Sustainable software - the community way

Sustainable softwareThe community way

Sustainability, in a broad sense is the ability to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

Is there any value in software?

“software is largely a service industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry”

Eric Raymond, “The magic cauldron”

“In spite of the rise of Microsoft and other giant producers, software remains in large part a craft industry.”

Freeman Dyson, “Science as a Craft Industry”

*-intensive

“If copying hurts the software industry but has no effect on general welfare a prohibition is not morally justifiable on consequentialist grounds. If copying is not directly related to income, nor income to a decline in the industry, then too, the argument breaks down. On close scrutiny these links don't stick.”

[...]

“Finding that there are insufficiently strong moral grounds for universally prohibiting copying, I conclude not that all unauthorized copying is morally acceptable, but that some copying is acceptable. There is sufficient variability in the types of situations in which software users copy to suggest that we ought to evaluate them case-by-case”

Nissenbaum, Helen. "Should I Copy My Neighbor's Software," in Computers, Ethics, and Social Values. D.J. Johnson and H. Nissenbaum eds.Prentice Hall. 1995.

1965

1970

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddebold/2386922188/

“Any technology which creates abundance poses problems for any process which existed to benefit from scarcity. The beneficial abundances caused by technology usually bring unpleasant societal side-effects. Then we complain about the very things that were previously benefits.”

http://www.automation.com/resources-tools/articles-white-papers/articles-by-jim-pinto/the-problems-of-scarcity-abundance

“Well, for starters the classic definition of economics is "the science of choice under scarcity". That's a warning sign right there. From Adam Smith on, economics has focused almost exclusively on behavior within constraints. My college textbook, Gregory Mankiw's otherwise excellent Principles of Economics, doesn't mention the word abundance. And for good reason: if you let the scarcity term in most economic equations go to nothing, you get all sorts of divide-by-zero problems. They basically blow up.” - Chris Anderson

http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/03/the_tragically_.html

What about Open Source?

Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed

peer review and transparency of process.

Commercial Open Source

Commercial Open Source is a business “model” based on customers paying a fixed or recurring fee to a vendor to use software that, give or take a few details, is also available for free and as Open Source. The value proposition can be based on✓ FUD (warranty, indemnification, support), ✓ ease of use (better packaging, faster updates), ✓ more functionalities (widget frosting) ✓ enabling of aggregates (avoiding the non-permissive

licensing reciprocality).

FUD == CDS?

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"Biodiversity is an insurance policy against unknown environmental fluctuations and disturbances."

Reed F. Noss

“every [corporation] endeavors to employ its capital so that its produce may be of greatest value. By pursuing its own interest it frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when it really intends to promote it.”

Adam Smith

http://www.flickr.com/photos/niallkennedy/8505312

Don’t upsell your community!

Kongō Gumi