Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on October 24, 2003 10:10 PM
Is nobody paying $$$ for open source code? You clearly have a narrow 1980s view of software lifted out of the popular "home and small business computing" press (ie. supposedly knowledgeable journalists talking down to the masses) which involves people cranking out products which then go onto some shelf in some dealer or reseller, waiting for the "consumers" to go in, bow to the software gods and pony up cash for the privilege.
Meanwhile, in the real world, open source software is being used to implement systems that real customers pay real money for. Moreover, because open source is being used, those customers don't find their systems to be unmaintainable because the hardware is being upgraded or because the company who produced "proprietary product X" (think Appgen) either got bored or went down the pan.
The problem here is exactly the closed source nature of the product. It's so fashionable to start talking up possibilities of corporate wrongdoing: "steal money from their VARs" - come on, get a clue! If you pay money to hawk proprietary software in this day and age, you're either misguided or a corporate cheerleader/whore. I feel sorry for the people featured in the article - they seem to be in the former category - whereas this "open source isn't profitable" parrot-talk clearly assigns its originator to the latter category.
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The joke's on you, then.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on October 24, 2003 10:10 PMMeanwhile, in the real world, open source software is being used to implement systems that real customers pay real money for. Moreover, because open source is being used, those customers don't find their systems to be unmaintainable because the hardware is being upgraded or because the company who produced "proprietary product X" (think Appgen) either got bored or went down the pan.
The problem here is exactly the closed source nature of the product. It's so fashionable to start talking up possibilities of corporate wrongdoing: "steal money from their VARs" - come on, get a clue! If you pay money to hawk proprietary software in this day and age, you're either misguided or a corporate cheerleader/whore. I feel sorry for the people featured in the article - they seem to be in the former category - whereas this "open source isn't profitable" parrot-talk clearly assigns its originator to the latter category.
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