Can open source stop navel gazing and get real?

“We miss the mark on open-source marketing. In fact, it’s often
the case that the very standards we seek to set for the software
world–interoperability, transparency, etc.–are better observed
and delivered by open standards than by open source.

“As a case in point, Red Hat and other open-source companies
(including Alfresco, my employer) routinely advertise “no lock-in”
as a key reason to buy open source. There are two problems with
this marketing pitch: one, it’s only technically true, and two,
customers don’t care, as Redmonk’s Stephen O’Grady recently
noted.

“On the first, it’s true that open source can reduce vendor
lock-in by ensuring that a customer can get support and ongoing
code development from someone other than the original developer of
the software. But this is only trivially true.”

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