There are definitely many people who can speak Klingon. Many people think we're crazy, but we ignore them and continue to improve our abilities anyway. Some of us don't even like Star Trek that much; we just like learning the language....Paul
There's a fourth point, though it's not related to the chicken-and-egg problem -- Few people feel they should be required to pay for quality software, because of course they're running a quality OS that they didn't pay for.
Personally, I've bought Civ:CTP, RR2 (both from EBX, of all places!) and I've bought Q3 and Myth 2 straight from Loki. I fully support the commercial games market for Linux, and feel that only by buying these products will we ever have any chance of seeing more and original quality games for the platform.
...Paul
-- If it's not important, you can probably find it in...
The big reason I like the way Corel is going is NOT their Linux distribution (although I've heard good things about it), but the fact that they're seriously developing software for the platform.
Corel's big risk right now is not getting into the Linux distribution market, but rather, banking on the idea that people who have overdosed on the open source & free software craze will actually come back down to earth and pay some money for good software.
Linux is STILL the underdog OS, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. One of the major reasons for this is the lack of "serious software". Yes, it's great for servers, and companies are now adopting it for just that purpose. But for most companies, and almost all households, servers are a very small portion of the hardware out there. Companies need to be sure that the OS they stick on their employees' laptops and desktops has the software they need to get the job done. And we're not talking about engineers here, we're talking secretaries, HR people, marketing, etc.
A good port of WordPerfect, especially if bundled with a very easy-to-use distribution of Linux, could go a LONG way to "common adoption" in the officeplace. CorelDRAW can only boost it further. This is the thing that puts Corel's possible future a notch above even Red Hat -- this company now has both the OS -and- some needed applications.
Yes, yes, I know. StarOffice. I use StarOffice, and it's a whole lot of not bad. But the big target market for Linux right now are *newbies*. People who don't know better. People who install Windows 98 and don't even know Netscape is an alternative browser. These people are not going to install Red Hat, go out and find StarOffice on Sun's website, download it, and install it. It's just not going to happen. SlashDotters seem to often forget that the average joe on the street has the IQ of celery compared the Linux weenies that visit this site. But unfortunately, that's where the *majority* of the cash flow is coming from. Why do you think the iMac has proven such a hit among the first-time computer buyers?
I bought some Corel stock, and I'm expecting good things from them. The GraphOn Windows compatibility deal they've landed looks very good to me. I've read nothing but good reviews of their Linux package (at least for those points where mass market cares -- such as easy of setup and ease of use). And they're going to be at the Linux Expo in Paris in February.
Go Corel!
...Paul
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Wearable computers have been out for a while, in various forms. The future of wearable computers is not going to be what OS it runs, or how much power it has (look at the Palm PDAs... Not a lot of power, but *extremely* useful and popular).
The future is going to be dictated by two things, software and interface. The biggest reason wearable computers aren't "human efficient" yet are the interfaces. The point of wearables is lost if you have to break out a keyboard in order to enter data, or need a flat surface to run your mouse on. The pistol grip mouse controller this new machine has is a step forward, but the lack of random character input hinders its usefulness. There are TV ads for wearables that are voice-controlled, but these interfaces are not optimal due to the simple fact that people sitting next to you on the bus simply do not want to hear you controlling your computer.
There exist some palm-held keyboards that work on a chording principle, I believe some of the gargoyle cyborgs at the MIT Media Lab use these; with only five buttons, you can chord together all the keys on a keyboard. The major problem with this reaching mainstream is that it is a completely different mechanism that would have be learned & practiced. There were some ergonomic keyboards that took advantage of the chording concept (to prevent having to move your fingers all over the place), but these didn't take off for much the same reason.
What, then, is going to drive the industry towards wearables? IMHO, it's software. People were apparently willing to learn the Graffiti system for the Palm because that line of PDAs provided the right kinds of software in a very portable fashion. The software was mostly read-only, data entry is not its strong point, but neither was it intended to be. That's the kind of thing that a wearable computer could be useful for -- the keyboard isn't so necessary if all you're doing is displaying data.
Of course, you don't need a Pentium to display data! Which means a heads-up Visor (hmm... fate?;) could just as easily be the next big thing. As well, perhaps it's not the machine we should be impressed with, so much as the headset -- I can think of many more uses for a head-mounted, your-eyes-only, just-like-a-monitor display, even with conventional laptops -- on a plane, bus, train, for security reasons and/or for space limitations.
I love the idea of wearable computers. Someone just needs to develop the killer app for it, something that would give people a reason to actually want to use one on a constant basis.
