Open source activism quotes many different circumstances in support of the concept but, fundamentally, the activism is about one thing - gaining government assistance to compete against successful commercial software developers for the lucrative 600 million computer mass market. Linux has only about 1 percent of that mass market, according to access logs for search site Google. (Google, 2003)
Although political supporters of open source think they're attacking evil multinationals, open source is now part of a $1 billion operation by IBM and others who are using it to undermine Microsoft in lucrative government accounts. IBM's true motives are revealed in the fact that, while it promotes open source in Microsoft markets, it keeps its own expensive software products proprietary in other markets that it owns. These include its expensive WebSphere application server and AIX Unix operating system. (Lyons, 2004)
Computer sellers such as HP and Sun use open source as a way to depress software prices and thus expand the markets for their expensive computers.
Australia and Australians will not win from these battles. Our future lies in software and IP rather than making computers, and so our interests are actually the opposite of those advocated by the open source movement. The end game of open source would be a nation of low-skill box installers without any valuable IP, competing against multinational outsourcers on price alone.
Many of the contexts that open source activism cite as support for its cause are not really relevant. For example, scientists and academics share source code because it's not central to their jobs or work. That type of software is technical and rough. It's quite different from the highly engineered products that business and home users demand.
Technical users and server administrators install and use public software because sometimes it does the job well, as with the Apache server and, in other cases, it's easy for them to work around the limitations. Again, that is a different from the mass market for consumers and business users.
Similarly, there are vast amounts of source code available to students and professionals for learning. There is no need to demand that successful software developers disclose their technology simply to facilitate training. It's a foolish demand, and it's inconsistent. There are no demands for Intel and other chip makers to provide the diagrams for their circuits, or for car makers to provide the engineering drawings for their cars.
I discuss these issues further in a paper for the US public policy research institution, the Institute for Policy Innovation. (Healy, 2004)
There are two different meanings to open source, although open source activism refrains from distinguishing between them. One is for people and government to use public software such as Linux in preference to commercial software. This doesn't directly effect the Australian software industry one way or the other, although Linux is a less polished platform for commercial developers to target, and widespread usage would probably reduce the amount of third party software development. This directly contradicts the claims and beliefs of political backers of open source.
The second meaning is that commercial firms, including successful Australian firms, should disclose their technology to rivals by exposing their source code. This would kill those companies. In this sense, open source is really an anti-industry, and one of its consequences would be increased dependence on government and university funding for software, which would effectively represent a subsidy to big business.
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"Open Source is bad for Australia" is such a blanket statement that I would have to disagree.
The author makes valid points about GPL on occasions hindering, rather than enhancing business, but GPL is not the only Open Source model. GPL is often used with the attitude "I am not making any money out of publishing this code, so why should anyone else." Unfortunately, R&D investment can not be warranted "commercially" on a GPL system, because the entity spending the money does not get any benefit (except knowing they might make the world a better place).
There are also instances where Open Source would be detrimental to commercial interests in Australia. But Open Source often brings benefits, which is why I disagree. One of the problems with proprietary source code is that if the particular vendor goes bankrupt, or a relationship sours with a vendor, your data is effectively held hostage (Most of the time, you can not simply port to another vendor's package). Whilst open source doesn't guarentee flexibility (there may be binding contracts even in open source), in my view you are certainly more secure.
Secondly, many open source products are free. This is not co-incidental, but a consequence of GPL and alike. In fact, this is one of the factors hinted at in the article. I would like to suggest that Open Source classes, databases, languages, APIs and alike can significantly reduce development time. Most open source products have public documentation, so they don't need to be re-documented. Furthermore, not having to pay license fees can assist a software company to be more profitable.
Thirdly, on following on from point two, cheaper development costs inevitably lead to more competitive markets and cheaper prices to the end user. This makes software more accessable to Australians.