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SugarCRM Gets a True Open Source Visionary in Larry Augustin

I was pleasantly surprised to read that Larry Augustin had been named SugarCRM's full-time CEO. After spending much of the last decade as an investor and board member extraordinaire for many (most?) companies grouped in the commercial open source category, it is good to see Larry back in the CEO saddle. This is a vindication of sorts for Larry and his vision of an open source future. After years of attempting to explain just how ubiquitous open source was going to be, he can now take the reigns of a company at a time when most customers and vendors take as a given that a substantial portion of any solution will consist of open source code. This was not always the case, especially when Larry was still CEO of VA Linux Systems, at the time the premier vendor for servers running Linux.

To give you an idea of what SugarCRM is getting, Larry is a guy who saw the value in building a center of gravity for open source developerment before most; a guy who counseled LinuxWorld Expo to look to the developer audience and eschew the bad advice they were receiving from their vendors. That they ignored him and subsequently failed is a testament to his vision.

Perhaps the best example of this vision was a move he made almost 10 years ago that many, including yours truly, openly questioned at the time: the acquisition of Andover.net by VA Linux Systems. Some of you may remember that Andover.net was the media company that had purchased Slashdot.org and Freshmeat.net. VA was then still gleaming with post-IPO sparkles, which had taken place just two months prior to the Andover acquisition. With the addition of VA's home-grown SourceForge.net, VA was on the verge of establishing a veritable open source developalooza.  At that time, early 2000, the dot com bubble was still in full swing, seemingly oblivious to its imminent demise just ahead. In that context, the Andover play seemed to be another example of a high-flying IPO company looking to make and stay in the headlines for the sake of pumping its stock price. Many of us questioned how acquiring what amounted to "a bunch of web sites" fit the mission of VA Linux. With hindsight, however, the Andover acquisition wasn't a cynical move at all, but rather a stroke of genius that was ahead of its time and unappreciated by industry observers.

In early 2000, everyone was still trying to comprehend how the open source revolution was going to shake out - would it be a fad? Was there a viable revenue model for a company that peddled in open source software? It occurred to Larry - much earlier than other executives - that there was an intrinsic value to building the center of gravity for open source development. That there was value in "activity" and capturing that activity meant, by its very definition, adding value. This was a point missed by the company most poised to benefit from the idea, Red Hat. It's a point not missed by companies like Google, who seem intent on building that center of gravity.

To fully comprehend the magnitude of the Andover acquisition, one must realize that at the time of acquisition, a rather large percentage of open source types religiously visited Slashdot and Freshmeat. Shortly afterward, SourceForge.net came into its own as a provider of free hosting services for open source projects. Between the three sites, VA commanded a high percentage of open source mind share. That this fact went unappreciated both internally at VA and by outside observers is a pity. That many other companies have since jumped on the open source developer bandwagon serves to vindicate the original ideas and goals. 

Larry was unfairly maligned for that acquisition. An interesting sidenote is that the race for open source hearts and minds has yet to be won. Some have tried, some are still trying, but no one has made it. Mark my words: whoever is most successful at building the center of gravity for open source developers will reap handsome rewards for it. Larry was the first executive to see that, and it's about time he got some credit for it.

• larry augustin
• lma
• va linux systems
• valinux
• andover

by Michael Tiemann on Dec. 01, 2009

I would be delighted to see Larry Augustin acting as the CEO of an Open Source company, but my knowledge of his past actions makes me dubious. Will SugarCRM remain faithful to the open source model? Or will it be carved up into a mixed-up model of giving away freely that which the company deems to be "low value" and keeping proprietary what the company deems to be "high value"?

In my eyes (and those of the open source community), the "high value" stuff is the stuff you can improve, and the "low value" stuff is the stuff you cannot. If Larry draws the lines differently, SugarCRM will fail as an open source company.

Having recommended SugarCRM to some very important customers over the past few years, I would like to see those recommendations validated by Larry's great leadership and good financial performance.

I should also correct John Mark's perception that slashdot is the be-all, end-all center of gravity for open source development. The beauty of the open source model is precisely that there can be many centers that collectively interoperate. Thus, Red Hat and Fedora, as two separate centers, both draw strength and network effects from the centers that are GNOME and Mozilla and Python and of course, Project GNU. None of these projects needs to "own" the others in order to create true value within its own center. Red Hat chose a path of letting 1000 flowers bloom, and that strategic decision allowed both a richer field (for the community) and a greater harvest (for Red Hat). SugarCRM can be successful without creating a monopoly of open source development.

But it can also fail if it divorces itself from the open source values that make it one of the best alternatives to other proprietary solutions today.

Let's hope for success!

Michael Tiemann

President, Open Source Initiative

http://opensource.org/

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by John Mark Walker on Dec. 01, 2009

Hi Michael,

I have often vouched for Red Hat's community moves in the past, particularly when it comes to the establishing of the Fedora community, and how you've been able to utilize that without being evil. Perhaps my language was overly strong above, but I have mostly good things to say about Red Hat's community initiatives.

Where we differ, however, is that from my vantage point, Red Hat has thus far missed out on an opportunity to be a truly dominant IT player. They have done this by not being aggressive, ambitious and yes, innovative enough. Whereas you should have been on the leading edge of both open source virtualization and cloud space, you're not a dominant player in either. Also, where you could have made moves early on to be the dominant platform, delivery system, and collaboration point for all things open source, you completely missed that opportunity and indeed failed to even see the value of trying.

I didn't mean to imply that you can "own" an open source developer space in any traditional sense. If there's one thing that open source communities have taught us, it's that whatever we win with communities can be easily taken away. What I was trying to say was that VA was on the verge of establishing the nexus of open source development - that they failed is a subject for another post. If they had been successful, it would have been because they created a compelling end-to-end solution that gave great value, not because they "owned" it in any tyrannical sense. I am well aware that trying to own a community is an exercise in futility, and I've written on that subject extensively.

And finally a minor quibble - I didn't say that Slashdot is or was the be-all, end-all for open source developers, but rather that the combination of 1999-era Slashdot, Freshmeat, and SourceForge could have (and should have) been the building blocks of an open source juggernaut, instead of just another conglomeration of media sites, which is now what they are. Not that I'm bitter... ;)

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