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Let me preface this by saying that Red Hat HAS done a superb job in promoting Linux, making it pretty easy for the masses to obtain and install, and all that.
Let me then go on to express how tired I am of seeing companies get "awards" for being public. I installed Debian Linux back in '96ish, after a merely satisfactory experience with a copy of Slackware that came attached to the back cover of a book. At the time, I don't recall seeing Red Hat as an distribution, let alone one worthy of high praise.
Fast forward to current day. Red Hat is probably the biggest "name" in Linux distributions, but I think it's still debatable if it's the best distribution.
None of the three articles mentioned Debian or Slackware. Apparently in order to be an award-winning software product you actually have to be handled by a company that has a physical headquarters somewhere.
Perhaps the awards should be "Best Software Product From People Who Charge At Least A Little Bit Of Money". Is the problem that mass media (ie. the people writing these articles and giving out these "awards") only see as far as the complimentary review copies of software that land on their desks?
Remember when the PC Magazine "Editor's Choice" award actually MEANT something? If we give out these awards too freely, they lose meaning. Worse yet, we may attribute to them a negative connotation, bringing to mind images of corporate sell-out, clandestine agreements behind the scenes, kickbacks for the "promotional value"... And then where do we land?
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Uh... Gateway is going to be offering the Athlon 700 MHz processor in their computers. See C|Net News.
Motherboard availability for AMD is probably simply because Intel architecture has dominated, and manufacturers don't yet see a profitable cost/benefit tradeoff for retooling or expanding to incorporate the AMD stuff (AMD's using what, Slot A stuff? Intel's Slot 1? I forget, but know they're different.)
The lawsuit Intel filed against Via (See story on C|Net) is about licensing agreement violations and patent infringement, and doesn't actually have anything to do with AMD.
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As others have spelled out, Intel's invested in several other OS's. It suits their interests -- they realize that if they can get everyone's OS to run on their platform, they can play both ends against the middle. At that point, they won't HAVE to care what OS gets used, they can be assured people will probably be using their processors. Then they can concentrate on what their own marketing and development.
The Microsoft fallout is probably threatening them a little, especially with AMD's resurging competition. Since Intel was almost completely "kept" by Microsoft, they had one advantage -- they could direct a lot more of their time and energy on development (albeit almost solely for Microsoft's purposes...) and the focus the Wintel alliance gave them is being eroded by new competitors and alternative OSes.
Maybe we'll see a Lintel alliance? Perhaps. But I think also perhaps Intel would like to simply promote their architecture for every OS out there. And after Microsoft, they'd probably be a little gunshy about official "alliances" with any one particular OS in the future...
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"In other words, it's worth improving the software only if there is a need for the improvement. If everybody is happy with the 95% solution that is free, so be it. The last 5% will never be finished, but that's OK because the time and energy for the last 5% will get channeled to something else, likely newer and more interesting."
Don't you think this might lead to a stagnation in software development? It sounds like a marketing rule (which it probably is), but it's true to some degree: "People don't know what they need until you tell them." My mother doesn't know anything outside of AOL, and probably never would if I didn't tell her about various things. She doesn't know, she doesn't care. Ignorance is bliss.
Software has advanced primarily because there are companies out there trying to make a buck. The competition for market dollars is what's kept people developing new/better applications. Development under a pure pro bono scheme would be slowed horrendously due to outside factors.
It used to be, "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." But the software world is moving away from that. We've got mousetraps, but the market isn't looking for better ones -- only different ones.
Maybe it's not because of free software that developers are being forced to look for "new" rather than "improved" -- perhaps it's the general public doesn't understand the products enough to see the value of "improved". How many Windows users realize just how unstable their operating system is? How many would believe that having to reboot their machines every three hours is simply the de facto standard among operating systems? How many could understand why OS/2 Warp was so much technically superior to Windows 3.11? Probably very few.
But they can see the difference in functionality. They just have to compare the boxes on the shelves. Slap a label on the box that says, "Now with new Widget support!" and the customer automatically knows this is a superior product. Doesn't phase them in the least that the software still contains the same bugs they've put up with for the last three years, new Widget support is obvious progress, and certainly must be a better product!
We're a bunch of technogeeks. We know better. But what a lot of us don't usually remember is that we are the minority. By a LOT. How many people buy new cars based on the type of welds used on the chassis, compare that to how many people buy cars because they look cool, or because they have an in-dash CD player rather than a tape deck?
Of course, all this conjecture is based on the idea that a specific free software package becomes the dominant package in some area. This has probably already happened in one or two places, but for the bulk of the market, probably has not, and probably will not, especially if the problem set is complex enough. It will be interesting to see if this happens, but my guess is that it will not be able to compare to the rapid development cycles that can be provided for by commercial development environments.
