August 3rd, 2004
Open source stack wars
Both Red Hat and Novell introduced open source application servers that integrate well with their respective Linux distributions. The companies say that customers are asking for a more integrated software stack–and that’s what IBM, Sun, Microsoft, SAP, BEA and others are offering as a way to capture more business. The question customers should be asking is if an open source, pre-integrated software stack paves the way to a lock-in situation, which is an anathema to the open source community.
My guess is that Red Hat or Novell’s software stack is one part convenience (fewer vendors or integration and service headaches for customers), part practical business reality (the Microsoft economic model of selling you a more mono-culture solution seems to work), and part lock in (swapping out components isn’t as easy as you might be led to believe, despite the fact the code is open source and accessible to all under whatever licensing scheme is applied). The fact is that the notion of muliple choice is useful up to a certain point and the promise of true interoperability among open source components isn’t as easy as getting a new tire for your car. On the other hand, the open source world clearly offers more options today, and hopefully it has learned the less from the fragmentary Unix world…
