JEDIDIAH wrote:
>On 2008-04-07, Tony Smith <tony_smith100@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> The same could be said for many of the Distros out there,
>> and so much time, effort and skill is going to waste by trying to re-invent
>> the wheel.
>
>(snip)
>
> The fact that 10 or 20 separate companies have their own R&D
>departments fiddling with 100 year old combustion engine technology
>is a necessary means to an end.
>
> Your "concerns" about Linux could just as easily apply to cars.
>
> The forks are generally where the progress comes from.
You make good points, but even you are selling-short the efficiencies
of OSS.
For car engines, it is true that things like "pistons" and "camshafts"
are in the public domain, but it's also true that each company keeps
new research and technology secret, in order to obtain a competitive
advantage. How inefficient that multiple companies have redundant R&D
going-on to achieve the same goal! This is analogous to the
closed-source world. With OSS, such wasteful redundancies are largely
eliminated.
Example: You like Notepad.exe, but it lacks some features that you
would like. With OSS, you grab the source for Notepad, add to it, and
you're done! With closed-source, you're starting from scratch, TRULY
"re-inventing the wheel!"
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