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"There are volunteer fireman, police, EMT's, greenpeace, missionaries, etc. etc... Maybe Open Source is the software version of the red cross."
"Money makes the world go 'round". It's a question of whether or not the state is self-sustaining or not. There are volunteer firemen, police, etc, but they are supported by public funding. Greenpeace is supported by donations, as are missionaries. See the common factor here? Money. Free software doesn't have money coming into it. This all but precludes any form of dedicated development.
This creates a major drag factor on free software development. There's a reason the land speed record was broken by a guy with boku commercial sponsorship, and not buy that guy tricking out his car on weekends. Concentrated development, where sundry concerns of how to pay for the pizza you eat every night in front of the keyboard are addressed and no longer a problem, is always more effective than spare-time development -- either more effective by being more robust, or simply more effective by being faster.
Money is the difference between cable access major networks. What are the chances a cable access show done by some guy on their weekends is going to be of better quality than something that people are working on 40 hours a week? Pretty slim. Open source/free software is the cable access of the software world. There are a few gems out there ("Wayne's World, Wayne's World, Party Time, Excellent!";) but it doesn't have the market reach or the funding to truly compete.
What it does have going for it, however, is that the costs to do development are very small; perhaps that's the only reason why free software is becoming so successful -- the physical outlay of money is negligible these days.
It's like a food chain, where everything (supposedly) goes around in a circle. Little fish eat plants, big fish eats little fish, big fish dies and provides fertilizer for plants, which get eaten by little fish, etc.
Commercial development reflects this cycle. Group uses money to develop product, product gets bought with money, which the group uses to develop next product. Take the money out of the equation, and things start to look grim: Group uses money to develop product, product distributed for free, group does not have money to further development -- the cycle breaks. There HAS to be some influx of time and/or money into the cycle to be sustained. Free software, if it were to dominate the "market", is not self-sustaining, primarily because of money.
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Lotsa commercial software -> Lotsa developers with day jobs -> Lotsa free software -> Less commercial software -> Less developers with day jobs -> Less free software -> More commercial software -> More developers with day jobs ->
This cycle is definitely possible, and probable, but one big question would be how long it takes to happen.
Look at what would be needed to break the barrier to entry that free software would present -- If the world becomes accustomed to using decent applications for free, what market will there be for someone who wants to charge $20 a copy? In light of the Microsoft Maneuver, is there any possibility that anyone can, in the forseeable future, produce a web browser that they profit from, regardless of what platform it ran on?
Once there are satisfactory products in the market that have zero cost to the consumer, it becomes extremely difficult to promote and profit from a pay-for product. Unfortunately, without some form of income, further development is often stymied, either due to lack of time (because of the need to maintain a personal form of income, ie. day job) or resources (why work on a product that can't be sold when you could work on one that can?) I think perhaps AOL is finding this scenario with their acquisition of Netscape.
Profitable software ventures now become a question of being the first in some niche, rather than producing a superior product. Be the first, grab the market share, make a profit quick before someone else undercuts you. As you said, "Lather, Rinse, Repeat".
"Invent, Bail, Repeat"
Free software is at a stage now where it's forcing commercial software to improve itself. But I think there's going to come a time where it's going to OVERachieve this goal, and will simply put many commercial sources out of the market. Is this good? Is this bad? Probably a little of both. A high quality free product can more easily create a monopoly than one that has an associated cost. However, it is in even more danger of causing a stagnation in development. From a profit standpoint, there's no reason to compete with a free product, especially if it's of a high enough quality.
If Apache could do everything IIS could do (and vice versa), but IIS was 1% more stable, would you pay $100 for that bit of improvement? $50? $5? The market has been fighting in terms of functions, not quality. It's as though Ford tried to make their Pintos more appealing by giving them flight capability rather than fixing the exploding gas tank problem. Compare:
"Sure, the Pinto explodes occasionally, but it does something the Chevy doesn't -- it can fly!"
"Sure, IE opens your computer to viruses, but it does something Netscape doesn't -- it can use ActiveX controls!"
Unfortunately, unlike a flying Pinto, it's much easier to sell added features than it is to sell improved quality. Laypeople just don't understand (or care about) why Linux is seen as better than Windows, or why so many people hate Microsoft products.
I'm babbling again. Sorry.
