All the latest UK technology news, reviews and analysis
|
|
|
10 Nov 2005
Open source will fail to deliver innovation and is more likely to break applications, according to Shai Agassi, president of the product and technology group at SAP.
"We all talk about how great Linux is," he said at a speaking engagement at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley.
"But if you look at the most innovative desktop today, Microsoft's Vista is not copying Linux, it is copying Apple."
Agassi likened open source to the early days of enterprise applications, when organisations went into the software and created many customisations and changes.
When an upgrade was released, those changes would prevent users from switching to the new version because it would break the software. "Open source is great for debugging, but it's crucial not to touch [the code]," said Agassi.
SAP is a supporter of open standards and of building innovation on top of a platform, but wants to limit the openness to added services.
The core SAP application will remain closed, but allow outside developers to interact with it through open standards. If SAP's software did go open source, Agassi claimed that the company would no longer have an incentive to innovate.
"Intellectual property [IP] socialism is the worst that can happen to any IP-based society," he said. "And we are an IP-based society. If there is no way to protect IP, there is no reason to invest in IP."
Many investors are betting that open source enterprise applications are the 'next big thing'. They are investing in start-up companies developing commercial open source enterprise applications such as SugarCRM and CentraView.
Agassi also lashed out at Oracle, its main competitor in the market for enterprise applications, which has acquired PeopleSoft, Retek and Siebel Systems in the past year.
"There are pirates in the market," Agassi said in a reference to Oracle. " There is a big pirate ship that goes around. But we are sailing faster."
Latest stories from Open Source
Related articles
Related jobs
Poll
What is the most important IT priority for your company this year?
Connect with V3.co.uk
This paper focuses on a series of best practices and techniques for development teams looking to improve their software development processes
Why good data management at all levels is essential in the modern business (video, 6mins)
VB.Net Developer - Winforms / ASP.Net / VB6 - Wolverhampton...
Java Developer, Online betting/Gaming, e-commerce, London...
C# Developer - Winforms / SQL - Cannock - My client is...
Middleware Consultant - Java / J2EE/ JBoss / Weblogic...
Keep up to date with the latest products, services and technologies from the world's leading IT companies. IThound.com brings you over 2,000 white papers, case studies and analyst reports.
Do you agree?
Shai Agassi dismisses his own capacity for clear & rational thought
How funny that Shai Agassi praises Apple's OS not knowing that it is based in open source software! The guy has lost all credibility here! As for open source software being "bad" for the industry... firstly, it was invaluable for me as a Computer Science student, not only to have the kind of powerful software I needed but could not afford to buy to do well in my studies but the unsurpassing advantage of being able to examine the code and learn really good software coding techniques. This I think, as a developer WITHIN the software industry now, is of great benefit to the industry as I continue to learn more from participating in the open source community than I could on a dozen expensive training courses. Money saved for the software industry too! Secondly, let's assume it was "bad" for the software industry, it certainly is NOT bad for the software user community. And that is half the problem with companies like SAP and Microsoft: their end goals are primarily their own gains, not the user community (although some may argue these can overlap at points there are several incidents when than they clearly don't). When I switched to primarily using GNU/Linux systems I was, and still am, amazed by the depth and breadth of amazing free and open source software available on the GNU/Linux platform. Communism/socialism? Maybe some sections of the open source community would espouse such political views and there is a wide-range of views held within the community but that has NOTHING to do with open source (ask Sun, IBM, JBoss and many more about that; even Microsoft conceded some of the advantages with its shared source programme). Free and open source software was always at its core about helping out your fellow human beings which, as far as I am currently aware, is not something we in society as a whole have begin to see as something to be reviled. Or perhaps Shai Agassi espouses a brand of Capitalism at it's worst - Big Business first, stuff and mount the rest of us who can't afford it? So although I don't dismiss proprietary software and commercial software development I do get a little crazy when I hear such foolish and ignorant talk coming out of the mouths of people who have some influence and who should really know much better. They should take the time to think things through and find out the facts before opening their mouths.
Posted by: Mark Jones 21 Nov 2005
I hate it when people don't know what they're talking about.
"Intellectual property [IP] socialism is the worst that can happen to any IP-based society," cooperation != socialism. In the commercial sense, here, it's what Ann Raynd refers to as "enlightened self-interest"
Posted by: Gorshkov 20 Nov 2005
IP is IP is IP
The FOSS community is not trying to establish new legislation around IP. In fact, it is using the current IP legislation to achieve their goals. And why not? The code they produce is still their IP and under current IP legislation they can pretty much do with their IP as they see fit. If Agassi claims it is not their right to do so, he obviously wants some other legislation. Well, mr. Agassi, that is quite dictatorial, not to say fascist! All power to the corporate conglomorates of the world! Can we conclude that the current IP legislation is quite "democratic" and we'll compete on business terms from now on instead of empty slogans like this, mr. Agassi?
