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論台灣資訊軟體產業發展策略-從開源碼到混合碼的國際發展趨勢分析 / The developing strategy of Taiwan software and information industry–analysed from the international trend of moving from open source to mixed source

開放原始碼軟體(Open Source Software;OSS)或稱自由軟體(free software)近年來備受矚目,許多政府、企業、機構團體認為相較於專屬軟體(proprietary software),開放原始碼軟體的成本低廉、安全性高,因而支持開放原始碼軟體,一些國際知名大廠也投入開發相關產品以支援開放原始碼軟體;然而,深入分析開放原始碼軟體與專屬軟體在價格、穩定性及功能性之優、缺點,可發現開放原始碼軟體未必如其支持者所稱較專屬軟體具有低成本、高技術性等之優點;至於市場佔有率方面,近十年來開放原始碼軟體雖在網頁瀏覽器(Brower)及行動設備作業系統的市占率呈現顯著成長,但在桌上型電腦、筆記型電腦、小筆電及伺服器的市場占有率則仍遠不及專屬軟體。

  隨著開放原始碼軟體的興起,相關的問題及風險亦隨之產生。在商業模式方面,過去鼎力支持開放原始碼軟體,並且保證決不會以自家專利攻擊Linux社群及業者的IBM,如今也開始手持自家專利對付開放原始碼軟體業者,此一案例凸顯了開放原始碼軟體追求自由、開放分享的精神,與追求市占率及利潤為目標之企業經營環境,兩者間存在著本質上的衝突與矛盾。而為了降低使用開放原始碼軟體可能產生之風險,已有越來越多使用開放原始碼軟體的企業,改採混合碼(Mixed Source)的軟體策略,亦即在一項產品中,同時使用開放原始碼軟體和專屬軟體,儼然已成為國際趨勢;現今,已有超過50%的開放原始碼軟體供應商將開放原始碼軟體結合其內部專屬原始碼使用,有60%以上的開放原始碼軟體供應商已採用某些類型的商業授權方式,而一些原本非開放原始碼軟體的公司也開始利用開放原始碼來加強其市場競爭力。

  在智慧財產權方面,部分開放原始碼軟體社群雖強烈反對以智慧財產權保護軟體,然此實與知識經濟時代下保護智慧財產權的發展趨勢背道而馳,因此,開放原始碼軟體不可避免的仍須面對智慧財產權管理及侵權訴訟等問題。然由於傳統開原碼軟體社群缺乏專業之法律或智慧財產管理人員,而技術或程式碼貢獻者又為數眾多,使得採用開放原始碼軟體在智慧財產權的管理、執行及訴訟風險上,面臨許多困難及挑戰。在開放原始碼軟體授權協議方面,開放原始碼軟體社群愈來愈強調使用者必須嚴格遵守授權協議之約定,且對於一些違反授權協議之使用者,已積極展開訴訟程序強制要求其遵守,因此,企業組織若要採用開放原始碼軟體,勢必需建立相關之風險管理和內部管理機制。

  在歐洲、美洲及亞洲等世界各主要國家的軟體政策方面,過去雖有許多積極推動開放原始碼軟體計劃之媒體報導,然而,近幾年來,各國政府已較少採取獨厚開原碼的推廣政策,而大多數是以技術中立(Technical Neutral)或強調互通性的方式兼容並蓄的廣納各種不同的軟體授權模式,此也印證了混合碼的國際發展趨勢。至於我國的軟體發展政策,過去一直偏重在開放原始碼軟體的發展及補助上,然而執行的結果,不但市場現況與預期成果有相當大的落差,投入與產出顯不成比例,且由我國政府的自由軟體發展政策,亦可看出我國政府在資訊軟體產業發展政策上存在著將對開放原始碼的補助方案當作對整體資訊軟體產業的政策發展方向等等之混淆及迷思,此皆阻礙了我國資訊軟體產業之發展。

