[P2P-F] red hat's restriction's

Wed Mar 9 20:28:49 CET 2011

I don't disagree that the companies are playing the wrong game.  I have no issue with that observation at all.

My comment about the prisoner's dilemma and tit-for-tat (the full context of where cooperation is a winning strategy) is independent of the rest of my remarks, which are based on the public statements that this thread has been based on.  I was not responding to anything specific in Sam's analysis.  

On reflection, I am not clear in what way the moves by Oracle and Red Hat constitute a game of tit-for-tat.  This is not like suspension of nuclear-weapons testing or deployment of ICBMs.  What is the 'this' in "I'll stop/start this and continue so long as you stop/start this too?" Is there even an implicit offer?  Is there even a status quo ante that has any mutually-beneficial value for the commercial adversaries to return to?

 - - - - - - - 
Here's more of how I am baffled apart from the tit-for-tat aspect.  

Since the source code is always disclosed and freely-available for a legitimate GPL distribution, anyone can find out what was changed, even if they may not know why.  (I presume that obscuring reasons in the source code is a self-defeating move.)

So, while there may be a short-term advantage in obscurity, at some point it all nets out.  While there may be some advantage in obtaining fixes from one source or another, or providing fixes better than a competitor, even though there is no obligation to directly contribute them back to any sort of community code base, they become visible and reusable and at some point it all nets out.

I still don't believe that we have the full picture and it seems to me that the parties are dissembling about what is going on.  While Red Hat may have simply never considered that a competitor would enter, I don't see how anyone can expect there to be a barrier to entry and to eventual commoditization of commercial support services for significant open-source distributions.

It seems to me that beyond the convenience and economy, the benefit of these support subscriptions is also related to some sort of risk mitigation for the subscribers.  Is some of it effectively a premium  around the safety of relying on the RHEL distribution?  Is there some aspect of indemnification incorporated in the support assurance?

 - Dennis

PS: The Oracle OpenOffice maneuver is more complicated.  Oracle has all rights over their use of the OpenOffice.org distribution by virtue of the contributor agreements they (and Sun) obtained.  This means Oracle can dual-(or multi-) license OpenOffice.org code and they can also incorporate proprietary components that are not included in the open-source version and make completely-proprietary distributions, for that matter.  In short, they (and any private licensees) are not themselves limited by the LGPL license under which OpenOffice.org is offered.   There were always support subscriptions from Sun, for its proprietary Star Office variant, and now for Oracle OpenOffice.  We'll see how that goes and, indeed, whether there is an indemnification factor.
    Here the competitive entry is an open-source pure-play (Libre Office and The Document Foundation) that can use any of the OpenOffice.org open-source-licensed code and develop it further independent of Oracle (and any private licensees), evidently without consequence.    My view of this asymmetrical situation is that the open-source contributor community has defected to an equal-footing arrangement where support and ongoing development is a shared, mutual effort, effectively isolating the Oracle-constrained OpenOffice.org.   It's as if the commons was moved, with OpenOffice.org left in the corral.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next two years.

-----Original Message-----
From: Samuel Rose [mailto:samuel.rose at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2011 08:37
To: dennis.hamilton at acm.org; P2P Foundation mailing list
Subject: Re: [P2P-F] red hat's restriction's

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamilton at acm.org> wrote:
> 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.)
>

I think you are focusing in only on part of what I actually said, but that's ok because I am pretty confident most others here will get what my actual argument was as I wrote it (that these companies are playing the WRONG GAME)

> 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?
>

It is simple, Red Hat releases the source code and patches all in one shot, and doesn't tell anyone who doesn't pay them WHY they did it.
This is a move to prevent Oracle and other competitors from offering support for RHEL brand Linux (in addition to their rebadged Linux) enabled by the free info that RH shares when they release patches.
This is a tit for tat move in a commons environment

> 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?

See above

> 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.
>

It turns out that I do.
>  - Dennis
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: p2p-foundation-bounces at lists.ourproject.org 
> [mailto:p2p-foundation-bounces at lists.ourproject.org] 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 <jmarxer at gmail.com> 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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Sam Rose
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"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan