This post from Matt Asay on whether open source needs consolidation asks an interesting question, and some of the comments that came in on it were interesting. This comment caught my eye: "No. Open source does not need consolidation. Open source needs product managers." Product managers, of course, drive improvements in commercial and proprietary software products, and listen carefully to what businesses need. At the end of our recent interview with Sun Microsystems' Ken Drachnik, regarding Sun's GlassFish app server, he also called for business synergy to advance open source projects. Here are three ways that open source projects can benefit from a bit of Business 101.
Business Advisors. Open source software reseller and consultancy firm Sirius just announced that it is seeking to convert new customers with a free online advisory service focused on driving open source adoption. Its eyes are squarely on the sagging economy with this move.
Of course, there are VARs and consultants who do advise businesses on open source adoption, but centralized, well-known and respected organizations could win more respect for open source from businesses. Consider CDW, for example. It is sort of an uber-VAR, teeming with technology experts in many proprietary categories, and they go out and advise businesses of all sizes on technology to adopt. Open source could use its own CDW.
Does Open Source Need Product Managers? Much of my life has been spent meeting with product managers who drive improvements in proprietary software products. A single, good product manager can have an enormous impact on business users. In this post, I discussed Chris Peters, who was the product manager for Microsoft Excel before Microsoft Office existed, and before Windows succeeded.
Chris was largely a one-man band who wasn't going to stand Lotus' domination of the spreadsheet market. He listened carefully to what businesses wanted, and drove rapid-fire improvements in Excel. His success as product manager of that spreadsheet had a great deal to do with how Microsoft put Office in more than 90 percent of desktops. Open source could use some product managers like that.
A Community Fund. This idea comes from Joe Brockmeier's great post on what Linux needs. There, he said: "Lots of major players contribute a great deal of money to open source, usually in ways that are strategic to the companies themselves. This works out great for the Linux and FOSS community in general, but what's lacking is a general fund for development and nurturing of projects that don't fit under the wing of any vendors in the open source industry." It would be great to see some patrons emerge to back open source projects that don't have commercial companies to support them, and there are many other models for encouraging community funding.
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