly.
I understand that you enjoy hosting and modifying software for your clients, but a good programmer can write excellent code for a platform they didn’t write as long as they are well-versed in it. I am all for small-shop developers supporting open-source and proprietary CMS/CRM software when possible, and I believe the Coke/Pepsi argument about open source vs. proprietary is ultimately moving toward open vs. closed APIs. I think the collaboration of many minds working on code can be extremely powerful. I love the innovations and energy that come from community development and open APIs.
As for this statement:
Wow, I’m sorry those are the kinds of developers you’ve encountered. The Drupal and Joomla (and Salesforce and Convio) developers I work with are excellent at what they do and know when something can be customized and when it can’t. Custom code getting overwritten by a future update? That doesn’t have to happen at all, unless you have absolutely no idea how to do things right. I do have clients to whom this has happened when their site was built by a less-than-stellar (usually startup, inexperienced) shop, and it’s a mess to fix. I wish they’d gone to the right development shop in the first place. But that’s always a risk when choosing a vendor, especially if you have limited financial resources and limited staff capacity to properly research your vendors.