Posted by: Ronald D. Morley
on May 22, 2004 02:42 AM
Once again we have someone who cannot or will not see the difference between free as in price and free as in speech. Open source can be sold. Lots of companies are doing it, HP, IBM, RedHat, etc. The difference is that those comjpanies recognize that the business model for F/OSS requires them to rely on being able to better support the product than their opposition can. When the product itself is free (in both senses) the only way to compete is on service and support.
Companies can no longer rely on closed-source, secret-code, lock-in to keep their customers paying exoribant rents for inferior software. Those that recognize the benefits of working in the open source world (inexpensive software, development costs spread among thousands of companies and individuals, faster response to problems, etc.) will succeed. Those who insist on fighting the revolution will soon find themselves consigned to the dustheap of history; cast aside as the business equivalent of the dodo. When will the nay-sayers realize that none of their arguments hold water and figure out how to compete in the new world instead of crying piteously about how unfair open source competition is? Our opponents are getting desperate as can be seen by their resort to the courts and lawsuits instead of competing in the marketplace of ideas, goods, and services.
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Re:Why not open source your bank account?
Posted by: Ronald D. Morley on May 22, 2004 02:42 AMCompanies can no longer rely on closed-source, secret-code, lock-in to keep their customers paying exoribant rents for inferior software. Those that recognize the benefits of working in the open source world (inexpensive software, development costs spread among thousands of companies and individuals, faster response to problems, etc.) will succeed. Those who insist on fighting the revolution will soon find themselves consigned to the dustheap of history; cast aside as the business equivalent of the dodo. When will the nay-sayers realize that none of their arguments hold water and figure out how to compete in the new world instead of crying piteously about how unfair open source competition is? Our opponents are getting desperate as can be seen by their resort to the courts and lawsuits instead of competing in the marketplace of ideas, goods, and services.
Just my $.02,
Ron
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