asj wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> > Augustin still believes in open source values
> >
> > ,----[ Quote ]
> > | "Open source enables people to reach all those customers. It's a
> > | distribution model. The people who create great software can now reach
> > | the rest of the world."
> > |
> > | Businesses get the most protection from the GPL, he insisted. "They
> > | get protection from competition." The license's insistance on
> > | reciprocity means no one can take the code you wrote, tweak it, then
> > | compete with you.
> > `----
> >
> > http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=675
>
> To put it respectfully: BS. Now they can compete with you on service
> and support (which commercial entities also compete on) - this simply
> means there is less to differentiate you from your competitors.
>
> I've never really understood what was so great about the open source
> ecosystem model...it doesn't make sense because i see no positives
> about it except for one thing - the ability to create extremely complex
> apps with less problems because of the tons of people you can get to
> work on it on the cheap. Unfortunately, 99.999999% of open source
> projects don't fit this optimum as there is no monetary motivation for
> most projects.
>
> It's the same as communism - it looks great on paper and it surely
> would have made a better world theoretically - EXCEPT human beings are
> inherently selfish and a system like that would not work well in human
> societies because of this flaw in human nature.
>
> You can put out all the examples of opens source eating away at
> commercial entities, but what exactly does that prove? When one thing
> is free or almost free and the other side costs mucho dinero, the
> consumer usually will pick the free or cheap one so long as the
> features and performance are similar. So what does that show?
> Basically, it shows other companies that it doesn't pay to do research
> because they can't compete with companies that simply use free labor
> from developers. So who does this hurt int he end? Developers! It
> commoditizes software development, and takes away a source of high
> income from developers.
->->Unless of course those developers
->-> like doing service and support....
The problem with even this part is that "service and support" (might)
work fine for larger projects like the operating system or a RDBMS but
it fails miserably for smaller projects.
How many people/companies out there are buying support contracts for
the Gimp? Does k3b make big bucks from support contracts? OpenOffice
writer... has anyone *ever* bought a support contract for the product?
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