Sun is not a software company. They are a HARDWARE company. They make Java and Solaris to SELL HARDWARE.
Initially Java was developed to help sell embedded systems. It took off into a fully generalized language that enterprises adore...thus selling more enterprise hardware to run it all on.
Does Java sell more of other vendors' hardware too? Sure...but being the keepers of the system means they have more insight on how to monetize their scarce resources (hardware) from their abundant and free offerings.
If it is tied to h/w and/or patented, then the business people who built that likely aren't in the "community oriented" mindset...more of an "all your base are belong to us" mindset.
Yes, you have to make money off the scarce goods. That is how a business model should work. However "licenses" and "patents" are ARTIFICIAL SCARCITIES. You are working against the fundamentals of economics by leveraging the law to stop the NATURAL propogational tendencies of your wares. "Information wants to be free" isn't a philosophy...it is an economic reality because those that have your software/music/movie/other-digital-works recognize there is a ZERO COST to making a copy of it.
I don't want my company working against my customers.
Yes, quite possibly, though it would be much better if that bundled other thing was a SCARCE resource (proprietary software, hardware, t-shirts, online services, seating at an event, etc...). Of course, nothing says that it has to be my business that makes the other stuff.
also, paid services and support typically take a lot more resources, effort, and capital that most companies starting out simply do not have
So how exactly did Accenture, Anderson, EDS, RedHat and others get started? They started by having a single developer take care of the initial customers. As they grew their customer base (i.e. as the revenues grew), they brought in more people. The founders often went with very little (or without) for the first months/years in order to keep the payroll low during initial growth. Don't like it?
There are also many companies (most consulting firms) that started off by first getting a big sale on a consulting gig prior to doing any development. Find that first customer to pay for development of that product at cost (often by taking a portion of equity in the company).
Licensing fees usually give the company capital for support and services.
Nonesense. Most s/w companies couldn't survive the first year without some type of revenue. You can't sell licenses without having a product to deploy.
MOST startups are either two guys living off their parents while they develop that initial product, or they are SMART business people that sell their services to get started. Three of the four startups I have worked for were customized software projects that the founders negotiated rights to the source code (or at least shared ownership with the initial customer).
This is probably why all major open source projects are subsidized by large companies with deep pockets (open office=sun,php=zend,mysql=mysql corporation,firefox=mozilla foundation+google).
Notice that EVERY SINGLE product you listed above started as a small open source project not tied to any company. The big companies you mention (sun, google) bought/partnered with the OSS project in order to BUNDLE the free with their own scarce offerings. In the case of zend and mysql (now SUN), they are companies that took free and leverages other SCARCE resources ("official" releases, support, services, etc...)
These large corporations don't make their sole income from open source software.
Correct. And they didn't make their money off selling free software. They leveraged the free to generate revenue.
It hasn't stopped Adobe or Microsoft.
Okay, when you get your startup to the point where you can compare yourself to being at least 1% of these two giants, let's talk about business models.
If you are trying to build a business based on their current models, you have lost me completely.
This is not the model that Microsoft had when they got started (they landed CONTRACTS with larger vendors TO WRITE SOFTWARE).
This is not the model that Apple started with (they are a HARDWARE VENDOR that have a lock on the entire chain (h/w, o/s, most apps)). Note that Apple actually does invest in the OSS model too (OSX being a *nix, they leverage GNU tools and support OSS project such as WebKit).
Hell, even Mysql has a licensed version. It's never dwindling if you get a base of users using your software and you continue to charge for major updates..or extensions.
Yes, MySQL's model is an interesting one. However they didn't start out from zero as this. They have evolved, initially being a SERVICES company that supported and customized a FREE software product. They turned to a dual licensing model later in their lifetime. What they do realize is that most companies want SUPPORT for any production system, so those com
The DotBust made a lot of businesses wary about Sales.
Wary about sales? Sales is the MOST IMPORTANT part of a s/w business...of ANY business. If you are wary about sales, then make sure you work for someone who isn't.
But the companies that survived the DotBust weren't those who had good ideas. They were the ones who had ideas that couldn't sell, or who had poor business plans.
