Frontier Exclusive Visionary Interview for hardware, software, system related business and and academia



Frontier Journal (FJ): So, let's start this interview process. So, Brian, my first question would be: what is your interpretation of Open Source in the commercial context?

Brian Behlendorf (BB): Oh, hi. Open Source in the commercial context?

FJ: Yes. Because you are involved in a business called CollabNet?

BB: There is no conflict. I think Open Source is an alternative approach to authoring software that people can still work to get for commercial purposes even when sharing the source code to that freely.

FJ: OK.

BB: So, is that kind of what you were asking for? I think that Open Source is kind of the way in which the software industry will head entirely, actually, over time.

FJ: Sure, OK. I see. So, my next question would be: you've been in the software industry for quite a few years and according to your opinion what's the most formidable challenger in the software development process and what is the potential solution for that? Building and testing process, configuration management, as an example.

BB: I think the biggest challenges in the software industry now have to do with complexity in dealing with applications that are millions of lines of code and figuring out how to debug so there aren't as many bugs. So that's something that is more a more difficult part of writing software is that we have things like web browsers and operating systems and such which are now everywhere and difficult to debug them.

And I think Open Source is part of the answer to that whereby publishing a source code means that you can allow people to help be involved in the process of fixing bugs. Anybody could fix a bug that they stumble upon.

FJ: OK, I see. So, Frontier Journal is interviewing Brian Behlendorf. He was a co-founder of Apache project. He was chief engineer of WiredMagazine. He is now a co-founder and CTO of CollabNet. My third question, Brian - I would ask your opinion on what's the key difference between Open Source and the Free Software? Let's take a GNU project and Apache project as counting examples.

BB: Well, the main difference is that the term free software, as defined by the GNU project, as defined by Richard Sellman, specifically applies to software that is copy left. That is when you receive the software and improve it and hand it off, you're also sending it off under another free software license. Open source is a broader term and includes other types of licenses like the Apache license, like the Mozilla license, etc.

FJ: OK.

BB: The term open source is defined slightly differently but it's mainly intended to preserve people's right to redistribute, preserve people's right to use the source code, et cetera. And there's better definitions at a website called OpenSource.org. It has the open source definition. Many people feel that open source software is friendlier to commercialization - to commercial use. But there are business models around both of them that work fine.

FJ: So, Brian, according to your point of view, which means open source is not against software for profit, and free software is seeking software built and distributed for free. Is that correct?

BB: Yeah. If you think about using a website right now, using a website is often free and yet, people have found a way to make money from running free websites, right?

FJ: Sure, sure.

BB: So, likewise with software, there are business models around support, business models around customization that do not require charging a license fee, but there are still ways to make money.

FJ: OK, I see. So you mentioned business models built on top of open source. Now, my next question would be: Nowadays, Software as a Service (SAAS) is quite popular - such as services offered by Salesforce.com. So, I would like to ask you your insights on how traditional software as a product, or software as a solution company can be easily transformed into Software as a Service (SaaS) company smoothly?

BB: Well, there isn't an easy path to transition from one to the other. It is something that is a challenge for a company that is a license revenue based to transition. One way to start would be to - if your product is based on a website - is to offer that as a web-based application and you can still charge per user, per month even when it's running as a managed service, as a software service. And if your application is not web-based, than the first thing to do is to implement that, to change perhaps what is a challenge.

But, secondly, if you want to transition to an open source business model, that would be to take your commercial collection of software and find the things that are - basically take the simpler versions of what you have - the low end of your suite - and release that as open source and continue to charge for the more high-end, professional version of what you have. So that way you can have kind of a combined business model where you preserve the revenue associated with the high-end opportunities - the high-end product - and then gradually over time you can figure out if you want to release something else as open source.

Many companies that are in the open source space have this kind of dual model where some things they give away for free and other things they charge a traditional license fee for.

FJ: Yeah, great point. So, software technology has been advanced a lot during the past decade. Currently we have a quite lot of web browser technologies, of course, built on top of other key technologies. For example, we have a browser starting from NetScape commercial browser, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and FireFox. We have Apache web server and also MicroSoft IIS server. So, I'd like to know what's the next big thing in terms of combining server technology and browser technology? What's your projection?

BB: What's the next big thing in software?

FJ: No, not browser. Right now the trend is combining servers and browsers (clients). And integrating with some application logic. Share some of your visions with us.

