A Cynic Rips Open Source

AlexGr writes to tell us that Howard Anderson chaired an interesting meeting the other day with senior executives from Cisco, Agilent Technologies and Novell. The discussion took a look at whether or not enterprise users really want open source. "Naturally, I disagreed -- partially because I am a naturally disagreeable person. Any idiot can make friends -- but can you make some really serious enemies? I disagreed, however, because allegiance to open source depends on who you are. Let me give you an example. If you are No. 1 or No. 2 in your industry, you hate open source. You make your money by selling proprietary solutions: Microsoft and Cisco. If you are No. 3 to No. 10, you look at open source as a way to get back to those serious RSEUs, because they are where you make money."

Comments

Re:maybe?

[Daniel_Staal]

Better yet: What if your industry isn't computer-related. Computers then are just a tool to help you support your actual business. Open Source then means that you can rely on the software working in the future, for as long as you need it to (not just as long as the company who wrote it finds it profitable), and that you can switch computer support services whenever a better deal comes along. You don't care if it is closed or not: You just want it to work. Now and in the future.

And Open Source is better for that.

Re:Mod Parent Down

[AuMatar]

Software itself violates the free market. For an item to have value, it must have utility and scarcity. As the marginal cost of production of a unit of software is damn near 0 (its fractions of a penny of electricity), software does not have scarcity. Thus it has no value. The rules of economics don't apply to it (or more correctly, an entirely new model needs to be created, but does not currently exist).