Can Open Source and Commercial Software Coexist?

morrison asks: "In recent years, the Open-Source movement has increased dramatically. Harnessing the power of thousands of developers and testers has proven successful, to varying degrees, in developing operating systems, graphics applications, and web tools, including Linux, POV-Ray, Blender, Gimp, and Apache. In a SIGGRAPH 2005 discussion panel, the questions will be raised as to whether the open-source model is relevant and useful to the graphics community. Does the model of proprietary application research, development, and usage serve the industry better? Or will commercial facilities continue to primarily choose off-the-shelf solutions? Can all models work together? As a large portion of the Slashdot and Open Source community will be at SIGGRAPH, I'd really like to hear some moderated arguments beforehand before stepping up to the microphone."

Comments

Depends,

[Lumpy]

Open source at times forces commercial software to improve. Just look at blender, after you get past the hissy fit that lightwave users have about the interface it has surpassed lightwave in capabilities and speed. We switched all our 3d artists over to it here 1 year ago and after the massive whine-fest over the interface and controls the guys will never go back, and so far has saved us several thousand dollars annually by not having to buy 4 licenses each upgrade cycle. one of the artists has become quite a guru with perl scritping for blender and is doing some amazing things that are almost pixar quality in a free "toy" that the supposed professionals poo-poo as worthless.

they also enjoy using gimp and find it easier to make tileable textures in gimp than in CS... and the biggest thing the guys like is being able to take copies of their software home and use it there. something that is 100% impossible with lightwave and photoshop CS.

They still have the older versions on their machines of the legacy lightwave and CS, but they use them both less and less.

I cant wait to see how the apps continue to shape out over the next 5-10 years... open source never has to add worthless features to entice users to buy the software yet again as is the requirement with commercial software... and that is how it can get better in the long run.

They're better together.

[PsiPsiStar]

I think this whole "one or the other" type of argument is a red herring.

The software industry naturally tends towards 'killer aps' which is a nice way of saying that it tends towards monopoly, even more so than traditional industry does. Being able to design a program once, and then produce millions of copies for profit is just too big an incentive to consolidate. It also makes for an incredible economy of scale, so that small companies have a hard time competing.

Look at Adobe's recent purchase of Macromedia to see which way the industry is going.

It's hard for a startup to compete with a readily established killer ap. Take Photoshop, for instance. If someone said "I'm going to start up a company that tries to do what photoshop does" I wouldn't want to invest my money there, unless it pandered to a special niche market - maybe designing 3D skins.

Competition is vital to keep the cost of proprietary systems reasonable. Also, monopolies have a bad history of abusing their customers.

Because OSS software is the most reliable model for giving sustained competition to programs which would otherwise come to monopolize their industry, open source is a vital suppliment to closed source software. It can't be bought out in the same way a private company can, and its low cost puts some downward pressure on the price of closed source systems.

Re:One argument I've heard

[pomo monster]

My take is that open source software is great at implementing things that are already commodities. Web servers became a commodity while Apache was being written. HTML rendering was becoming commonplace when Netscape decided to open Gecko. Same thing with MP3 coding and LAME and a hundred other examples I can't think of right now.

Proprietary stuff, on the other hand, tends to be newer and more cutting-edge than open source stuff. Photoshop vs. GIMP, Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice. Nero vs. x264 coding. The Mac's UI vs. Gnome/KDE. Where commercial software leads the way, open source follows (and usually does so exceedingly well).

Commercial software, then, is where innovation happens. Open source software excels at development and commoditization. They not only exist, but complement each other.

Horrible question

[Sheepdot]

Can Open Source and Commercial Software Coexist?

What a horrible question. Reminds me of another one:

Is Duke Nukem Forever going to come out?

Everyone's got an opinion on it, and yet you expect reasonable responses are going to be the ones modded up? No, instead, you'll get about four "+5, Funny" comments and maybe one "+5, Informative" with some scattered "+5, Interesting"'s that are really about different topics, like how cool BSD's license is and some classroom examples where no one knew what open source software was anyway.

If you want legitimate discussion, ask the question in a context. Like this: "Can Commercial Software roadblocks still allow Open Source developers to provide sufficient products in the near and long term?"

Another good one: "Is Open Source development keying in on certain specific applications (Apache, PHP, MySQL), causing stagnation in development of other equally-important and every-growing more challenging OS softwares (Samba, Wine, PERL)?"

Not all commercial developers are Big Guys

[fyngyrz]

Some smaller companies -- like mine -- have our own set of lunatics and there is no disconnect, or bridge to be built, between the idea of making something because you want to, and earning money, because you want money to be secure and live well. Nor is there any resistance to adding features that aren't broadly appealing, regardless of whose needs are (or are not) addressed.

And, as it happens, we make graphics software. We're a small company with a product that has considerably more features, and more power, than either the Gimp or Photoshop, and we do very well with it. There is no problem (for us) having the Gimp, at no cost, and Photoshop, at relatively high cost, marketing to the same group of people. With a moderate price model, we can (and do) convince owners of other products to give ours a shot without any particular problem.

The only trouble we've had is when we set our prices too low -- below $99.00, no one will take the product seriously. We've tried multiple times to set it lower, as we're well down the ROI curve, but it just won't sell below $99.95. We did find a workaround, though... we have an offer where we'll give it to you "at a discount" (for $49.95) if you say you have a Corel, JASC or Adobe product. We really don't care if you do or not; we don't even check. :-) But people will buy that even though they won't buy it if we actually price it at $49.95. The lesson? People are funny.

Aside from the in-your-face issue of price, commercial development, large or small, by its very nature brings something else to the table that open source doesn't, and that is a constant drive to work on the product without distraction or interruption. It does this by virtue of funding the development. This ensures that the developers can be secure in the knowledge they can go home at night and get the cat fed, pay the XM bill, and so on. They don't have to work at night (though of course they can, and if the company is smart they'll reward such behavior.) They can have a rich social life. Still, they get to spend many hours a day pushing pixels, and as a graphics developer, I can tell that is a significant pleasure.

All in all, I see no reason for commercial graphics development to be concerned about open source. Certainly there is no reason for open source to be concerned about commercial graphics development, per se.

Frankly the risk/danger (to everyone) is not other developers. The danger is software patents. The danger comes from the legislature. You can -- without ever intending to -- run afoul of someone's invention and be in a world of financial hurt as you try to defend yourself and protect the time and energy (and money, if you're commercial) you've put into your legitimate development, and the legal system can crash your progress as sure as if they were the on-coming train in the tunnel. In my opinion, that is the problem that needs addressing, and that is what will cause the most disruption(s) to any project, be it commercial or open source.