I chaired an interesting meeting the other day. It was me against senior executives of Cisco, Agilent Technologies and Novell.

The subject was: Do enterprise users really want open source? Are you strongly supporting this?

Open source is not a movement; it’s a religion. It is a set of principles and practices that let everyone share nonexistent or semi-existent intellectual property. Remember the Communist Manifesto: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” It is this generation’s Woodstock.

Back to my meeting. The vendors were tripping over themselves swearing allegiance to the open source movement. It was like Republicans genuflecting at the graven image of Ronald Reagan. And they were testifying that the Really Smart Enterprise Users (RSEU) were demanding, actually demanding, lots of solutions here. And each of them was going to be first in line.

Naturally, I disagreed — partially because I am a naturally disagreeable person. Any idiot can make friends — but can you make some really serious enemies? I disagreed, however, because allegiance to open source depends on who you are.

Let me give you an example. If you are No. 1 or No. 2 in your industry, you hate open source. You make your money by selling proprietary solutions: Microsoft and Cisco. If you are No. 3 to No. 10, you look at open source as a way to get back to those serious RSEUs, because they are where you make money.

Now, with those users who are on your faltering proprietary system, you want to keep them there. For those who abandoned you or never even considered your proprietary systems, on the other hand, open source is your Last Good Chance. In any case, if you are No. 1 and No. 2, you will support the concept — as little as possible but as loudly as possible.

Thus, you see Microsoft supporting Novell and Dell supporting Novell as Novell takes on Red Hat. You really don’t want your users wandering off the reservation, but if they must wander, then better they not wander too far. So, key vendors like Microsoft try to convince their users that while open source is an option, it’s an option that they really don’t want. In other words, flirt with it, just don’t do it. Or do it as little as possible.

How about if you are a user? Your real goal is to drive down the cost per transaction each year. Theoretically you love the idea, but in actuality it scares the crap out of you.