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The issue isn't something like "Linux vs. Windows" or "BSD vs. Windows" or "etc. vs. Windows" but it's free open-sourced software vs. closed-source software. and especially about freedom of choice. If M$ had the idea like "Windows is just one choice among many... we just try to make it the best." rather than "Windows is the only choice. You have to put up with whatever we give you." then I could stand it. Hear hear! I find myself wondering if all the hub-bub about free software/open source is more of a desperate solution to the monopoly problem posed by Microsoft, than a real 'evolution' of software distribution principles. It seems as though open source is being approached as "the solution to thwart Microsoft", which it isn't. People also often forget the "common man" factor. Open source means dinkus to Joe Shmoe on the street. 99% of the people in the market wouldn't know how to compile open source software if it came with step-by-step instructions (Warning: Percentage pulled out of ass). So what's the benefit of open source to them? Quality, perhaps. Open source does benefit from the fact that people will be looking at the code, and the more eyes a piece of code receives, the more likely bugs are going to be spotted and corrected. Low cost, definitely -- open source software is usually free. But how about the most important factor in the market, convenience? Open source gets a big goose egg in that respect, I think. It is all about the freedom of choice, as you said. I don't think the free software/open source bandwagon would've gotten rolling if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft had no legitimate market competition in the mass market arena. Unfortunately, I don't think open source/free software is going to be able to change that on its own. It may help against the "barrier to entry", but it's not enough on its own. -- If it's not important, you can probably find it in...
Let's look at things collectively and long-term here...
There is commercial software. Commercial software operates on standard capitalism principles -- there's a demand, you create a supply, you profit off meeting the need. This system is self-sustaining because the profits of one product can keep a group solvent enough to go on to create another (or to improve further on their original design).
There's free software. This is given out for free, for whatever purpose -- bragging rights, ulterior motives (like locking people into your platform or software model), or just because you're a really nice person who wants to share with the world.
Then there's open software. This is often done for bragging rights, for philanthropic reasons, and one major added bonus -- it allows other people to help you get around the platform issue that a single person in a garage might not be able to handle (I don't have an SGI Irix machine around, but if I release something open source, I'm sure someone could pick it up and make sure it works on their Indy).
Lately, commercial software has gotten a bad rap, and open source is in the limelight. The problem is that I personally don't see open source being self-sustaining. Look at this original message -- people writing the best open source code have lucrative day jobs. What happens if open source hits the marketplace in such a fashion that software companies can't compete aside from releasing free products (cf. DoJ vs. Microsoft)? There are quite a few major software development firms out there, sustained by a commercial market. If open source is reliant on people who have lucrative jobs (and thus, the outside money to support the open source development), what happens when those jobs slim down? Are we all going to become graduate students looking for grant money for the rest of our lives?
This is not to say that I disapprove of the free software initiative, or the open source efforts. However, I do not see either of these forms of software development becoming more prevalent (Drat, I can never remember how to spell that word) than commercial software.
Worse yet, I see people's hangups on the whole free software thing has being detrimental to what they often support. Linux is a free OS. Great. How do you expect to get very high-quality applications for it if you're unwilling to shell out the money to support people doing concentrated software development for that platform? I put down $50 for LokiSoft's port of "Civilization: Call To Power" and I fully plan to purchase Railroad Tycoon II as soon as I see it. These are quality software products that deserve my money, and I want to communicate to LokiSoft (and the rest of the industry) that I, for one, want to pay for high quality software.
You can't live on high praise. For all those people giving their work out the public, THANK YOU sincerely and truly. But for everyone else, realize that free software is a privilege, not a right.
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I think the US (and I believe Canada) have some kind of fool tax on recordable audio media that have plagued cassettes for ages and affect minidiscs. Blank MD's here, if you can find them, are at best US$3 apiece, while I've heard that in Japan they sell for the equivalent of US$0.50.
Apparently, if I remember correctly, the biggest reason for the difference is NOT overseas manufacturing, but rather that the US charges the manufacturers a tax on EACH DISC PRODUCED, to help ASCAP (or whatever that horrid acronym is -- rhymes with "asscrap") avoid the piracy losses derived from people trying to understand why an audio CD that costs $0.23 to press costs the consumer $17.
My local Tower records actually has a small rack of pre-recorded MD's, and I've noticed that CDNow appears to be starting to stock them. Sony's got a website that sells them for slightly cheaper than the CD equivalent (in most cases). I'd almost be inclined to start buying them, but it's cheaper for me to still buy plainjane CDs, and then if I want to transport them, make a (temporary) digital-to-digital dub from my DVD player to my MD pack.
Leave it to the US lawmakers to completely screw over great technology in one of the largest consumer markets in the world.
