Sun criticizes popular open-source license

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jjworleyeoe wrote:

"After five years or so, I'm still trying to
understand how OS is good for Joe IT worker. Forget all the arguments like: It's free, or it promotes endless innovation streams, or that it's great being able to change the kernel to do some special task or whatever, from my perspective, I'm struggling to understand how OS let's me as an average Joe IT worker earn a living."

It's even worse if you are a software developer that is currently working on commercial software. We don't have hardware to tie our software to like IBM etc have, so we rely on our development efforts and the results to create a package that people find worth paying for.

Open source tries to break down that perceived value that people see in a software product, and instead tries to further the idea that any efforts we put into development should be given away for free. Essentially they say I should charge $0/hour for my development expertise. Commercial software is a solution to a problem. People have a problem they need to solve, so they look at some software package that solves their problem. That is worth something to them, as is evident by the fact that they are prepared to pay for it. It's a win-win solution. Open source breaks the one end of the equation and cheapens software in general. It might seem good on the surface, but in reality it makes people choose mediocrity over better software because it is "free". I've seen my share of open source "alternatives" and it certainly doesn't come close to most commercial software, but hey, i's FREE! I'm not saying there aren't any good open source projects, but by experience is that in most cases the "alternative" is quite a step down. Example: GIMP vs Photoshop.

You will find the biggest open source zealots to be those that work as consultants, weekend hackers, or using open source to develop in-house solutions for their companies, and whose companies' end product is not software related (or it is software safely tied to their hardware). They don't see the countless boxes of software on the shelves at computer stores, and don't realize that moving to open source breaks that kind of environment for the mom-and-pop type software houses.

My prediction is that while there will be some movement towards open source solutions, once the warm, fuzzy feeling of being able to work on the source code wears off, a lot of people will lose interest in maintaining the projects, as there is no other motivation behind it other than the warm fuzzy feeling, and projects will become stagnant, especially as projects become more and more complex over time. For those projects you would need a well-managed, less-cooks-in-the-kitchen approach, with good QA to make a well-developed project. Open source projects just can't provide that.

On top of that, the whole notion that there is ANYTHING wrong/evil/bad with proprietary software is just laughable. When did that happen? That's how it's done in just about every other non-software industry, and that's how it was done with software in the past as well. I think it has more to do with the frothing at the mouth hate for MS, than with anything else. It's pretty sad to see an open source zealot trying to make some "unbiased" point but it's clear as day that they are doing it because they can't stand MS and tries their hardest to go against them with open source. C'mon, don't any of them have a spine at all? Just say you hate MS and let's not try to make it sound like that is not what is really eating you.

P

Posted by: Qbt   Posted on: 04/05/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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