So it’s not so much that the world is changing, it’s that software — thanks to open source licenses that put the customer and the vendor into a fair balance of power — is growing up as an industry to take on the same level of responsibility and accountability that every other product or service has.

I may be an optimist, but I am starting to believe that the world may be changing. That simple notion of doing good work follows from everything I am talking about here and could be the cultural foundation for a long period of prosperity during the internet age.

This provider, in Malcolm’s example, is an inhouse IT department. It need not have been….It could have been an ICT provider like the one I work for.

When the provider contracts in services and creates an experience as a result, the responsibility stays with the provider, the “prime contractor”. And a good provider will have built in substitution plans, taking out supplier A and replacing with supplier B when required.

Usually the threat is stronger than the move. But, in order to have a threat, there must be substitutability. Not lock-in.

I prefer to think that RHAT works well because of second-source threats, but it’s been a while since I looked at them closely.

If you’re in charge of Facilities, and the COO complains about the trash cans filling up and stinking up the place, you can’t blame the janitorial service — even though you have a contract with them that says the service, not you, will empty the trash. That’s because you have the freedom to switch to a “compatible” service that can empty the same trash cans. If you’re using proprietary software, you can point at the EULA to prove there is no second source.

If you have a RHAT support contract, in theory you should be able to call Progeny and get a compatible build of the same software with Progeny support. Does RHAT hold the market share it does because the technical costs of switching are too high, or because the threat of a second source makes them offer higher quality support?