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Maybe it's Visual J++ feeping creatures into the stuff I see on the web, or maybe it's just that I've never been able to get Java support in a Linux browser.
I don't care who makes it, I don't even care if I have to shell out a few bucks for it. I want a browser that can handle Java applets without crapping out after thirty seconds.
I know a lot of people don't like Java, but unfortunately, I think the best way to advance everyone all at once is to have some kind of common software architecture that can be used on multiple platforms. Maybe the answer isn't Java, but I think the concept is sound. It'd certainly allow developers to sell to more than just the largest (or niche) markets...
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Slashdot Mirror
law'bej tlhIngan Hol jatlhlaHbogh ghot. mamaw' 'e' Har ghotpu' law', 'ach wIbuSHa' 'ej laHmaj wIDubtaH /Star Trek/ wIparHa'qu'be' 'op maH; Hol'e' wIghojtaH 'e' wIparHa' neH.
...Paul
tlhoy
There are definitely many people who can speak Klingon. Many people think we're crazy, but we ignore them and continue to improve our abilities anyway. Some of us don't even like Star Trek that much; we just like learning the language.
There's a fourth point, though it's not related to the chicken-and-egg problem -- Few people feel they should be required to pay for quality software, because of course they're running a quality OS that they didn't pay for.
Personally, I've bought Civ:CTP, RR2 (both from EBX, of all places!) and I've bought Q3 and Myth 2 straight from Loki. I fully support the commercial games market for Linux, and feel that only by buying these products will we ever have any chance of seeing more and original quality games for the platform.
...Paul
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Corel's big risk right now is not getting into the Linux distribution market, but rather, banking on the idea that people who have overdosed on the open source & free software craze will actually come back down to earth and pay some money for good software.
Linux is STILL the underdog OS, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. One of the major reasons for this is the lack of "serious software". Yes, it's great for servers, and companies are now adopting it for just that purpose. But for most companies, and almost all households, servers are a very small portion of the hardware out there. Companies need to be sure that the OS they stick on their employees' laptops and desktops has the software they need to get the job done. And we're not talking about engineers here, we're talking secretaries, HR people, marketing, etc.
A good port of WordPerfect, especially if bundled with a very easy-to-use distribution of Linux, could go a LONG way to "common adoption" in the officeplace. CorelDRAW can only boost it further. This is the thing that puts Corel's possible future a notch above even Red Hat -- this company now has both the OS -and- some needed applications.
Yes, yes, I know. StarOffice. I use StarOffice, and it's a whole lot of not bad. But the big target market for Linux right now are *newbies*. People who don't know better. People who install Windows 98 and don't even know Netscape is an alternative browser. These people are not going to install Red Hat, go out and find StarOffice on Sun's website, download it, and install it. It's just not going to happen. SlashDotters seem to often forget that the average joe on the street has the IQ of celery compared the Linux weenies that visit this site. But unfortunately, that's where the *majority* of the cash flow is coming from. Why do you think the iMac has proven such a hit among the first-time computer buyers?
I bought some Corel stock, and I'm expecting good things from them. The GraphOn Windows compatibility deal they've landed looks very good to me. I've read nothing but good reviews of their Linux package (at least for those points where mass market cares -- such as easy of setup and ease of use). And they're going to be at the Linux Expo in Paris in February.
Go Corel!
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The future is going to be dictated by two things, software and interface. The biggest reason wearable computers aren't "human efficient" yet are the interfaces. The point of wearables is lost if you have to break out a keyboard in order to enter data, or need a flat surface to run your mouse on. The pistol grip mouse controller this new machine has is a step forward, but the lack of random character input hinders its usefulness. There are TV ads for wearables that are voice-controlled, but these interfaces are not optimal due to the simple fact that people sitting next to you on the bus simply do not want to hear you controlling your computer.
There exist some palm-held keyboards that work on a chording principle, I believe some of the gargoyle cyborgs at the MIT Media Lab use these; with only five buttons, you can chord together all the keys on a keyboard. The major problem with this reaching mainstream is that it is a completely different mechanism that would have be learned & practiced. There were some ergonomic keyboards that took advantage of the chording concept (to prevent having to move your fingers all over the place), but these didn't take off for much the same reason.
What, then, is going to drive the industry towards wearables? IMHO, it's software. People were apparently willing to learn the Graffiti system for the Palm because that line of PDAs provided the right kinds of software in a very portable fashion. The software was mostly read-only, data entry is not its strong point, but neither was it intended to be. That's the kind of thing that a wearable computer could be useful for -- the keyboard isn't so necessary if all you're doing is displaying data.
