Cooperation is a winning strategy in tit-for-tat when a player can't defect (or where it is too costly to defect). I think this situation, having to do with paid support on top of an open-source product is more complicated. (This reminds me of a time when third-party service of copiers was prevented, and there were moves to make it difficult for there to be third-party suppliers of consumables like inks, toners, and even paper too.) There is a nuance here that I don't understand. Namely, what is the value-added of the RHEL subscription, and in what way does Oracle compete by offering its own support subscription? Apart from price competition (there always being pressures to turn support and service into commodities), what is it that provides a meaningful differentiator for subscribers? Also, how does either party achieve market segregation (to prevent churning of subscribers and the inevitable commoditization) unless they are effectively forking the "RHEL" In some way that will ultimately fracture the commons around the (Red Hat) Linux distribution. I also wonder if the way MySQL is supported and licensed and the privileged position Oracle has in that regard is the lever that Red Hat can't defend against. In that case, the hiding of the way that updates to RHEL support subscribers reflect resolved bugs, defect repairs, and improvements seems to be self-defeating. Basically, I don't think we have the full story. - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Samuel Rose Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 07:03 To: P2P Foundation mailing list Subject: Re: [P2P-F] red hat's restriction's On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 8:56 AM, Jack Marxer <[email protected]> wrote:
As I understand what Red Hat is doing, they are not witholding bug fixes. Instead they are simply packaging multiple bug fixes together and offering that update to their customers (for money) and to anyone else who can get it from a customer (for free or otherwise). The difference in their current behavior, again as I understand it, is that they don't delineate to persons or companies who are not their clients exactly what bug fixes are included in the update. This makes it more difficult for Oracle to make money from Red Hat's efforts to improve the GPL-licensed software and is in complete accord with the GPL license terms. Oracle seems to be the party at fault here by trying to make money from the efforts of the community and Red Hat without contributing back.
Oracle's recent actions with regard to OpenOffice seem to demonstrate that they are not interested in collaborating with free software communities.
What do you think?
I think that even though these companies maintain their respective attitudes/cultures with regards to F/LOSS communities, that they are going against the grain of the "game" they are in. In complex systems science terms: There is only one known winning scenario to the "tragedy of the commons", and it is when agents in the system "recognize" the "game" they are playing. If agents can understand that survival, or "winning" means cooperative governance of a finite resource, they operate in a way that does not over-use the resource, and all of their participation may be dynamically sustained over time. If they compete to over-use the system, eventually most or even up to all will die. The problem with the game as it is being played now by Redhat and Oracle is that it is a "tit for tat" game in the "commons". One move to hoard resources and keep them from competitors will likely spark a series of counter moves by competitors to hoard what has not yet been hoarded (if not right away, then eventually). The "players" come to believe they are in a "tit for tat" game. This is not just Red Hat's fault here. Oracle made the first moves, at least in the eyes of Red Hat, and Red Hat says as much in their press release (without naming names). The irony is that *even* in a "tit for tat" game, cooperation is the winning strategy.
Jack Marxer
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