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Is Open Source Software a Race To Zero?
gozunda writes "My company is an open source software vendor/developer. We maintain a popular open source project and keep ourselves afloat by producing commercial products derived from or extending the value of the core project. Over time we've seen our business model eroding as other open source projects produce free versions of the same extensions and utilities that are our bread and butter. Something that was worth $5K last year is suddenly worth $0 because the free version is just as good as the paid. This same cycle is obviously having an impact on pure-play commercial software vendors. Is open source ultimately a race to zero? In ten years will there be any cost associated with commodity (non-custom) software? If not, will there still be a 'software industry' as it exists today, or will software simply be a by-product of the operation of other industries? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? As a professional developer, do I need to fear this or feed it?"
Read Capital Vol. III part 3
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch13.htm
FOR WORKERS REVOLUTION TO SMASH IMPERIALISM!
According to him, you don't really exist.
So take it up with the guy that started it all. He'll patiently explain exactly why you are merely a hypothesis, then you can tell that to the bank and they'll stop bothering you about those hypothetical mortgage payments. Also, hypothetical people don't have to pay for things at the grocery store: you just share them.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Keeping food on a metaphorical table always causes me trouble. I can't even recall the number of times I've had to mop the floor.
the value of a buggy whip is $0 for me, because I have no use for one.
I, for one, welcome our buggy-whip-wielding dominatrix overlords.
Lots of people used to ask whether FOSS could compete with proprietary software. I remember reading lots of people ask, "Will Linux be able to catch up to Windows?" I haven't seen that in a while, and for good reason.
Those people got sick of waiting and started using OS X?
Comment of the year
If you are not innovating, then you and your competitor can drop prices until it is effectively zero. Commodity software eventually drops to zero with or without open source. Innovative design is worthwhile. Besides, how many engineers do you see out of work because they can't design a better bridge?
We'll tell that to Microsoft ;)
And the other side of the coin is that IT is not a producing industry. IT merely allows other industries to produce their goods and services in a more efficient fashion.
Dude. Guitar Hero.
29 mpg. YMMV.
When people stopped using the 8080 chip, my software business went away. After learning several languages that disappeared in a few years, I decided to leave the swamp behind and build on rock: record stores.