| On 08.08.09, In Uncategorized, by Anup |
I just hit back home after a thundering grand finale of Open Software Challenge Nepal (OSCN) 2009. OSCN 2009 had started back in December 12th of 2008 and it ran for almost 8 months before culminating tonight amidst hundreds of supporters of open source software. OSCN 2009, in its entirety, was fully supported by Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) Nepal. For more detail on OSCN, please click here.
Being a member of the organizing committee, my hands were full today. But it really was a treat to be amongst the true geniuses coming out, from different nooks and corners of Nepal, with a common goal – “to promote open source aesthetics and philosophy”. The event was big and some great softwares were demoed in front of esteemed judges and media. To see software movement take such big strides and moreover watching that happen in front of my eyes, was the moment of bliss for me. But if there were any two takeaways for me from the event, they would be the following.
a. Speech by Dr. Rudra Pandey, COO, Verisk Health Inc., USA
b. Speech by Mr. Shashidhar Ram Joshi, HOD, Computer Science & Electronics, Institute of Engineering
Rudra, in his short speech, exemplified the very notion of open source philosophy by way of an example of a pickle bottle. If the maker of pickle shares the recipe and explains how to make that pickle then that is the open source philosophy. On the other hand, if the maker keeps every information with him and only provides the packet/bottle of pickle to the end users, he is basically NOT following the open source philosophy. With this simple example, he really explained the open source notion. In addition to this, his explanation on how utilization of Other Person’s Free Time (OPFT) is helping the open source movement was impressive to say the least.
On the other hand, Shashidhar struck me with his following statement.
We will now never have another Bill Gates in the future!!
Bill Gates
Absurd it may sound but he gracefully explained his statement. Due to the advent of open source softwares and freewares, the software industry is now more focused to fostering and developing open source softwares like MySQL, Linux, PoMMo, DimDim, OpenOffice, Apache, PHP, Firefox and what have you. With such plethora of softwares in the offing and engineers engaged in developing open software like never before, will there ever be an opportunity for someone to come up with gamut of softwares like that from Microsoft? Or in other words, will future ever make way for another Bill Gates? IMHO, I doubt it.
In the last decade, the open source movement has taken this world by a storm. Rising inflation, pressure to reduce cost, pride of competing with proprietary softwares, urge to give back to the society etc., are some of the reasons behind many individuals/organizations being involved in open source society today.
Hence, taking all these facts into considerations, the same question again hits me – Will we ever see another Bill Gates in the future?
Your views/comments are most welcome.
9 Responses
“Will we ever see another Bill Gates in the future?”- this could go into serious discussion i think. The way popularity of oss is growing it seems oss will soon win the battle..
“We will now never have another Bill Gates in the future!!”, Shashidhar Ram Joshi’s statement might be true on this regards that Open Software undermines the very business model that Bill thrived upon.
But, may be this an opportunity for coming with a different game at all, and to foster open software as it is but come with new business model to bring all the parties to rest.
So I think this is an opportunities to the birth of new Bill Gate.
I wish I was there is listen him speak, as they taught me “Digital Signal”, he is inspirational in that factor and respect what he has said.
@Sushmita:
yea open source is the way the software industry will move…last night i was talking with one of the DOEs from D2Hawkeye Services about the next BIG thing in the software industry..we both agreed on the Social Networking sites .. but on the hindsight, i guess open software will be the next big thing.. let’s see..
@Deep:
the beauty of open source is that it will benefit the entire community and not just one individual…i have huge respect for Bill Gates and take him as my idol.. Mr. Gates was able to successfully sell softwares which today can be found in many computers around the world..i don’t think any such opportunity will come in the future on the proprietary software’s domain…
Interesting article.. Got here thru bhup’s tweet.
Its hard to see someone grow as high as Bill Gates did (and made MSFT) as high it is today. But, I think today is the age of social media, startups and we will not see big company (with huge market capital) but something comparitively smaller.
Lets say something like facebook, twitter, orkut, Myspace and they will eventually be acquired by something bigger (MSFT, Google etc).
As one of the member of the organizing committee, I was listening to what Mr. Shashidhar Ram Joshi said at the same event. The question he raised “Will we ever see another Bill Gates in the future?” really struck me too. Even I belive its difficult to have next Bill Gates in the industry as Open Software is really picking up its pace. But Mr.Gates is alwasy adorable for his vision and contribution to IT industry.
Hey Anup nice article!!!!
@bonas:
you are right…the next BIG thing will be driven by SMALL need serving purpose and undoubtedly, social media is one of them….other than that, genetic engineering could also hit BIG .. let’s see… but yea, whatever be the case, to see someone of the stature of Bill Gates, is more than a distant thing..
@swechha:
thanks
I do not agree with most comments here. This is probably because I do not understand the concept of “Bill Gates”.
If we talk about the money moghul, is Mark Zuckerberg not an answer to that question?
If it is about innovation, that is a question mark on my generation and we pledge of ourselves to that goal.
If the question is about backing an OS that changed the numbers the industry had, Both Mr. Gates and Mr. Jobs have more competition than ever before.
The popular misconception is that Open Source software is just the next big thing in our industry. Open source is THE future of the industry. As Windows CE has shown, open source is not an impediment to selling software. More users than not will still buy software. Giving them the source code wont make a difference. We might be able to curb piracy if there is nothing to steal but Open source is not a challenge to earning money.
Red Hat makes money. No further comments needed …
With all due respect to SRJ sir, we will continue making money selling software.
I totally agree with ashay. I think Google though it has the most free applications in the market is also the leader in the market with similar rank as microsoft.. So we do have chances of breaking new barriers in business model. Thanks Ashay for contributing your thoughts.
It seems that the comments here and more organized around a business model and the idea of making large sums of money. From the stand point of society, all I can say is that I hope we never have another Bill Gates. The man invented software patents which hold the industry back, has extorted money out of thousands, is responsible for a company that stole many ideas AND code (as well as doing it himself), and is now, after the fact, seen in a positive life and a glowing example because he has a large amount of money, people are envious of him, and his is now being a little philanthropic and trying to buy his way out of hell.