Of course, you don't need a Pentium to display data! Which means a heads-up Visor (hmm... fate? ;) could just as easily be the next big thing. As well, perhaps it's not the machine we should be impressed with, so much as the headset -- I can think of many more uses for a head-mounted, your-eyes-only, just-like-a-monitor display, even with conventional laptops -- on a plane, bus, train, for security reasons and/or for space limitations.
I love the idea of wearable computers. Someone just needs to develop the killer app for it, something that would give people a reason to actually want to use one on a constant basis.
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Let me then go on to express how tired I am of seeing companies get "awards" for being public. I installed Debian Linux back in '96ish, after a merely satisfactory experience with a copy of Slackware that came attached to the back cover of a book. At the time, I don't recall seeing Red Hat as an distribution, let alone one worthy of high praise.
Fast forward to current day. Red Hat is probably the biggest "name" in Linux distributions, but I think it's still debatable if it's the best distribution.
None of the three articles mentioned Debian or Slackware. Apparently in order to be an award-winning software product you actually have to be handled by a company that has a physical headquarters somewhere.
Perhaps the awards should be "Best Software Product From People Who Charge At Least A Little Bit Of Money". Is the problem that mass media (ie. the people writing these articles and giving out these "awards") only see as far as the complimentary review copies of software that land on their desks?
Remember when the PC Magazine "Editor's Choice" award actually MEANT something? If we give out these awards too freely, they lose meaning. Worse yet, we may attribute to them a negative connotation, bringing to mind images of corporate sell-out, clandestine agreements behind the scenes, kickbacks for the "promotional value"... And then where do we land?
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Motherboard availability for AMD is probably simply because Intel architecture has dominated, and manufacturers don't yet see a profitable cost/benefit tradeoff for retooling or expanding to incorporate the AMD stuff (AMD's using what, Slot A stuff? Intel's Slot 1? I forget, but know they're different.)
The lawsuit Intel filed against Via (See story on C|Net) is about licensing agreement violations and patent infringement, and doesn't actually have anything to do with AMD.
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The Microsoft fallout is probably threatening them a little, especially with AMD's resurging competition. Since Intel was almost completely "kept" by Microsoft, they had one advantage -- they could direct a lot more of their time and energy on development (albeit almost solely for Microsoft's purposes...) and the focus the Wintel alliance gave them is being eroded by new competitors and alternative OSes.
Maybe we'll see a Lintel alliance? Perhaps. But I think also perhaps Intel would like to simply promote their architecture for every OS out there. And after Microsoft, they'd probably be a little gunshy about official "alliances" with any one particular OS in the future...
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Don't you think this might lead to a stagnation in software development? It sounds like a marketing rule (which it probably is), but it's true to some degree: "People don't know what they need until you tell them." My mother doesn't know anything outside of AOL, and probably never would if I didn't tell her about various things. She doesn't know, she doesn't care. Ignorance is bliss.
Software has advanced primarily because there are companies out there trying to make a buck. The competition for market dollars is what's kept people developing new/better applications. Development under a pure pro bono scheme would be slowed horrendously due to outside factors.
It used to be, "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." But the software world is moving away from that. We've got mousetraps, but the market isn't looking for better ones -- only different ones.
Maybe it's not because of free software that developers are being forced to look for "new" rather than "improved" -- perhaps it's the general public doesn't understand the products enough to see the value of "improved". How many Windows users realize just how unstable their operating system is? How many would believe that having to reboot their machines every three hours is simply the de facto standard among operating systems? How many could understand why OS/2 Warp was so much technically superior to Windows 3.11? Probably very few.
But they can see the difference in functionality. They just have to compare the boxes on the shelves. Slap a label on the box that says, "Now with new Widget support!" and the customer automatically knows this is a superior product. Doesn't phase them in the least that the software still contains the same bugs they've put up with for the last three years, new Widget support is obvious progress, and certainly must be a better product!
We're a bunch of technogeeks. We know better. But what a lot of us don't usually remember is that we are the minority. By a LOT. How many people buy new cars based on the type of welds used on the chassis, compare that to how many people buy cars because they look cool, or because they have an in-dash CD player rather than a tape deck?
Of course, all this conjecture is based on the idea that a specific free software package becomes the dominant package in some area. This has probably already happened in one or two places, but for the bulk of the market, probably has not, and probably will not, especially if the problem set is complex enough. It will be interesting to see if this happens, but my guess is that it will not be able to compare to the rapid development cycles that can be provided for by commercial development environments.
