Linux.com

Your first paragraph contains a couple points: When you (as a potential customer) decide to write something rather than buy a given product (if indeed there's such a product), this is in fact a lost sale ("threat to" boxed software, in so far as lost revenue is bad). In the boxed software business, it is customary to track these "make/buy" events (whenever you are lucky enough to find out about them) and try to determine why the sale was not made. Did we not enough features? Too many? Wrong platform? Too expensive? Simple not-invented-here syndrome? Customer has too much money (perverse, but true especially in the cost-plus-fixed-fee arena -- the customer will actually make a guaranteed profit re-inventing the wheel!)? A lot of these buying decisions, as you can probably gather by reading the comments on this board, are emotional, not rational.

All this is done to address the first sentence of your second paragraph: we know we're not entitled to your money. We would like it, and we need to provide a compelling "value proposition" to you. If we cannot, we know we will lose the sale. We would really like to make the sale. And we would like you to want to buy from us again and again, and be happy about it, and recommend our stuff to your colleagues (we track repeat sales, and they are a substantial fraction of total sales).

With regard to the bad business practices you mention, which I do not like either, we cannot afford to do anything like that to any of our customers, or else they'll tell each other and we are out of business (it is not really wise to extrapolate large monopoly software companies' business practices to everybody -- the exception does not make the rule). I hope I have not given you any reason to think that I either endorse, approve, or practice any of those tactics.

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