Posted by: Hans Bezemer 15 Nov 2005
SAP is trying to become next Microsoft
SAP just want to become next microsoft. President said that IP socialism is the worst that can happen and make no room for innovation. Tell him, that read news, there are already countless innovations done in Linux/ Opensource field. I'm afraid to say that even such innvotations are also used in SAP products. Redhat, Novell and now IBM,oracle and manyother. They contributed to Opensource, Lot of innovations done like SE linux and Eclipse and they are also big commercial player. Ok microsft vista is more innovative desktop and it is being copied from Apple. Well just tell the SAP president from where does the Apple OS comes. Doesnt it have base in open Standards. But I will simply say that there are more innovative destops than Vista. Like KDE (www.kde.org). Now tell me what is good. If they will stop Open Source It will stop Innvoation. Restrict it to some billionares like microsoft eating the whole market alone. Monopolies. In fact the worst thing will happen to whole market where only few will do business and rest would be just a duck.
Posted by: Kunal Deo (kunaldeo@gmail.com) 14 Nov 2005
Confusing, isnt it?
Did You Say "Intellectual Property"? It's a Seductive Mirage by Richard M. Stallman It has become fashionable to describe copyright, patents, and trademarks as "intellectual property". This fashion did not arise by accident--the term systematically distorts and confuses these issues, and its use was and is promoted by those who gain from this confusion. Anyone wishing to think clearly about any of these laws would do well to reject the term. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml
Posted by: thebohemian 14 Nov 2005
This guy should check his facts more.
APPLE RUNS ON BSD, MS is copying Apple, such as the TCP stack? Shees catch a clue, the list of inovations bought is about all of them from Microsoft. I think SAP should get out of MS's bed.
Posted by: Bewildered. 11 Nov 2005
Its about time they listened to me
I've been saying all along that Software communism is the worst thing that could ever happen. I take it farther than SAP execs. I believe that software that is for the people and by the people (software communism) will collapse the free market for software. If open source is the end result then software can't be bought or sold. It would have to achieve sponsorship to survive. Software sponsorship means that the sponsor is the controlling factor to the content of the software. That is bad news for all, and it means incompatibility for all. Instead of claiming incompatibilities between OS's you will now have business incompatibilities. Imaging a Wal-Mart version versus a Target version. Nonsense. Wake up you who steal in the name of "open source". I'm absolutely tired of your pirating schemes that drives up the price of the software that I have to purchase, only so that you can say it sucks anyway because Jack the Donkey didn't put his handle on it. Open source is the real black ivory tower in todays world. They position themselves as a grass roots movement but in reality they live in the black ivory tower that is not willing to play in the existing playground, they just want their own new playground to make sandcastles in.
Posted by: Gravy Jones 11 Nov 2005
Wow...
What a SAP this guy is...
Posted by: Some One 11 Nov 2005
Unix, Linux and MacOSX links
Linux is not Unix... arguing that because microsoft is copying Linux because it's copying MacOSX which is based on a Unix (so not Linux) is so silly it's not funny. Anyway, only the lowest core of MacOSX is based on a Mach 3.x micro kernel and a freeBSD subsystem. The freeBSD subsystem actually is not 'under' the actual MacOSX API's in most cases. The elements that make OSX what it is (Quartz Xtreme, Quicktime, Cocoa frame works, CoreAudio, CoreImage, ...) have nothing to do with freeBSD and those are the parts that make up most of the 'innovation' of the OS. Things like a fully compositing based window manager using 3D hardware are firsts in any OS, which are only now being copied by MS for Vista. I'm sure Linux will follow in Vista's footsteps in a few years after it's released. So what Mac users have enjoyed for a few years now, will be available end next year for Windows users and maybe a few years later for Linux users... So who's following who...?
Posted by: Erik 11 Nov 2005
Sibi
Agassi is trying to make it dark by closing his eyes. His approach is not realistic. Foolish thoughts!!!
Posted by: Sibi 11 Nov 2005
yep.. talking about self-service rhetorics
while i do not agree with all of mr. agassi's views, taking his quote re vista, linux, and osx the way some commenters did, is just bs. you _know_ agassi meant the desktop is being copy-cat-ed, not the backend. and yes, you zealots - you know the truth.. linux desktop is nothing to be copied from.. by the time linux front end will catch up with osx, xp, vista, etc. you'll still have 90% "singularity" based desktops.. y'all need to understand - desktop should not be done by developers - it should be done by people who actually understand what computer interaction is for the rest of the crowd - and no.. popping into terminal is not part of it.