BB: Well, I don't think anybody can tell what the next big thing is going to be. But I think something like Ajax surprised everybody. I think something like Ruby on Rails was a big surprise to everybody. So, I don't know. I can't tell you what the next big thing is going to be.

FJ: Maybe you want to keep it confidential, you know. I fully understand. So, you work at Wired Magazine, you were actually the web master and also chief engineer at Wired. You work with Louis. I just read one book by written by Wired - Inside Wired World. The story was quite fascinating. And also, in your current company, the high-tech book publisher's founder, is sitting at the board of your company. So, I would like to know what's your projection on the future of high-tech media in the Web 2.0 era? The future of high-tech media.

BB: The future of high-tech media?

FJ: Yeah.

BB: Well, I think what is happening now with media is that everybody's on the list, everybody is becoming an author of information. The web is a very easy platform to publish that. So with blogs, with Wikis, with other tools. Now everybody can be a publisher. That is a revolution that is comparable to the Guttenburg printing revolution from 500 years ago.

And so the future of media, I think, lies in companies and individuals who help filter all that information - help other people make sense of all these stories and all of this information - and point people to the right locations and say 'Hi, this is important over here' or 'That is important over there'. But I think it's the raw information, the raw stories are now something that anybody can be a part of creating and publishing and that's a really good thing.

So I think we will see the media world look less like a big business where you have big companies that are media companies that control information and, instead, it will look like a very broad, very widespread, and very individual-oriented kind of economic space.

FJ: OK. I see. So, what's your opinion on outsourcing in terms of local globalization?

BB: I think outsourcing -

FJ: Not necessarily off-shore. Of course China, and India is doing lots of off-shore. Not off-shore. In the U.S. there are lots of Fortune 500 that offer lots of project tools in media enterprising.

BB: Building a global economy that is not just a trade of goods but a trade of services is a really good thing, I think - an important thing actually. I think it's important for a country such as India and China to be able to export not just raw goods, but also the intellect of its people and be able to build an economy based on an intellectual pursuit because that is where there is tremendous economic value.

So, I'm in favor of the kind of trade and services that off-shoring is associated with. I think when it comes to outsourcing - the idea that you're a company and you have some technology challenge and you want to hire somebody outside of your company to help you solve that challenge-

FJ: Yeah, that's another story

BB: When it comes to that kind of 'I need to go outside to seek help with engineering', I think that can be a very useful service, but the challenge is that if you are building something that is part of the core of your business - something that is about building some intellectual capacity -

FJ: Strategizing.

BB: - Outside your company for that, then it becomes a strategic risk. And so many companies are looking at 'How do we do the off-shore thing, but do it in my own company?' We have a development company in Chanai, in India, with about 70 people there and that's how we do off-shoring, but we don't do it outsource, we do it insource. So, I think a balance will be discovered, but I think you will see that in the future many companies will basically be multi-national companies even if they are very small. My company is only 200 people and we have people in twenty different countries. So I think that's where things will go.

FJ: That's so cool that it's world which is flat. So you're in favor of free trade rather than fair trade, great. So, my very last question before I let you go - You're involved with quite a few start-ups, either as early starting employees and also with most of them, as co-founders. So, for those people who are building their own businesses in software industries, what's your advice for them? And also, how to balance between being a technologist and being a business man?

BB: Well, I think it's important to start a company in a country that is favorable to start-ups - where the business climate is one where you can be an entrepreneur - where it's easy to get the rights to start a company and where it's easy to hire people. In some countries, in Europe for example, it's very difficult to let people go and sometimes that makes it difficult to start a company because then the risk is too high to be able to hire the people you need.

So the United States is a very favorable country for starting a new company. And I think we will see other countries start to realize that they need to do this in order to get that entrepreneurial kind of culture, so that's one important thing.

The other important thing is that, today, to start a company in the Internet space can be done very inexpensively because the cost of hardware, the cost of software is now very low. So now when you're starting a company, it makes sense to try to fund it entirely yourself for as long as you can. Try to get to the point where you have a demonstration - a prototype - of a site. Something that is live, that people outside are actually using. And that way , if you go and get funding for something larger you can actually command a better premium for that investment. You can raise more money without having to give up more of the company.

FJ: Great insight. Frontier Journal has interviewed Brian Behlendorf, co-founder of CollabNet. He was also a co-founder of Apache project. Brian, thanks for your time.

BB: Sure, my pleasure.

FJ: Bye-bye.


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