Open-source companies see profit aplenty

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Yes, Take Away Value - 2

>> It is inevitable that public knowledge gets implemented in some publicly available device. If there were no Linux, one would be invented. <<

Yes. That is what OSS under BSD and similar licenses do. But they do not do so in a way that is harmful to business.

>> Nope, the same as a generic drug. It makes the commodity available at a lower cost, while the research-driven drug companies spend R&D bucks to
bring innovative products to the market, then to profit handsomely for a time, until the innovation ages and they are forced to further advance the state of the industry. <<

It is one thing to bring down prices and make things more accessible to consumers, it is another thing to offer it at near zero cost and wipe out an entire industry ? just as how Linux has driven away dollars out of Unix development.

>> In the software world, we do have one noteworthy company that is hooked on continued reselling of the operating system, as the only way to obtain their innovative products. It has worked for a good long while, but eventually the gravy train will come to a halt and the resultant public spasms are simply an unavoidable consequence. <<

Are you talking about Apple, PalmSource, Blackberry, SCO, even Red Hat? MS making the Windows a mainstay of its business operations is anything but unusual. MS took off as an OS company. It is not far off for them at all to be focused on the product that placed them on the map.

You appear to actually believe the dogma that the OS should be ?commoditized?. But ?commoditizing? complex software is not the same as ?commoditizing? relatively simple hardware. Specifying the hardware configuration a PC must support is much, much simpler than specifying an OS API. That is why there much more players in the PC hardware business than there are e.g. in the Java server business. As for Linux, Linux is only ?psuedo commoditized?. It is not ?commoditized? the same way hardware is. If I take Windows, or a particular Linux distribution, I can easily install it on just about any PC box. If I take an application for Linux, I cannot easily run it on any of the literally tens or hundreds of Linux distributions out there.

Trying to ?commoditize? OSs is not easy; and as OSs become ever more complex, there are going to be fewer and fewer parties willing to undertake the complex, expensive, and timely implementation of an OS consistent with a set of specs, that gives little opportunity for the parties to differentiate themselves from one another. Why should a company go to all that trouble with such lousy returns, when it would be simpler for the company implement its own proprietary product, and have complete freedom to differentiate it on a dime per its customers? requests.

>> Let's make the 'underpin,' shall we? The segments of the software industry serve us best by keeping the focus on innovation, where we all benefit.

Again, I suggest you give some consideration to Carroll's model (it's mine as well, but he has the forum). <<

Again, it is a fallacy that innovation is not taking place in proprietary OSs. Apple is doing some nice work, not only in the UI department, but in other areas as well. The same is true for MS and several others.

I don?t believe Mr. Carroll was advocating the ?commodization? of the OS. All he did was note the type of technology OSS programs tended to focus on ? those that are well known.

Once again the issue is not with the usefulness of OSS per se, the issue is with the use of OSS in a form that undermines the software industry. The fact of the matter is that giving away an item in a market for free or near free threatens to destroy that market. While this may be nice for consumers for a while, the law ?you can?t anything for nothing? will eventually kick in, and will either result in the elimination of the market, or will cause players in the market to retaliate.

Posted by: P. Douglas   Posted on: 05/20/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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