Thomson Reuters and Open Source
September 29, 2008
Update, September 30, 2008: Thomson Reuters news story about the Thomson Reuters’ Zotero matter is here. I quite like the symmetry of this TR to TR sequence. That’s the way to do news, you graduate students.
Original Post
Despite a Googler trying to speak with me after my statement “Google has won the battle of online for 2009,” I admire the company. Like any publicly traded company, the GOOG has to be mindful of its shareholders. Googzilla can stomp on some flower gardens but in general, Google is muddling along with its “someone else pays” business model. Heck, Googzilla has released some–not all–of its goodies to the open source free for all. The Google MySQL is one example; some mobile technology is another.
Imagine my surprise when I saw the Slashdot link to this article “Thomson Reuters Sues over Open Source Endnote Alike Zotero“. You can find the Slashdot item here and the original article here. Years ago I gave a lecture at the University of Michigan. The professor who set up the lecture was working on a footnote tool, and he showed me an early prototype. Then a couple of years later, an entrepreneur in California showed me a similar tool. I lost track of this category of software because [a] I’m not a student or professor who writes scholarly or semi-scholarly papers and [b] when I needed tools to manage footnotes, I had tools that people sent me to test.
Thomson Reuters wants to stop the developer of a Firefox add in to help Firefox users create footnotes. Okay, I think I can see the value of this add in if I were a student and had zero money, did not know about freeware, or did not have an angle to get a software vendor to give me a copy of the software to test. The idea that a company like Thomson Reuters feels sufficiently threatened to get the court to stop someone from distributing a Firefox add in triggers several thoughts. Now keep in mind that I am an addled goose, not a scholar, generally anti-monopoly, and opinionated. Here are my personal thoughts and opinions:
- The action against Zotero caused me to download and install the add in. I wanted to see what the fuss was about, and I might even be motivated to put a footnote into one of my forthcoming non-scholarly monographs and reports. What great publicity for Firefox, Zotero, and the other programmers who want to poke Goliath in the nose
- I looked into the commercial footnote software and it sure looked to me as if Thomson Reuters is trying to round up the herd, brand the cows, and sell their software at a considerably higher price than Zotero. Zotero is free, so you can calculate the difference yourself pretty easily.
- This type of action is illustrative of the difference between a traditional media company (which Thomson Reuters is despite all the fancy tap dancing) and outfits like Google. Google’s business model allows the company to provide high value services like Google Maps without a fee. Try to get a Thomson Reuters’ product for free, and you will find that its business model is 180 degrees opposite from Google’s. That’s why Thomson Reuters wants to stop Zotero in its tracks. The Thomson Reuters business model dictates the action, and the company has not other ways to make enough dough to stay afloat.
The net net of this is great PR for Firefox, more work for legal eagles, and another example of why traditi0onal media, including professional publishing companies, are in a long, slow decline. Now what will happen if the GOOG puts a footnote function into Google Docs, or, better yet, in the Chrome framework. I wouldn’t be surprised in Thomson Reuters would find itself in court spending big bucks to prevent Google from doing pretty much what Google wants to do. Exciting stuff to consider.
Stephen Arnold, September 29, 2008
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