Innovation and Functionality

One of the primary criticisms of OSS over the years is that it is unable to innovate like proprietary software can, and instead merely makes imitation products of already existing proprietary software.  When looking at the “jewels” of open source, this certainly seems to be a valid claim.  Firefox is a web browser modeled on the foundation of Internet Explorer and the Linux operating system was modeled after the already existent Unix operating system.  Likewise OpenOffice.org, another popular open source product, was created solely to be a free replacement for Microsoft Office. 

However, often not taken into account is the late start that OSS got on the big proprietary software companies.  While Microsoft has traditionally been the innovator, it is not just OSS that has imitated their most successful programs.  Just like McDonalds and Burger King constantly try to keep up with each other by putting slightly different spins on the same creations, any popular type of software is going to be imitated by other companies.  While Internet Explorer was the first major web browser, Firefox is not the only one to imitate it; Apple, another proprietary software company, answered with their own web browser, Safari, and Google recently launched Chrome, to name a few major examples.  So it’s unfair to condemn OSS as being purely derivative when the nature of any competitive market is one in which imitation of successful products is a given.

Furthermore, OSS is behind on the production curve, so while OSS lacking innovative capacity may have been a more valid assertion a decade ago, recent trends indicate that this is no longer the case.  For example, Bloomberg Business week ran a story in October of 2005 that talked about Flock and Zimbra, two early innovative OSS companies Business Week.  As it became clear that the OSS model was successful, projects bloomed at an incredible rate.  In November 2003, wired.com ran a story that mentioned the incredible power of innovation that OSS provides Wired.com, specifically mentioning Sourceforge.net, which at the time listed over 65,000 different OSS projects, providing a hub in which anybody can “find and develop open source software,” as it says at the top of their website.  Today it lists over 229,000 projects of all shapes and sizes.

The beauty of open source is in its methodology, which allows users to start and collaborate on any project they wish to accomplish.  Thus, you employ the expertise of a much greater pool of developers with a much greater diversity of needs than proprietary software companies.  Therefore, innovation can be achieved on a much wider and far reaching scale than proprietary software is capable of.  Anybody who has a need for software with a very specific function can achieve their goal best through this vast, collaborative, helpful community of programmers and computer-savvy laymen.  In other words, OSS is best at innovating on a small scale, molding to a vast number of differing consumer needs, as evidenced by the 229,000 different projects listed on just one site.

There is a tradeoff though.  While the vast structureless format that makes up the OSS community is great for generating sheer quantity of software, it is less successful in achieving the same scope that proprietary software does.  The nature of OSS is that it creates patchwork individual projects, even for its biggest projects like Linux and Firefox, because large OSS companies on the scale of Microsoft and Apple are infeasible due to the non-profit oriented business model.  Therefore, because of their top-down unified organization, proprietary software has a twofold advantage when it comes to innovation on a grand scale: they regulate production and they release software only as finished products.  Because they regulate production, they don’t end up with patchwork code, but rather a carefully planned and designed style of coding that allows them to create streamlined, uniform products.  This is why Apple products are so popular: they are easy to use and all have similar user interfaces, meaning even the most technologically illiterate person can learn to use their whole system with little trouble.  Also, their business model allows them to brainstorm, develop, and release their products as part of a long line of similar products.  Thus proprietary software is capable of creating brands, while OSS is really optimal only for creating products.  So while OSS is a tremendous tool for smaller scale innovation, proprietary software will remain the biggest innovator, creating successful products that OSS will continue to imitate.

Related to this difference between brand and product is the issue of functionality.  While Firefox is proof that OSS can create products that are just as functional as proprietary software products, and many have argued that Firefox is in fact the best currently available web browser Allthingsd.com  Furthermore, studies indicate that OSS codes, despite their patchwork nature, are not needlessly complex Jstor.org, and because of their collaborative nature of development often have fewer bugs Wired.com.  However, part of functionality is ease of use, and the simple fact of the matter is that a brand like Apple that creates an entire uniform operating system designed with ease of use in mind is much more functional for the average consumer.  Furthermore, Mac products come intuitively set up and ready to go out of the box, whilst Linux users have a much more interactive experience with their software use, which is a staple of the collaborative nature of OSS, but not ideal for consumers that just want something that works.  So while on the individual level OSS products are just as functional and easy to use as proprietary software products, using an OSS operating system such as Linux means a much more patchwork, interactive, time-consuming experience that requires more expertise and research than the pre-packaged proprietary brand that Apple offers.  Ultimately this is what the consumer is paying the extra money for when subscribing to a brand like Microsoft or Apple, and it comes down to individual consumer preference whether the money spent on ease of use is worth it or not.