I am a big Matt Asay fan. Have been for years.
I have admired his ability to both write and be a player in the open source power game, from Alfresco to Ubuntu and now at Strobe, a start-up he joined last year.
He's not everyone's cup of caffeine-free Diet Coke. (He lives in Utah.) There is an inherent conflict of interest in being part of a company within an industry and trying to comment objectively about that industry. But the perspective of a playa is unique, and if you can write well I'm going to read you.
That said, he's either playing a game on readers or backing up the wahmbulance (losing himself in self-pity) with his latest at The Register, complaining that open source apps may be dead on mobile.
His complaint seems to be that people are happy to pay 99 cents for something really good (even if it's proprietary) rather than take the open source alternative free. He also complains that Microsoft and Apple, as proprietary companies, keep down open source apps.
I suspect he's being a bit disingenuous because, as the early release of Strobe's Web site shows, the company he is now with is trying to build a bridge between native and Web apps. It's trying to make apps more agnostic, more cloud-like. Like you don't have to worry about how they're written, or where their owner lives online, just get 'em.
Another reason for suspecting a double game here is that Black Duck's KnowledgeBase (the gold standard for such things) shows 1,716 FOSS projects started for Android (a Linux) last year, which however you consider things is a big number.
Here's the money quote from Black Duck EVP Peter Vescuso:
“Mobile software has the full and focused attention of commercial and FOSS development communities. As mobile apps displace desktop applications and mobile devices displace laptops and desktops we expect to see broad commercial developer interest in the top mobile development platforms, as well as consolidation in the number of platforms that draw developer support.”
In other words, both mobile and open source are happening. This is a hot market.
Which is just what Strobe obviously believes or they wouldn't be in it.
It's a common trick of the writing game to build straw men, making them appear big and scary one day, knocking them down the next. But when you have a dog in the fight — when the answer to the "big and scary" turns out to be something you're selling — then what you're writing crosses the line from journalism to advertorial.
I have no doubt about two things.
- A 99 cent price is perfectly acceptable to many people — before open source such low prices were unheard-of.
- There is a price lower than free. There's the cost of getting you to use the thing, which is part development and part marketing. I've been saying this for years. And the hurdle for a low price (as opposed to free) is lower than that for a higher price.
Apps are very simple programs right now. They can be developed by a single person or a very small team. The mobile operating systems apps are built to are also fairly simple, from a developer's perspective.
We're at the same place in time that PCs were 30 years ago, when it comes to apps. But I know, from seeing this development movie again-and-again-and-again, that this is going to change. Apps are going to become more complex. Operating systems are going to become more complex. Teams are going to have to get larger, development times longer.
As that happens, the advantages of open source will grow. Open source provides shared infrastructure. As things get more complex the value of shared infrastructure increases. We depend on it to maintain a free market.
Consider the analogy of commerce. The Interstate Highways and large commercial airports were started at a time when traffic within cities was fairly modest. They were meant as a fast way to move troops across the country in time of war. Now both are jammed. Commerce needs that infrastructure badly — without it we couldn't function.
But open source doesn't jam up like that. Open source grows to meet the needs of its developers, in ways Interstates can't.
Open source will be fine.
What Matt has noticed is a lack of freedom offered by Microsoft, Apple and phone carriers. Nokia was on the right track with their Debian derivative OS for cell phones and tablets, which could leverage the entire free software library as well as offer a cheesy “app store” to developers interested in such things. Without freedom on cell phones, there will be no “Open Source” apps. The incumbents are more interested in control than they are in what people want.
It is not surprising to see the phone companies hate and reject software freedom. These are companies that fought every step of the internet from refusing to develop the concept in the 50’s to refusing to allow people to hook up 900 baud modems in the 70s to their ongoing refusal to roll out the modern infrastructure that the people have paid for for decades. They still cling to their obsolete central services network model. Their ownership of spectrum is the result of a corrupt and greedy auction system rather than technical necessity. Until the FCC wises up to Open Spectrum, these companies have a pinch point to screw the rest of us.
Both Apple and Microsoft enjoy that pinch point. They know that people are so eager for mobile network access that they are willing to accept greater restrictions. This is why their mobile platforms are even less free than the junk they stick on x86 desktops. Don’t expect them to change anytime soon. These platforms will be filled with obnoxious restrictions for developers and users alike.
The route around this damage is coming from competitors like Virgin that are offering cell phone modems as USB devices. These can be plugged into or built into free software computers, including netbooks and palmtops that can in turn use Skype and other VOIP. It will be on that kind of free platform that we will see more exciting “app” development.
What Matt has noticed is a lack of freedom offered by Microsoft, Apple and phone carriers. Nokia was on the right track with their Debian derivative OS for cell phones and tablets, which could leverage the entire free software library as well as offer a cheesy “app store” to developers interested in such things. Without freedom on cell phones, there will be no “Open Source” apps. The incumbents are more interested in control than they are in what people want.
It is not surprising to see the phone companies hate and reject software freedom. These are companies that fought every step of the internet from refusing to develop the concept in the 50’s to refusing to allow people to hook up 900 baud modems in the 70s to their ongoing refusal to roll out the modern infrastructure that the people have paid for for decades. They still cling to their obsolete central services network model. Their ownership of spectrum is the result of a corrupt and greedy auction system rather than technical necessity. Until the FCC wises up to Open Spectrum, these companies have a pinch point to screw the rest of us.
Both Apple and Microsoft enjoy that pinch point. They know that people are so eager for mobile network access that they are willing to accept greater restrictions. This is why their mobile platforms are even less free than the junk they stick on x86 desktops. Don’t expect them to change anytime soon. These platforms will be filled with obnoxious restrictions for developers and users alike.
The route around this damage is coming from competitors like Virgin that are offering cell phone modems as USB devices. These can be plugged into or built into free software computers, including netbooks and palmtops that can in turn use Skype and other VOIP. It will be on that kind of free platform that we will see more exciting “app” development.