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"Money makes the world go 'round". It's a question of whether or not the state is self-sustaining or not. There are volunteer firemen, police, etc, but they are supported by public funding. Greenpeace is supported by donations, as are missionaries. See the common factor here? Money. Free software doesn't have money coming into it. This all but precludes any form of dedicated development.
This creates a major drag factor on free software development. There's a reason the land speed record was broken by a guy with boku commercial sponsorship, and not buy that guy tricking out his car on weekends. Concentrated development, where sundry concerns of how to pay for the pizza you eat every night in front of the keyboard are addressed and no longer a problem, is always more effective than spare-time development -- either more effective by being more robust, or simply more effective by being faster.
Money is the difference between cable access major networks. What are the chances a cable access show done by some guy on their weekends is going to be of better quality than something that people are working on 40 hours a week? Pretty slim. Open source/free software is the cable access of the software world. There are a few gems out there ("Wayne's World, Wayne's World, Party Time, Excellent!" ;) but it doesn't have the market reach or the funding to truly compete.
What it does have going for it, however, is that the costs to do development are very small; perhaps that's the only reason why free software is becoming so successful -- the physical outlay of money is negligible these days.
It's like a food chain, where everything (supposedly) goes around in a circle. Little fish eat plants, big fish eats little fish, big fish dies and provides fertilizer for plants, which get eaten by little fish, etc.
Commercial development reflects this cycle. Group uses money to develop product, product gets bought with money, which the group uses to develop next product. Take the money out of the equation, and things start to look grim: Group uses money to develop product, product distributed for free, group does not have money to further development -- the cycle breaks. There HAS to be some influx of time and/or money into the cycle to be sustained. Free software, if it were to dominate the "market", is not self-sustaining, primarily because of money.
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Lotsa developers with day jobs ->
Lotsa free software ->
Less commercial software ->
Less developers with day jobs ->
Less free software ->
More commercial software ->
More developers with day jobs ->
This cycle is definitely possible, and probable, but one big question would be how long it takes to happen.
Look at what would be needed to break the barrier to entry that free software would present -- If the world becomes accustomed to using decent applications for free, what market will there be for someone who wants to charge $20 a copy? In light of the Microsoft Maneuver, is there any possibility that anyone can, in the forseeable future, produce a web browser that they profit from, regardless of what platform it ran on?
Once there are satisfactory products in the market that have zero cost to the consumer, it becomes extremely difficult to promote and profit from a pay-for product. Unfortunately, without some form of income, further development is often stymied, either due to lack of time (because of the need to maintain a personal form of income, ie. day job) or resources (why work on a product that can't be sold when you could work on one that can?) I think perhaps AOL is finding this scenario with their acquisition of Netscape.
Profitable software ventures now become a question of being the first in some niche, rather than producing a superior product. Be the first, grab the market share, make a profit quick before someone else undercuts you. As you said, "Lather, Rinse, Repeat".
"Invent, Bail, Repeat"
Free software is at a stage now where it's forcing commercial software to improve itself. But I think there's going to come a time where it's going to OVERachieve this goal, and will simply put many commercial sources out of the market. Is this good? Is this bad? Probably a little of both. A high quality free product can more easily create a monopoly than one that has an associated cost. However, it is in even more danger of causing a stagnation in development. From a profit standpoint, there's no reason to compete with a free product, especially if it's of a high enough quality.
If Apache could do everything IIS could do (and vice versa), but IIS was 1% more stable, would you pay $100 for that bit of improvement? $50? $5? The market has been fighting in terms of functions, not quality. It's as though Ford tried to make their Pintos more appealing by giving them flight capability rather than fixing the exploding gas tank problem. Compare:
"Sure, the Pinto explodes occasionally, but it does something the Chevy doesn't -- it can fly!"
"Sure, IE opens your computer to viruses, but it does something Netscape doesn't -- it can use ActiveX controls!"
Unfortunately, unlike a flying Pinto, it's much easier to sell added features than it is to sell improved quality. Laypeople just don't understand (or care about) why Linux is seen as better than Windows, or why so many people hate Microsoft products.
I'm babbling again. Sorry.