Posted by: tsella 11 Nov 2005
Dinosoure
Companies(or people) that can't change will ... - To develop f.ex. software in an open and collobrative environment is a better methodoligy than a closed and non-collobrative one.
Posted by: Bengt Frost 11 Nov 2005
What about SAP and open source
I trust that Shia Agassi will remove Apache and Tomcat from SAP applications that use them. That he will instruct SAP programmers to no longer use Eclipse as an IDE and furthermore to rip out all the Python code in SAP applications. Also to be consistent he must stop supporting SAP on Linux which they currently suppport and recommend. Finally he must insist that SAP stop using SAPDB now MaxDB which SAP themselves open sourced. It is just a lot of FUD that he is spouting as he is scared of competition.
Posted by: chemicalscum 11 Nov 2005
Before he starts bashing open source
Before he starts bashing open source he should look at his product and take special note that much of it is built on open source software. Open source software is so bad yet we use python and other oss modules.
Posted by: jjanks 11 Nov 2005
Mr Agassi is offensive
I give my software to all to use, and I only ask to respect my intellectual property. And this guy says I'm an IP socialist? This is really offensive.
Posted by: Andreas Müller 11 Nov 2005
Vested interest
SAP has a vested interest in the advancement of their own proprietary technnologies. Several years back, SAP actually delivered a version of their Employee Self Service application built on Struts! They then went on to makeup their own version called WebDynpro. Hmmmm no open source innovation there. I love it when the executives make idiotic carte blanche statement. I have spent much of my career helping companies to integrate SAP with Java-based open source tools. How many complaints to date: 0
Posted by: async 11 Nov 2005
Agassi is too young at SAP
... and the head honchos have forgotten how SAP got successful and big. At least that is what I think, having worked at SAP in the nineties. SAP is actually (for the most part) an open source company. Given it is not a "free" open source company. SAP's software has two parts, the core engine (Basis) and Applications. Arguably the "Basis" is not the key to SAP's success, it is the applications. How could they replace more and more parts of the "Basis" with freely available components such as Java. However SAP does give the source code of its applications to every customer . It also trains and supports every customer (for money) to edit and enhance the source code. I think that constitutes limited open source although not free (public) open source. Actually SAP benefit(ed) enormously from this model. Because, customers have often enhanced or tweaked SAP's applications on their own cost and so made case studies and implementations free of charge for SAP. Regularly SAP's customers do beg SAP to take these enhancements and add them to the standard. Because, as Mr. Agassi mentions, it is more costly to maintain them over future releases, then to create them. And what is better for a customer then to push its suppliers products into the direction that is important for oneself? SAP is a good model how opening your source code to your customers can benefit the quality of your product as well as the feature set. It is a cheap way to field test enhancements and communicate with your customer. Does it sometimes lead to support problems? You bet, but it is still an ingenious way of growing your business. Want proof? SAP lived and grew for 15 years in Germany and Europe (US was different), without (WITHOUT) a sales force that made cold calls (or marketing that placed magazine ads, etc.). All their business was word of mouth! I guess Mr. Agassi looks only on the problem side.
Posted by: Kaj Kandler 11 Nov 2005
Does anybody have a link to full text of Shai's speech?
Does anybody have a link or a copy of the full text of Shai Agassi's speech? I'm going to be giving a talk at SoCal Linux Expo in February about open source ERP (http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/speakers/speakers_chen.php), and I'd love to cite some of his comments for discussions. Please email me at sichen AT opensourcestrategies DOT com
Posted by: Si Chen 11 Nov 2005
This is too good to be true
SAP complaining about Open Source software breaking when you try to upgrade? I guess that Shai Agassi has never actually tried to upgrade or install SAP without a team of SAP consultants. You know, there is a reason we call it "Sap All Profits". What a joke.
Posted by: Christopher Parker 11 Nov 2005
Place bets?
Blah Blah Blah. Anyone want to place bets on when SAP executives will do a 180 and embrace Linux? It happens all the time.
Posted by: skeptic 11 Nov 2005
unenlightened self-interest
It could be argued that Science from the age of Newton through to the human Genome Project has been a functional example of "IP Socialism"; but I don't think that's what he means. It's clear that his view of IP is falling prey to the mercantilist fallacy, the idea that there is only so much value to an idea and that capturing that value is a zero-sum game. In my experience, successful open source projects (a tiny minority) act to fully realize the potential value in a particular type of software component, and enable new forms of value creation that would not have been possible otherwise. Of course Agassi's whingeing regarding open source isn't too surprising as SAP's entire business model requires that their software be as obscure and difficult to use and deploy as possible; after all you can't get multimillion dollar cost overruns on deploying Postgres on Linux servers.
