Did Stanford and Harvard Attack Open Source Software?

The open source blogosphere is up in arms again with its typical “don’t-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way” postings against Microsoft (MSFT). This time Microsoft’s co-conspirators are the Stanford and Harvard business schools because two of their professors did a “study (of) how a commercial firm competes with a free open source product.” Some of the related blog posts have added Oracle (ORCL) to the bad-guy list, perhaps in honor of Oracle’s proximity to Stanford’s Palo Alto campus.

Unlike the irate bloggers I’ll admit I have not read the academic study. The study appeared in either the winter (according to Stanford’s web site) or summer (according to the Harvard web site) edition of Production and Operations Management. I would have to pay POMS, its publisher, if I wanted to read it.  A quick Google tells me the blogoblatherers didn’t read it either but only read Bill Snyder’s story about the academic study in the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) News. Bill’s a great writer but a better source—because it is ascribed to one of the two academics—is the abstract on the Harvard site.  

(As an aside, just so you understand how these things work, it is likely that only one blogger read the Bill Snyder GSB article. The rest took the first guy’s interpretation and spun further fantasies from there. The pattern of outright fabrication on top of inaccurately describing another person’s writing by the open source blogosphere is really getting tiring. I cited a similar example on ComputerworldUK here.)

According to both the abstract and Bill’s article there seems to be some confusion between the terms free and open source software.  What the professors allegedly say about charging money for a product or service when a similar product or service is available at no charge makes some sense. But the term “free software” has multiple meanings. Both the abstract and GSB News article imply that the professors mean software available “at no charge” (I am trying to confirm that). That does not mean it is open source.  Supporting that interpretation is the fact that the Stanford professor says, according to Snyder, that the professors’ findings would also apply to the media world (as in paying for the Boston Globe each morning vs. “reading” msnbc.com). 

The term “Open source software” refers to some specific terms and conditions in the software’s license primarily related to redistribution. Most popular examples of open source software—e.g., Red Hat (RHAT) Linux—are not free as in marketed “at no charge.” Most of the bloggers that bait the nerd world with their postings know this of course because they work for companies such as Red Hat. They are simply looking for some marketing advantage with their blogging although I cannot figure out what it is.

Microsoft gets hammered because the Stanford professor, according to the Snyder interview, cited Office as an example of a product that expanded its brand from enterprises to consumers.  According to the professor, Apple (APPL) went the other way with its iPhone. But none of this has anything to do with open source (and I don’t see what it has to do with “free” either since Microsoft makes many pieces of Office—e.g., Hotmail—available “at no charge”). But the open source blogbatherers never let the facts get in the way of a chance to attack Microsoft.