No Competition Between Open and Closed Source?

techie writes "MadPenguin.org is highlighting the lack of competition between open and closed source applications. The author writes, 'Is there really the level of competition in the open source world that we see in the closed source world? This is something that has been stuck in my mind lately as I have been told so many times by closed source developers that by opening the code you are creating your own competition. Today, I'm here to explore this theory and hopefully prove why it's false.'"

Comments

Re:Apples to Oranges

[david_thornley]

How on earth CAN one compare open source to closed source software in any meaningful way when it comes to competition? Can someone point me at a single Open sourced project that offers the same, or at least equivalent, service as the closed source version?

Ummmm, Apache vs. IIS? Is this a trick question or something?

I'm not just talking about technical specifications or functionality of the app itself, but also service, support, AND legal responsibility.

Service and support: the best and worst I've gotten were on commercial products; the free software I've used has tended to have good support, and you can buy service and support for free software. With proprietary software, either you can get support from the vendor, or you can't get support. Moreover, an organization selling support for free software needs to do a good job to stay in business, unlike normal commercial customer support, which is usually considered a cost center by the software vendor.

Legal responsibility: to the best of my knowledge, all software is equal here, in that nobody will accept legal responsibility. If you think any commercial vendor accepts responsibility, you've never read an EULA. The most I've seen one of those accept responsibility for is that there is, in fact, enclosed media, and the floppy or CD-ROM or whatever will remain such for sixty or ninety days.

Software has its own characteristics, and there are good reasons not to accept legal responsibility when distributing it. They apply both to free software and proprietary software.

Just because we as informed users are able to make use of equivalent FUNCTIONALITY it does not mean that it is an equivalent good in terms of the commercial world. Can we say that a program where the creating company is liable for the effects of its software on your system is truely equivalent in the business world versus the exact same functionality but "NO RESPONSIBILITY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART.." yadda yadda yadda.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any software where the creating company is liable for its effects. This means that this is a false comparison. One could just as well claim that unicorns are more suitable than horses for commercial purposes.

I don't know about every piece of software in the Universe, so if somebody could point me to a piece of software that is sold normally (as opposed to requiring a written and signed contract for distribution) that accepts responsibility for any problems, I'd be very interested.

Re:Weird Summary, Weird Article

[AKAImBatman]

It's only going to get worse in the next few years, as we feel the backlash from the teenybopper IM crowd. They're going to grow up and shower us with idiocy in written (or typed) form.

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