Linked by David Adams on Mon 16th Aug 2004 17:44 UTC
I read something in one of the comments for an OSNews posting a couple weeks ago that sent me thinking. It wasn't an original or profound thought. In fact, it's a rather commonly-held opinion that happens to be quite misguided. It's an opinion summed up by the "open source = communist" meme that gets thrown around in thousands of flamewars all over the internet. In this essay, I will explore why this idea is wrong and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.
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This was one of the best pieces of journalism I've seen in a while. Some people have had doubts about the quality of this site's content lately. Obviously, there are good articles and bad ones, and they add up to a good quantity of content. It's easy enough to weed through the articles that suck.
I also think the author is dead on. The current software industry is unsustainable. Do you think that, in 20 years, people will be buying a new version of Windows and a new version of Office, because their computers from 2020 are too slow and don't have enough features?
Besides that, the author is right that consumer companies would rather deal with open source, free software than liscensed software. You spend less time overseeing your liscense count, your software can be tweaked in any way you need (for a price), and you get to actually work one on one with the people who develop the software you use, as opposed to some company writing some software they hope you'll like enough to buy.