Larry Lessig, the law man leading the fight against copyright extensions, comments on my OSAF post.  "Dave", accused of nodding his head after reading my politically-incorrect post, responded before I had a chance to.  I will post my own response, hopefully, later today.

Diego Doval voices his own perspective as a potential Chandler competitor.  He is building a product called spaces that looks interesting.  It overlaps somewhat with my own effort called Docuverse Daily.

I have received many private feedback similar to his from small developers.  Unlike Diego, they have chosen not to respond publically for obvious reasons.  I doubt any of the large software companies will publically comment either.  Unfortunately, this is the sort of situation that makes my blood boil.  I wonder if David, as in David and Goliath, had similar genetic disorder.  I'll bet Larry Lessig has it too. <g>

Marc Canter points out here that open source and free software are not inseparable and that one can build a commercial business using open source components.  I agree.  Gentleware built Poseidon UML using ArgoUML, an open source project.  I don't know how they are doing financially, but they are getting a lot of downloads.  But it seems to me that a) open source and free software is a popular and natural two-step, one following the other, and b) both open source and free software are highly wildfire like, meaning they spread fast and are difficult to control.

Scott Johnson posted a point by point rebuttal here.  He makes many reasonable points.  I do agree that Microsoft is harming the software market.  I also agree that Mitch has a right to do what he wants with his money just as I have a right to complain about it.  Yes, the PIM market is owned by Microsoft, but I disagree with Mitch's remedy due to potential side-effects.  I disagree that there is no sense of value for software in this country.  I do agree that I seem to be buying less software than before, but I ask what factors might have caused this change?  Microsoft contributed, but there are other factors involved.  Regarding his comment about possible conflict between my wish #2 and trade secret law, while we consume Coca Cola, file formats are used to store information that belongs to us so we do have a right to access independent of the file format creator's survivability.

Andrew Shearer also posted that sense of value is already gone and that OSAF just means more competition with beneficial effects.

My thanks to them for the feedback.

Two memes I am trying to impart to the community are:

• Software market is an ecology that can be destroyed.
• Free software is a double-edged sword.

It is human nature to see and hear only what we want to see and hear, for our ability to reason is not beyond the reach of emotions and desires.  When applied in mass, effects of our weakness are magnified to a level that engulfs even those who are trained to be objective.  Recent Dot Com Bubble is an example of this phenomenon.

I don't expect my opinions to deter OSAF.  I don't expect people to change their minds about free software either.  What I expect to achieve is planting a seed of doubt and raising a concern for the delicate balance of our ecology.

People

• Andy Hertzfeld – Andy has a great talent for creating innovative and highly polished GUI for consumer software.  I can trust him to deliver a GUI that knocks people out.
• John Anderson – Another guy who has proven his talents for building consumer software.  His WriteNow was simple and easy to use.  I haven't used any of his NeXT applications, but I have heard great things about them.
• Tim O'Reilly – With him on OSAF board, one can expect constant stream of guerilla marketing and publicity from O'Reilly.

OSAF Mission

OSAF's mission is to create and gain wide adoption of Open Source application software of uncompromising quality.  PIM is just the first project.  What will be next?  Which is worse, Microsoft announcing a competing product in the name of profit or OSAF doing the same in the name of community?

OSAF Financing

Mitch Kapor is putting up $5 million of his money.  That should be enough for three to four years with a staff of 14, some of them volunteers.  Once the first product is released, I am sure donations from box makers will start rolling in.  In return, the box makers will ask OSAF to build rest of the Office killer suite so they can ship Linux boxes with application suite of uncompromising quality.

Sense of Value

In countries like Korea, there was no software market because people did not see software as something you pay for.  When they bought a PC, it came with every software you will ever need.  Office?  AutoCAD?  dBase?  No problem.  While much has changed since, software piracy is rampant in Korea because people have no sense of value when it comes to software.  If they pay for it, its only because they might get raided.

What I am afraid of is the erosion in the sense of value for software.  If OSAF succeeds, consumers will have access to a wide array of high quality software for free.  Most likely, every PC will start to ship with them preloaded.  Every time a new OSAF product ships, a market segment will dies.  OSAF paints a picture of the future where consumers are expected to pay for contents and services, but software is free.

Path of Destruction

While Mitch may say and believe otherwise, I believe OSAF is a richman's Destructive Crusade against Microsoft's monopoly.  At strategic level, I agree with him that there are very few viable options against Office.  If the only path with reasonable chance of success leads to destruction of value, a cornerstone of market economy, should you take it?  My answer is no.  I'll admit that I am not 100% certain what lies at the end of OSAF's road.  I'll bet Mitch doesn't know either.

Wishful Thinking?

If I had a magic wand, I would:

1. Break up Microsoft into little companies around products.
2. Require all file formats to be documented and made public.
3. Forbid application bundling by publishers and box makers.

Its great to hear that Mitch Kapor has a blog and wants to build a better PIM.  I also have no problem with it being open source.  But, I have a problem with a non-profit organization building a supposedly free software that competes with commercial software.  What about existing PIM software publishers?  Are they just roadkills on the way to Goodwill Valhalla?

I received some private mail asking why I neglected to mention the most important issue: are phone companies willing to take the credit risk.  The underlying assumption I made was that phone companies will replace Visa and MasterCard, not the banks and financial institutions who are in the business of taking credit risk in exchange for fees and interests.  The Market-based Credit Card idea has a chance of being useful in this scenario.

"Scott" correctly points out two main business issues with my Bill My Phone idea:

1. Phone companies might not want to get into payment business.
2. Phone companies don't know much about real time payment processing.

I guess it depends on whether phone companies sees payment business as an opportunity or a distraction.

This is a variation of Bill Me Later idea that brings phone companies and mobile authentication into the picture.  Payment by phone and authentication by phone are old ideas. Combine them with Bill Me Later along with 3D-Secure and you get: Bill My Phone.

Just like Bill Me Later, transaction starts by pressing the "Bill My Phone" button on a merchant's checkout page.  It uses 3D-Secure variation so the 3D-Secure merchant plugin redirects the customer to a 3D-Secure ACS at the customer's phone company using the customer's home phone number.  A soon-to-be-ubiquitous 3D-Secure authentication window with my phone company's logo pops up.  At this point, the customer can authenticate and approve the transaction using one of three way:

1. enter password into the popup
2. enter password into his or her cellular phone (WAP or J2ME)
3. answer home telephone and press some numbers displayed on the popup.

At this point, the transaction is complete and the purchase amount will be added to the customer's monthly bill.  Obviously, processors like First Data will need to get into the picture, but I think the chemistry is there just waiting to be mixed.