Posted by: Larry 11 Nov 2005
GSCE History always taught me
GSCE History always taught me to look at a source of information for bias. My teacher always said, ask questions. Such as: - Why did this person make this statement? - What bias does that person have? - Why does this person have bias? It's pretty obvious that if you can be bothered to spend the time to make such statements then you clearly have an issue with Linux. You are clearly biased against it. Why does this person have bias? Clearly he is trying to say that Linux is not contributing any ideas, rather leaching off of other peoples' ideas. Clearly this guy has his own vested interests in putting other people off of Linux. What could that be exactly? A quick google search for his name reveals.... "SAP and Microsoft aim to drive enhanced efficiency for information workers, who rely on Microsoft Office as their primary work environment." * So it seems that SAP rely on Microsoft for their income... Either directly or indirectly. So it would then seem that Linux is a threat to SAP. Which would explain why an SAP exec is telling people that Linux is bad. It's not really rocket science. Well I am so glad I took History at A level. The skills I learnt make everything so clear. LINK: http://www.sap.com/company/press/press.epx?pressID=4520
Posted by: Andy MSci Physics Student 11 Nov 2005
Shai - We all know how petrified you are!
Sap's problem (hence Shai's problem, the youngest president ver at Sap!): The R/3 Erp system which was essentially written abt 30 years back in a language called ABAP. Its a good system no doubt, but with the limitations of ABAP and the base architecture ... the question is how long will it last? Especially with stuff like Compiere already in the market. And Shai cut the crap about source code. We all know that for the last half decade you guys have been trying to create a J2EE entreprise portal. I say trying because we all know how much crap it is! So forget it, open source is on!!!
Posted by: Arnab Mitra 10 Nov 2005
Agassi Nearly As Confused As Ballmer
I can understand the Great Monopolist, Microsoft, making these comments. They depend on exclusive control over their code to control the market (and the users). The problem with Agassi's statements is that libre software empowers so many capitalistic ventures that one can only wonder how the likes of SAP could miss the boat. Not all of these businesses succeed, but those that are creative and service-oriented generally do well. Libre software licenses offer protection of the software author's code. The author has full control over the code. Users cannot, generally speaking, do *anything* they want. finally, Apple owes much of its innovation to the libre software community. That they choose not to release Mac OS X (which is FreeBSD-powered) under a libre license is a decision they have to live with.
Posted by: DC Parris - The Freely Project (USA) 10 Nov 2005
Doesn't get it
There is no such thing as IP! It's a term used to obfuscate the differences between trademark, copyright and patent protections. No one should be allowed to own an idea. Software is interesting because it bridges the world of ideas and the physical world. It is both idea and implementation. It is also art and a written work. It is all of these things. You want to keep your ideas secret, lock them up with patents and leverage this against your competitors and your users. But I have every right to use my skills and time charitably. And because I am an army of programmers around the world, responding not to marketing but to users real needs, the market will choose me. Good luck fighting the market.
Posted by: Jason 10 Nov 2005
i like this!
"Intellectual property [IP] socialism is the worst that can happen to any IP-based society," he said. "And we are an IP-based society. If there is no way to protect IP, there is no reason to invest in IP." how about for the general good of society...? OH but your right.. in a "IP-based society" if you can;t afford it your out...
Posted by: Pete 10 Nov 2005
Shai Agassi
This guy is an idiot and obviously hasn't done his homework when he argues against OSS in saying it doesn't innovate and in the same breath praises OS X (not by name but sites Apple). Apple has a great product and extremely innovative but where did it much of it come from? OPEN SOURCE you moron!
Posted by: Robert Cole 10 Nov 2005
And WHO did Apple COPY?
The Mac OS X is derived from the community supported project, DARWIN, which was built on a fork of FreeBSD. FreeBSD is a UNIX, just like Linux, with many features interchangable. So, in reality, Apple is copying UNIX (Linux), and Microsoft is copying Apple, so Microsoft is really copying UNIX (Linux). So much for "innovation".
Posted by: GreyGeek 10 Nov 2005
Only a self-serving half story ...
Mr. Agassi didn't carry his anecdote about Vista and Apple far enough. Apple has built on the same UNIX legacy as Linux. This implies that Vista is copying Linux. Oops ... the emperor has no clothes.
Posted by: Steve 10 Nov 2005