Monthly Archives: August 2011

Euroabzockerei

Es ist nicht mehr lustig was Firmen in der Schweiz verlangen. Ich kann verstehen, wenn schweizer Produkte teuerer sind, aber wenn ausländische Versandhäuser oder Produzenten unterschiedliche Preise von bis zu 140% MEHR für das gleiche Produkt nehmen (kürzlich bei Pampers und Nivea Crémes getestet), dann ist das nicht mehr zu vertreten.

Das identische Produkt (selbe Bestellnummer) kostet bei Conrad in Deutschland 76.95€ (=88 CHF) und bei Conrad in der Schweiz 139,95 CHF.

Das heisst, das gleiche Produkt ist locker mal 52 CHF oder 60% teurer.

Das übliche Argument ist dann höhere Lagerhaltungs-, Transport-, und Personalkosten, sowie ortsübliche Preise ("Because we can!") bzw. andersherum, ist D günstiger weil der deutsche Kunde sehr preissensitiv wäre.

Ich verstehe das schweizer Produkt wegen höherer Kosten teurer sein können/müssen. Aber wenn es das selbe ausländische Produkt ist, dann ist ein Unterschied von 60% nicht erklärlich. Im Preise inklusive sind in D 19% Mehrwertsteuer und in der Schweiz nur 8%, d.h. Conrad verdient sowieso mehr in CH. Noch dazu kommt dass ich in der Schweiz noch 6€ zusätzlich für die ja ach so höreren Versandkosten bezahle.

Versandkosten:

CH: 8,95 CHF + Verpackungspauschale 3,95 CHF = 12.90CHF  (=11.28€)
D: € 5,95

Macht total: Preis ohne Mehrwertsteuer und inklusive Versandkosten: 80.74CHF in Deutschland und 142.48CHF in der Schweiz. Nicht mit mir, Conrad. Ich bestelle nach Deutschland und importiere das selber.

Carrots and Rainbows

Around 4 years ago, we started working on a paper that contained a literature review on individuals motivation to contribute to open source software, concluding that the frameworks being used were too narrow to capture all aspects of what was happening. We concluded that open source software development needs to be seen as a social practice, and created a framework that will allow a more holistic exploration of the interplay of motivations, practices, and institutions supporting (but also constraining and corrupting) OSS. The framework draws on the work on Social Practices by the moral philosopher McIntyre.

We submitted the article to MISQ, and 3 years and four(!) major revisions later, we just got accepted. The editors and reviewers were giving us a hard time, but they also helped to improve the paper significantly as a result of the hard work that was put into it.

May I proudly present:

Carrots and Rainbows: Motivation and Social Practice in Open Source Software Development

by Georg von Krogh, Stefan Haefliger, Sebastian Spaeth, and Martin W. Wallin

The preprint abstract is available online on this website, if you are interested in the full paper, let me know.

Abstract

Open source software (OSS) is a social and economic phenomenon that raises fundamental questions about the motivations of contributors to information systems development. Some developers are unpaid volunteers who seek to solve their own technical problems, while others create OSS as part of their employment contract. For the past 10 years, a substantial amount of academic work has theorized about and empirically examined developer motivations. We review this work and suggest considering motivation in terms of the values of the social practice in which developers participate.
Based on the social philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, we construct a theoretical framework that expands our assumptions about individual motivation to include the idea of a long-term, value-informed quest beyond short-term rewards. This “motivation–practice” framework depicts how the social practice and its supporting institutions mediate between individual motivation and outcome. The framework contains three theoretical conjectures that seek to explain how collectively elaborated standards of excellence prompt developers to produce high-quality software, change
institutions, and sustain OSS development. From the framework we derive six concrete propositions and suggest a new research agenda on motivation in OSS.

UPDATE: And it is finally officially out in this June issue.

Patently absurd

The current patent war in the mobile phone space is absurd and obscene (this cool chart visualizes that everyone is suing everyone).

I am all for innovation, but we are living in a world in which Microsoft earns more from Android phones than they do from Windows phones.

Now Google has agreed to buy the mobile phone division from Motorola for $12.5 billions (yes BILLIONS). The main reason they are doing so is to get access to the vast patent portfolio that Motorola has. That gives GOOG ammunition to defend itself and Android manufacturers from others that are aggressively building patent portfolios in this area.

Interestingly enough, the Motorola CEO had announced just 4 days ago that they might be using their patent portfolio in a more offensive manner against Android rivals. A move to increase the sales price? Most likely.

Google, which had only around 660 patents or so until recently, many of them search-related, had been attempting to gather a patent portfolio for quite some time. They unsuccessfully bid for the patents of bankrupt Nortel (in typically geeky manner, they bid odd sums that represent weird constants, eg. the number π in billion dollars).
A portfolio of around nearly 800 patents from Novell had already gone to a Microsoft-Apple-EMC-Oracle consortium and the 6,000 Nortel patents went for $4.5bn to a consortium of Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and Sony (among others).

Google had complained about unfair market dominance in the first deal already and the anti-trust agencies had modified the conditions of the deal. The Nortel patent deal increased the pressure from Apple and Microsoft on Google to build up their own portfolio. It is said that Android handset makers are already paying between $5 and $15 per handset to Microsoft, and possibly to other patent holders too.

Patents are supposed to stimulate innovation. But a world in which a 5-year old can patent a way to swing on a swing, is clearly insane and patents fail to work. Academics that are real patent experts, such as Jim Bessen, who have done studies on this agree.

P.S. Why in the world does everyone and his dog has to cite Florian Mueller (I’m not linking there) as the patent expert uncovering important issues. I know that activists and lobbyists can be experts too, but the clear lack of transparency and obvious bias is unsettling.

P.P.S. This deal will make Google the largest supplier of TV set-top boxes.

Dit un Dat

Ich lebe noch! Hier "dit un dat":

  • Urlaub in Spiekeroog war schön. Es war lustig meinen Flurkollegen Volker Hoffmann auf der Insel zu treffen. Auch wenn wir insgesamt 2,000km mit dem Auto runtergeschrummelt haben, ging alles erstaunlich gut mit den Kindern. Warum muss Johanna nur nachts immer noch so viel schreien?

  • Es tut gut wieder in Dübendorf zu sein. "Zu hause" ahh…

  • Ab heute abend haben wir ein finnisches Au Pair, Katariina. Sie wird wohl aktiv bloggen.

  • Ich will mich an der Uni Zürich für eine Professur bewerben. Cross thumbs!

  • Wie ich benutzt Linus Torvalds auch XFCE, da er GNOME3 crappy finded:

    "I’m using Xfce. I think it’s a step down from gnome2, but it’s a huge step up from gnome3. Really."