  有鑑於此,本研究乃由策略大師麥可•波特(Michael E. Porter)所提出之國家競爭優勢鑽石體系(National Diamond)架構,分析我國在資訊軟體產業發展上的國家競爭力,並針對我國政府的資訊軟體產業發展政策,由組織領導、法令環境、創新商業模式、施政指標及匡正智庫角色等面向提出具體建議,期能對我國資訊軟體產業之發展有所貢獻及助益。 / Open Source Software (OSS) or Free Software has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. Comparing with traditional proprietary software, many governments, enterprises and institutions seems to believe that OSS is more cost effective and more secure, and thus support OSS. Similarly, a number of global companies have also started to invest in the development of related products that support OSS. However, after some in-depth analysis of the advantages and shorcomings in pricing, stability and functionality between OSS and proprietary software, it could be found that OSS may not have such high advantages in cost and technical level as its supporters asserted. Regarding the market shares in the last ten years, OSS has gained significant growth in the markets of Web Browser and Mobile Devise OS, but its market shares in Desktop Computer, Notebook, Netbook and Server markets are still far hehind proprietary software.
  
The increasing popularity of OSS has inevitably triggered relevant issues and risk. From business model perspectives, previously IBM has been a long term OSS supporter and also publicly announced that it will never attack Linux companies and communities with its own patents. However, IBM recently began leveraging its patent portfolio and sending patent infringement warning to an OSS company who may compete with IBM in the server market. This recent case is a good example to highlight the inherent conflict and contradictions between the pursuit of freedom and open sharing spirit in OSS and the pursuit of profit and market shares in enterprise business environment. In order to reduce or manage the potential risk that could be triggered by OSS, more and more companies who use OSS begin to adjust their software strategy by adopting Mixed Source strategy. It has also become a trend in the global ICT industry to adopt or combine both OSS and Commercial Software into one product. Nowadays, more than 50% of OSS vendors start to combine OSS with their internal proprietary source code, more than 60% of OSS vendors have adopted certain types of commercial software licensing model, and some of the original non-OSS companies are also starting to leverage OSS to improve their market competitiveness.

  With respect to intellectual property rights (IPR), even though some OSS communities still strongly oppose to the concept of IPR protection, some recent cases clearly prove that this kind of ideology is contrary to the trend of further improving IPR protection in the era of knowledge-based economy. Consequently, OSS still inevitably needs to face IPR management, infringement risk and licensing terms enforcement issues. However, due to the lack of professional legal or IPR management personnels in traditional OSS community and OSS projects usually involve numerous technical or code contributors, adopting OSS in current business environment will face many difficulties and challenges in IPR management, IPR enforcement and litigation risk. Another issue lies in the enforcement of OSS licensing terms, recently some OSS communities began to increasingly emphasize that users must strictly comply with all the licensing terms or requirements of the OSS model, and subsequently began to actively pursue legal enforcement actions against those violators. Therefore, it is imperative for any enterprise organization to establish comprehensive risk management and internal control/audit mechanism if it wishes to adopt OSS model.

  In the past there were lots of media reports that actively promote government sponsored OSS policies in Europe, Asia and other major countries. However, there were less and less OSS only policy in recent years, governments around the world began to take Technical Neutral position or focus on interoperability by adopting a variety of different software licensing models. This development also confirms the international trend of adopting Mixed Source model. As for the software industry development policy in Taiwan, previously it has been focus on OSS related development and subsidy programs only. However, from the execution results, not only there is a huge gap between current market status and the expected results, the return of investment (ROI) from all those government funding programs is also extremely low. Furthermore, from the OSS development policy announced by the government, it is quite clear that there are confusions and myths among related government agencies that our current OSS development or subsidy programs equal to our national information software industry development policy. All of the above issues have seriously hindered the development of information software industry in Taiwan.

  Based on the above analysis, this study leverages the National Diamond model proposed by the famous compete strategy expert, Michael E. Porter, to analyse the competitive advantages of Taiwan's information software industry. The study further proposes specific recommendations focusing on the organizational leadership, legal environment, innovation of business models, policy index, and the accurate role of think tanks in our government's information software industry development policy. Hopefully there will be some value-added and contributions to the development of information software industy in Taiwan.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:CHENGCHI/G0094932084
Creators施立成, Shih, Vincent L.C.
Publisher國立政治大學
Source SetsNational Chengchi University Libraries
Language中文
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
RightsCopyright © nccu library on behalf of the copyright holders

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