Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco, is one of the industry’s big thinkers, complete with a profile in Esquire. So why would a smart guy like him dismiss open source as “fool’s gold”? And why do some software vendors believe they can justify “FRAND terms” on software standards and permit patented capabilities to be inserted into software standards?
These anachronisms and more arise from the “price frame” surrounding open source software. A result of misunderstanding the meaning of the word “free” in “free software,” the price frame has been the Rosetta Stone for decoding open source for the past decade. But that’s ending, now that we’re able to see the true power of open source in ecosystems like OpenStack, where the price of a license is barely relevant.