Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on July 25, 2003 10:03 PM
With respect to open source software, consider these questions:
1. Does the customer want to get into the software business?
2. Is it in their interests to redistribute the source?
3. Who do the recipients of the redistributed software look to for support? (See issue #1.)
But anyway, the main issue isn't software development quality or cost here - these things can be disentangled from the ideology, and one can bring forward many examples of good/bad open/proprietary free/commercial products (delete where appropriate) - nor is it about whether companies can maintain high margins on software. The principal issue is control over customer systems and customer data.
In your "shared source" paradise ("cannot use the source unless the supplier goes out of business or refuses to support the product any longer") that issue isn't adequately addressed. Microsoft could easily claim to support systems indefinitely, but ultimately Microsoft could easily retain anticompetitive control over data and data formats (amongst other things) by claiming that they still support such systems, even when in practice they do not. Moreover, adopting proprietary products with "vendor expiry" clauses is effectively the same as forming "legitimised" monopolies.
Meanwhile, can companies sell open source solutions to governments without instantly creating competitors who are selling the same thing? Perhaps not, if you believe that the source code is all that is valuable in a company, but such companies rarely deserve to stick around anyway.
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Shared source is not the answer
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on July 25, 2003 10:03 PM1. Does the customer want to get into the software business?
2. Is it in their interests to redistribute the source?
3. Who do the recipients of the redistributed software look to for support? (See issue #1.)
But anyway, the main issue isn't software development quality or cost here - these things can be disentangled from the ideology, and one can bring forward many examples of good/bad open/proprietary free/commercial products (delete where appropriate) - nor is it about whether companies can maintain high margins on software. The principal issue is control over customer systems and customer data.
In your "shared source" paradise ("cannot use the source unless the supplier goes out of business or refuses to support the product any longer") that issue isn't adequately addressed. Microsoft could easily claim to support systems indefinitely, but ultimately Microsoft could easily retain anticompetitive control over data and data formats (amongst other things) by claiming that they still support such systems, even when in practice they do not. Moreover, adopting proprietary products with "vendor expiry" clauses is effectively the same as forming "legitimised" monopolies.
Meanwhile, can companies sell open source solutions to governments without instantly creating competitors who are selling the same thing? Perhaps not, if you believe that the source code is all that is valuable in a company, but such companies rarely deserve to stick around anyway.
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