There's "No Such Thing" as Free Software

st. augustine writes "This editorial on the front page of PC Magazine UK cites the old "programmers will starve" argument and claims that open source and cheap hardware are driving people out of business, thereby reducing consumer choice." The article is mostly about declining costs of hardware, the little FUD blurb is at the end, although it seems strangely familiar to an article sent in by toolz: this little gem appears on Microsoft.com so it doesn't have to try to be impartial. Read both, were going to see a lot more of this stuff.

Comments

He Just Doesn't Get It

[BadlandZ]

"Many have cited the efforts of IBM, Sun and HP to contribute to the Open Source pot. I would argue that the only reason they've been able to do so is that they have other business that allows them to fund this development. Think of it this way: if you're a small developer and you have six hours to write code today, would you spend it writing something that you'd give away or something that you could charge someone money for so that you could buy dinner tonight?"

Hehehehehahehahehaehahaha. Yea, OK. Sure. Let's see... He managed to prove that he STILL "just doesn't get it." I suppose he doesn't believe in evolution either, and we just "appeared" on the planet suddenly too.

Software is undergoing an evolution, it's that simple. The cashflow will come from support, not development. That is showing. The percentage of the people in the world that can code a valuable application is going up, and the law of supply and demand only proves that GNU/GPL is going to be the way of the future. Does he believe that there are eventually going to be 1000's of Word Processors that are commercial, and they will all sell for $100 a copy?!?

Talented coders prove thier worth with GNU/GPL, and get hired by companys after they prove themselfs. This is because of economics. Companies can't afford to hire people that are really good to make a shrik-wrap software package forever. But, they are learning very quickly that thier support mechinism is seriously lacking, and thier highschool dropouts with good phone voices aren't hacking it as phone in support techs. Companies will loose buisness selling a fancy product with crappy support. It happens slowly.

There are many companies that still do buisness the "old way," but that is slowly changing. When people order software today, they are more consirned about support. When big buisness orders a software solution now, they are more and more looking at something that can be modified to suit thier specific needs after they get it. It's not fully there yet, but it's clearly moving that way.

Software is evolving, this guy is a dinosaur and doesn't get it. Programmers will bring home good paychecks after this evolution, but it is not going to be for shrinkwraped software, it will be for solid tech support, and custom hacks of open source software to specificly suit a companys need. I don't think dinasours understood Darwins theory of evolution, and I don't think you could teach them either. This guy is a dinasour, don't waste your time listening to his arcane grunting.

Bob Kane's response

[aheitner]

Mr. Kane actually responded -- which I find amazing considering the volume of mail he likely got. Here is his response, and he makes some valid points:

Ari -
Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, keeping up with all the 'feedback'
I receive is a full time job, so I will have to keep my comments brief.

Unfortunately, many people equate 'open souce' with free software. This is
not a model that can last. Many companies supporting open source
development are hardware companies that find it easy to get wider support
for their products by getting on the Linux bandwagon. But can a company
even the size of IBM that lost $1bn last year in their PC business afford
this sort of development over the long haul? I doubt it.

Also, considering the many problems AMD has had over the past several
quarters not making money, how long can they afford to provide a cheaper
alternative? They may have captured the retail market (not a Linux
stronghold I might add) but at what price? And when K7 comes out and is no
longer compatible with the Intel socket/slot architecture, will they even
be able to keep that?

I'm not against Linux or Open Source per se (I have Red Hat, NT and 98 all
installed on my laptop) but the only reason why companies have been able to
afford to sell things at a loss these days is because of the insanity of
the stock market as the money is in the equity valuation, not in whether or
not a company can be profitable. When that goes away, where's the money
going to come from for software development?

-Bob-

copy of the letter I sent kane

[aheitner]

Dear Mr. Kane:

I must disagree with you about the state of consumer choice and Open
Source software. Open Source Software (OSS) does not represent a decision
not to make money from selling software. Many companies do -- RedHat and
Caldera in the US, Pacific HiTech in Japan, and SuSE in Germany are just a
few.

Why does this work? It stems from a realization that the software market
does not work in a traditional economic sense, nor anything remotely like
the hardware market (an example of perfect competition if there ever was
one). MicroSoft can sell as many copies as they want of Windows at
essentially no cost, once it's developed. The box, CD and manual represent
a negligable part of the $90 (much more for WinNT) cost of the software.
The cost to them is in fact technical support -- which is why the
technical support has gotten so bad recently, to the point where you must
pay for every incident if you are a regular customer. This is what OSS
Value Added Resellers actually sell. Anyone can download a copy of RedHat,
but you have to pay if you want technical support. Even MicroSoft
acknowledges this is a good idea -- their coming reorganization includes a
whole division of "Knowledge Workers".

And what of the programmers who write free software? The argument that
they won't because they'd rather be paid is invalid -- they already do.
Linux runs on hardware from Personal Digital Assistants (the PalmPilot and
Compaq's experimental Itsy) through destroying WindowsNT on desktops and
servers (see ZD's own articles comparing NT and Linux as a Windows
Networking server) through supercomputers among the 100 fastest machines
in the world (IBM built a Linux supercomputer with off the shelf parts and
a $40 RedHat CD that was as fast as a Cray during LinuxWorld Expo in San
Jose a couple of weeks ago). The base of superior software already exists.
Many programmers contribute the tools they need, written to solve their
own personal requirements. Others donate their time for fun (such as my
friend Ian Peters, a fellow Carnegie-Mellon University student and the
GNOME Games package maintainer). Still others are employed by OSS VARs to
increase the value of the product -- in this catagory are Alan Cox the
Linux hardware guru, and a big chunk of the GNOME desktop environment
team, all employed by RedHat.

I also note that Intel's perfect following of Moore's law, and the
constant pricing of a "nice" computer system (used to be about $2500 here
in the US) was an artifact of the way Intel made all the machines. Those
chips cost Intel much less than they're selling them at. But for many
years they had a monopoly and no pressure to cut prices. But along came
AMD and Cyrix to cut into Intel's marketshare in the sub-$1000 value
priced PC arena (the kind of machine that will soon make a PC a standard
appliance in every home in North America and Europe), and all of a sudden
there was competition. Intel has already lost the lead to AMD for market
share -- and the rule of thumb about pricing is out the window.

As of now, processor technology can still be developed by the big guns
of AMD, Intel and Cyrix on a Moore's Law track (works well, since it gives
the engineers a target), but there are arenas in the hardware market where
the law simply doesn't apply. In 3D hardware the product cycle is closer
to 9 months, and each new product has many more than twice as many
transistors, since the leading manufacturers such as 3Dfx, nVidia, Matrox
and ATI are competing on a technological playing field with near constant
pricing between them.

If you have yet to try Linux, I suggest you do. There really is
something to Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and Baazar" model of software
development. We don't use Linux because we're foolish lunatics. Millions
of us use it because it's better. That's why Linux is gaining market share
in corporate servers far faster than any other player.


Yours sincerely,

Ari Heitner
-----------
DC: 703/5733512 CMU: 412/8623003
www.singularity-software.com
-----------
"You know how your whole life flashes in front of your eyes before you die?
That's just gdb unwinding the call stack . . . "

CC: Bob Kane of PCMagazine UK