In my talk at last year’s OOoCon, I argued that simple economics would eventually mandate the use of open-source software for commodity applications in corporate organisations (companies, governments, not-for-profits, etc.)

Think of Microsoft Office. No company gains an edge by buying a license to use Office – it’s a commodity input shared by most companies.

Not my words, but from Harvard Business School’s Nicholas G.Carr. Why buy Microsoft Office when OpenOffice.org does the same for free?

However, what’s been missing is a model for corporates to engage in open-source development. A press release today announces the launch of the Collaborative Software Institute, who are aiming to “apply the successful open source software model to essential application development among like-minded IT companies and half the cost of outsourcing” (sic). Their white paper gives more details, and specifically targets financial services companies forced to develop applications to meet mandatory regulatory requirements.

Now things may be different in the US, but from my experience on the other side of the Atlantic, there are far more obvious targets for collaborative development. For example, in the government and quango sector, where there is not only an ethos of co-operation but also much greater cost pressures. However, that’s by the by.

What interests me more is the application of this principle to the real commodity software – such as OpenOffice.org. Currently, OpenOffice.org benefits mightily from support from Sun Microsystems “the founding sponsor and primary contributor”. However, there are many in the OpenOffice.org Community who would feel much more comfortable with a genuinely independent OpenOffice.org Foundation. Proponents argue this would encourage much wider sponsorship and create greater security – Sun Microsystems is not notably successful as a software house.

This topic comes up regularly at OOoCon, but to date has always foundered on the rocks of mutual dislike among the most likely IT industry sponsors (and the overblown egos of some of their representatives). The CSI model offers an interesting possibility of bypassing these usual suspects in the IT industry. CSI could offer a route for corporate customers, governments, etc to guarantee the future of a key piece of their desktops.

The economics of such a Foundation are compelling. Let’s say a dozen large MS-Office users (companies, government agencies…) decided to abandon the MS Empire and convert to OpenOffice.org. By spending just ten percent of their annual licence savings in an OpenOffice.org Foundation run by CSI, they could fund the entire development of OpenOffice.org – and pocket the other ninety percent.

So, CSI, a good idea – but there are even better ideas just a bit further out of the box.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 7:33 pm and is filed under OpenOffice.org. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.