O'Reilly on the Open Source Industry

Idmat writes "Tim's latest opus, "The Strange Case of the Disappearing Open Source Vendors," starts with Sherlock Holmes ruminating on "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" and winds up explaining why open source is good for businesses even if it isn't always good for software vendors."

Comments

Re:contradictory

[cpaluc]

I think it's pretty clear actually, and I think the final sentence summarises it quite well:

And the fact that open source may reduce the revenues of some software vendors does not mean that it reduces economic activity or economic success, but instead that it correctly allocates the profits to the developers of that software, its users.

Why do people or companies use software? They use it to achieve their own ends (eg. manufacturing widgets). In terms of the whole economy, the software industry isn't an end in itself, it's a means to an end (eg. making widgets or whatever you or your company does). Cheaper software might be bad for software vendors but that can be good for the economy overall. Widgets are bound to be cheaper if the companies that manufacture and sell them don't need to pay the M$ tax.