24 April 2008 - 12:03am, Alistair Croll (not verified) said:
Good points all. I've had a few people voice their concerns that not providing source means you can't inspect a service provider and be sure you're complying with things -- which seems legit, but makes me wonder if we need a way to prove that in fact what they showed you is what they're running.
I do think that we're going to see a switch from the Open Source torch to two new ones, however: Data portability and Open Services.
In the former case, it's going to be a question of whether I can move my data, metadata, and even business logic from one provider to another (say, Salesforce to SugarCRM.)
In the latter, it's going to be a question of whether there's a level playing field for services. Put another way, StarOffice/OpenOffice keeps Microsoft (relatively) honest; there's a price point at which people would simply switch to something cheaper and nearly as good. But there's no equivalent for services such as mapping, currency conversion, and so on. So I suspect we'll see a movement of open services to try and keep the playing field relatively level.
Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh ;-)
Good points all. I've had a few people voice their concerns that not providing source means you can't inspect a service provider and be sure you're complying with things -- which seems legit, but makes me wonder if we need a way to prove that in fact what they showed you is what they're running.
I do think that we're going to see a switch from the Open Source torch to two new ones, however: Data portability and Open Services.
In the former case, it's going to be a question of whether I can move my data, metadata, and even business logic from one provider to another (say, Salesforce to SugarCRM.)
In the latter, it's going to be a question of whether there's a level playing field for services. Put another way, StarOffice/OpenOffice keeps Microsoft (relatively) honest; there's a price point at which people would simply switch to something cheaper and nearly as good. But there's no equivalent for services such as mapping, currency conversion, and so on. So I suspect we'll see a movement of open services to try and keep the playing field relatively level.
Thanks for the feedback!