Slashdot Mirror
Linux To Take Over The Low-End PC Market?
An anonymous reader writes "Desktop Linux has a recent commentary on the inevitable growth of Linux on the cheaper end of the desktop market. According to the article, the availability of under-$500 usable hardware, combined with a free operating system, free desktop office products, and free or cheap 'software as a service' online applications, opens a new market in which Microsoft cannot compete. 'Microsoft will fight this trend tooth and nail. It will cut prices to the point where it'll be bleeding ink on some of its product lines. And Windows XP is going to stick around much longer than Microsoft ever wanted it to. Still, it won't be enough.'"
Since Slashdot jumped the shark a few years back. Most of the opinion pieces from Dvorak etc. are poorly informed wishful thinking or trolling. Should Disney buy Apple?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The thread links to an article whose tone I took as negative towards Microsoft. And what was the heinous crime Microsoft was accused of? Selling their software! *gasp*
I simply don't understand why everyone takes the point of view that "software should be free" when it requires highly trained specialists to design and code it. I understand that software breaks the mold of traditional manufacturing such as car production, where costly raw materials and a lengthy manufacturing process contributes to the cost of producing a car. With software the cost is all front loaded on the design and implementation, while subsequent reproduction is as cheap as copying a DVD. This comparison misses the point, however: producing software is an enormously expensive proposition. While it may only cost Microsoft $.05 to burn a copy of XP, it cost them millions in development. Those development costs have to be recouped somehow, not to mention paying some interest to the investors who risked their money for the development in the first place. Placing a price tag on the software is how they do it.
So while contributing to an open source project may seem like a good idea in college, upon graduation 99.9% of programmers are going to go looking for a traditional company that will provide an actual paying position. When that happens, programmers quickly learn they weren't "sticking it to the man", they were really only sticking it to themselves and their future careers.
Think about Linux for a moment. Hundreds of programmers have contributed to it, allowing a handful of companies to profit from their hard work. The companies were so appreciative of the free labor that they awarded Linus Torvalds in the neighborhood of $20 million in stock options, yet the vast majority of programmers went unpaid.
How long will such a business model be sustainable? I suspect not long. Programmers are smarter than that, and when they figure out what is going on (you work for free while I capitalize on your hard work and profit from it) I suspect the pool of talent supporting free software will dry up. So I'm left wondering if the entire idea of free software will really be sustainable into the next generation. If it is not, as I suspect, then this entire thread is a moot point. Free software won't steal market share from Microsoft because there will not be any free software.