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The issue isn't something like "Linux vs. Windows" or "BSD vs. Windows" or "etc. vs. Windows" but it's free open-sourced software vs. closed-source software. and especially about freedom of choice. If M$ had the idea like "Windows is just one choice among many... we just try to make it the best." rather than "Windows is the only choice. You have to put up with whatever we give you." then I could stand it. Hear hear! I find myself wondering if all the hub-bub about free software/open source is more of a desperate solution to the monopoly problem posed by Microsoft, than a real 'evolution' of software distribution principles. It seems as though open source is being approached as "the solution to thwart Microsoft", which it isn't. People also often forget the "common man" factor. Open source means dinkus to Joe Shmoe on the street. 99% of the people in the market wouldn't know how to compile open source software if it came with step-by-step instructions (Warning: Percentage pulled out of ass). So what's the benefit of open source to them? Quality, perhaps. Open source does benefit from the fact that people will be looking at the code, and the more eyes a piece of code receives, the more likely bugs are going to be spotted and corrected. Low cost, definitely -- open source software is usually free. But how about the most important factor in the market, convenience? Open source gets a big goose egg in that respect, I think. It is all about the freedom of choice, as you said. I don't think the free software/open source bandwagon would've gotten rolling if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft had no legitimate market competition in the mass market arena. Unfortunately, I don't think open source/free software is going to be able to change that on its own. It may help against the "barrier to entry", but it's not enough on its own.
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There is commercial software. Commercial software operates on standard capitalism principles -- there's a demand, you create a supply, you profit off meeting the need. This system is self-sustaining because the profits of one product can keep a group solvent enough to go on to create another (or to improve further on their original design).
There's free software. This is given out for free, for whatever purpose -- bragging rights, ulterior motives (like locking people into your platform or software model), or just because you're a really nice person who wants to share with the world.
Then there's open software. This is often done for bragging rights, for philanthropic reasons, and one major added bonus -- it allows other people to help you get around the platform issue that a single person in a garage might not be able to handle (I don't have an SGI Irix machine around, but if I release something open source, I'm sure someone could pick it up and make sure it works on their Indy).
Lately, commercial software has gotten a bad rap, and open source is in the limelight. The problem is that I personally don't see open source being self-sustaining. Look at this original message -- people writing the best open source code have lucrative day jobs. What happens if open source hits the marketplace in such a fashion that software companies can't compete aside from releasing free products (cf. DoJ vs. Microsoft)? There are quite a few major software development firms out there, sustained by a commercial market. If open source is reliant on people who have lucrative jobs (and thus, the outside money to support the open source development), what happens when those jobs slim down? Are we all going to become graduate students looking for grant money for the rest of our lives?
This is not to say that I disapprove of the free software initiative, or the open source efforts. However, I do not see either of these forms of software development becoming more prevalent (Drat, I can never remember how to spell that word) than commercial software.
Worse yet, I see people's hangups on the whole free software thing has being detrimental to what they often support. Linux is a free OS. Great. How do you expect to get very high-quality applications for it if you're unwilling to shell out the money to support people doing concentrated software development for that platform? I put down $50 for LokiSoft's port of "Civilization: Call To Power" and I fully plan to purchase Railroad Tycoon II as soon as I see it. These are quality software products that deserve my money, and I want to communicate to LokiSoft (and the rest of the industry) that I, for one, want to pay for high quality software.
You can't live on high praise. For all those people giving their work out the public, THANK YOU sincerely and truly. But for everyone else, realize that free software is a privilege, not a right.
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I think the US (and I believe Canada) have some kind of fool tax on recordable audio media that have plagued cassettes for ages and affect minidiscs. Blank MD's here, if you can find them, are at best US$3 apiece, while I've heard that in Japan they sell for the equivalent of US$0.50.
Apparently, if I remember correctly, the biggest reason for the difference is NOT overseas manufacturing, but rather that the US charges the manufacturers a tax on EACH DISC PRODUCED, to help ASCAP (or whatever that horrid acronym is -- rhymes with "asscrap") avoid the piracy losses derived from people trying to understand why an audio CD that costs $0.23 to press costs the consumer $17.
My local Tower records actually has a small rack of pre-recorded MD's, and I've noticed that CDNow appears to be starting to stock them. Sony's got a website that sells them for slightly cheaper than the CD equivalent (in most cases). I'd almost be inclined to start buying them, but it's cheaper for me to still buy plainjane CDs, and then if I want to transport them, make a (temporary) digital-to-digital dub from my DVD player to my MD pack.
Leave it to the US lawmakers to completely screw over great technology in one of the largest consumer markets in the world.
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Maybe it's Visual J++ feeping creatures into the stuff I see on the web, or maybe it's just that I've never been able to get Java support in a Linux browser.
I don't care who makes it, I don't even care if I have to shell out a few bucks for it. I want a browser that can handle Java applets without crapping out after thirty seconds.
I know a lot of people don't like Java, but unfortunately, I think the best way to advance everyone all at once is to have some kind of common software architecture that can be used on multiple platforms. Maybe the answer isn't Java, but I think the concept is sound. It'd certainly allow developers to sell to more than just the largest (or niche) markets...
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