DISQUS

I guess I didn't manage to convey my thoughts very well in my post. To me open source software is an entirely different way to approach problem solving from traditional software. More like a communal potluck versus a restaurant. To put it in the context of Predictably Irrational, it is governed by social norms and not market norms.

As you state "The difference between the open core and open source models may be vast if you’re inside the open source world, but it’s not significant if you’re outside it." That's the problem. Instead of being able to position open source as a totally new way of doing things, it keeps being brought back into the framework of commercial software. Thus open source solutions get judged in terms of the old software paradigm, and in many cases can be found lacking as it is very difficult to convey the benefits of open source software along the lines of features and licensing costs.

My hope is that the market can be educated as to the difference, which will be the first step in driving a greater understanding and adoption of free and open software.

I have yet to visit Turkey. The closest I've come is Damascus, but we had an OpenNMS community member send us some postcards from Turkey and it looks beautiful. I'm writing this from a hotel room in Australia, and you are usually in Switzerland, yet through technology we can still have this conversation.

I think that's downright cool.

Wow. This is a pretty accurate summation of the situation, and done well without any of my usual bias. (grin).

There is a huge difference between what OpenNMS attempts and the hybrid open source models. To choose an easy target, Microsoft publishes a lot of code under OSI approved licenses, but no one thinks of Microsoft as an open source company. Enterprises are tired of paying high per node prices for proprietary software licenses, be they fully closed or partially open, and in the long run the free and open solution will win. This doesn't mean that a hybrid company can't make money or provide a decent solution, but without a totally free and open application there is little difference between a partially-GPL'd application and a proprietary application with a decent API. Of course, you can always "fork" a GPL'd application, but when the vast majority of the code is controlled within the corporate sponsor, the chance of that happening is slim (although Red Hat's fork of the Hyperic agent is one example of what can happen).

At OpenNMS we do aspire to greater things, but since we run the commercial side as a profitable company it is taking time to build the business versus those companies with millions in VC. Our view is much more long term, whereas VC-backed firms are looking at a 5 year window. I think Groundwork provides an interesting case study. They've been around the longest of the hybrid management firms and they have raised about as much money as Hyperic and Zenoss combined. Yet they haven't really done as well as one might expect, and with the recent departure of Ranga (the CEO) they must be trying to figure out how to change that. It will be interesting to see how Hyperic and Zenoss avoid the same fate.

We don't see much competition from AdventNet, but we lost a number of opportunities to SolarWinds in the past. We have recently won several, so perhaps that is changing.

Our goal is for OpenNMS to become as powerful a framework as OpenView or Tivoli, with more agility and, of course, considerably less cost. Thus we focus mainly on scalability and flexibility, often at the expense of ease of use. As a services company, we want the most powerful tool, and our knowledge of how to best use that tool drives the services business. Most of our commercial customers are large enterprises and carriers who are looking at a spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (and more) on commercial frameworks. Our smaller users don't tend to buy support (although it does happen).

My point is that Solarwinds will probably be more successful than the hybrid companies because, as you state, they have "nicely packaged, easy to use products with often lower prices than the open source companies". What's Up Gold is considerably less expensive that the cheapest OpenNMS support contract, so if it works for you, great. Solarwinds is a well run software company that doesn't muddy the water with and open vs. closed version. It's easier for people to understand and to buy.

However, the larger you get the more custom your management needs become. Prepackaged solutions don't fit, and thus you need something more flexible. That's the niche we at OpenNMS are aiming for.

Anyway, sorry to ramble. Great post.