Strategies for using open source in the Thai software industry

The following is adapted from the slides of a presentation I gave yesterday on how the Thai software industry can benefit from open source. I think a more important problem is how the country as a whole can benefit from open source, but that wasn't what I was asked to talk about. Also note that the objective here is not to help open source but to help the Thai software industry. I think most, if not all of this, is applicable to other countries at a stage of development similar to Thailand's.

Application platform

• Applications need server platform, including
  • OS
  • Database
  • Web server, framework
• Open source server platform is at least as good in quality as proprietary platforms
• Platform does not compete with local software industry
• Using open source on the server does not require users to move away from familiar Windows desktop environment
• Virtualization enables applications built on fully open source application platform to be deployed on Windows
• Trend towards web-based applications, where everything is on the server
• Avoids cost of platform software licenses, according to business model
  • Licensing software: users save cost
  • Appliance, software as a service: producer saves cost
• Licensing issues
  • Software as a service: no issues
  • Licensing software: must keep separation between proprietary and open source parts (no linking)
  • Appliance: must make some parts of source code available to customers
• Mixed strategies also possible (e.g. Oracle on Linux, PHP on Windows)

Development tools

• Traditional strength of open source
• Java-based IDEs (e.g. Eclipse, NetBeans)
  • Written in Java, but support many kinds of development in addition to Java, e.g. C/C++, Web
  • Several companies adopting Eclipse as base (e.g. Nokia)
  • Main advantage compared to Microsoft is no lock-in to Microsoft application platform
  • Cost not the key issue: Microsoft makes development tools available to ISVs at low cost
• Collaboration tools
  • Open source community has evolved exceptionally effective collaboration tools because
    • it is highly distributed
    • it only adopts process to the extent that it actually delivers results
  • Proprietary tools expensive
  • Key tools
    1. Version control (CVS, Subversion, Mercurial)
    2. Issue tracking (Bugzilla, Trac)

Education and professional development

• Participation in open source projects builds skills that universities often fail to teach
  • Communication, especially English language
  • Cooperation
  • Working with large programs
  • Modifying existing programs as opposed to creating new programs
• Opportunity to work with world-class developers
• Helps career of individual developer by building personal brand
  • Opportunity to get work overseas
  • Improves chances of getting into good US graduate school
• Builds highly motivated developers with world-class skills, who wish to pursue technical career
• Useful both at student and professional level
• Should emphasize participation in existing, successful, international projects
• Be highly selective about starting new projects
  • Successful, large open source projects could help build image of sponsor organization or Thailand generally
  • But very difficult to create a really successful, large open source projects
  • Choose area where no open source solution is yet available; opportunities still exist
  • Need to choose projects that can benefit rather than compete with local software industry
• Individuals must choose projects they are passionate about

Embedded software

• Hardware sales provide well-understood business model
• Trend to Linux as OS for embedded systems
  • Increased power of embedded devices
  • Need for strong networking capabilities
• Opportunity for electronics industry to move up the value chain

Fully open source business model

• Product is fully open source
• Possible for small company to achieve large market share because of
  • No licensing cost
  • Contribution of open source community
  • Examples: JBoss, MySQL
• Business model based on support, consulting, training
• Not an easy strategy