Those that had a proper business approach might have found sales pipelines slowed or dried up, but they were paid for the work they did (including profits). So at worst they walked away from a dead market with a small amount of dough (profits!) in their pockets.
I'm guessing you'd want to go from proof-of-concept to a venture investor to develop the deep work just to be sure you won't get hosed by some unbelieveable glitch like the one that damn near took down Microsoft when they had to Reboot their codebase for LongHornedVista.
Let'set something clear here: in the history of Microsoft, at no point did they find themselves deep in a hole. They have always had the funds and/or signed contracts for the work that they went off a did. Sometimes they did work on a new product that they funded themselves, but that was well after they had massive cash-positive flows to easily handle the expenditure (cash-negative) for that new development.
They did not go out and develop MS-DOS 1.0, then go looking for a customer. The reason that IBM and others have an intertwined history with MS is that they funded MS's early development efforts.
Don't let hysteria and hyperbole ("DotBust") make you write off an entire industry. The IT world went through a pain of hurt because they (and their investors) took their eyes off business and economic FUNDAMENTALS. Those who understand business didn't get caught up in all that (well, I know that some very savvy business folks took advantage of the situation...but they also realized that it was to be a sort lived situation before a full collapse would occur).
Then with some core tech that can be finalized in a few variant ways, then go dig up your customer and tell him "X software is only 7 months out. Sign here."
That still involves doing at least some preliminary work before getting paid. That is usually how a new product comes to market: initial investors (the coders themselves, or the idea people, or the company developing the new product) develops a prototype and begins pitching that. Only when initial early adopters show a sincere interest (e.g. sign a contract) does the hard investment in the product development happen.
Okay, are you trying to tell me that the price of a download of, say, 10MB, is significantly more than zero? Because that is what we are talking about with "marginal costs". You can't look at the overall infrastructure price, that is the Cost Of Doing Business (and all that). "Marginal cost" is the price for an individual copy once you have established your initial costs of development, infrastructure and operations.
How would such a business model work for, say, video games? Or what other model would you suggest?
There are lots of choices, and I can't list them all because they haven't yet all been thought of.
Each one I list you can shoot down as "well, that will work for a (big|little|custom|smart|cheap) company, but not for others". The thing is that each vendor (or each type of vendor) can think of their own way of tying the development of a zero-marginal-cost item to a non-zero-marginal-cost item.
For example, many games today are developed for free and there is a subscription service to access online communities (a SCARCE resource that has a non-zero-marginal-cost).
a hardware vendor could pay to have a game developed in order to sell more of their hardware (think graphics cards, CPUs, monitors, game controllers, etc...)
a fashion designer/car maker/department store could have a game developed to give away with their clothes that highlight their clothes/cars/stores.
a custom modding shop might give away a game to get people to pay for mods to be developed (similar things are happening in Second Life, though the game was developed first).
an airline could pay to have a game developed that is made available in-flight. People would choose airlines based on the different entertainment available for those 4+ hour flights.
See? Find someone to pay for the development of the resource so that they can tie it to something else...that is if the game maker can't figure out how to do so themself.
But there are other models too. The biggest problem I see when talking with my s/w development friends (and here and in other forums) is the lack of desire to "think out of the box" when it comes to business models. We're developers, we don't want to have to figure out all that money crap.
Just write code, (something or other), people pay for it. If your first thought is to architecture, development approach and themes...you're s/w company is not off to a good business start.
I would much rather sell licenses to a proprietary application than become a glorified freelancer
Then OSS is not for you. Make sure you don't end up competing, because you won't win.
Good luck finding that exponential ROI. And make sure you don't sit idle or choose the wrong direction...you'll be surpassed by "free" before you know it.
Interesting. Scalability is likely the big stumbling block that most people have with when they read Stallman, etc...
Ultimately it comes down to the fact that the "traditional model" for software companies (build, sell, sell, sell, demolish/buy competition, sell, sell, sell) that ends up with one company making hundreds/thousands fold ROI will not work in an OSS model, because Professional Services has a limited ROI. There is no "zero marginal cost" item that you are selling. There is a very much non-zero marginal cost per hour of services sold.
That might be the elephant in the room when people fight that OSS is wrong. It is wrong if you are hoping to make an investment and yield ridiculously large return on that investment. The OSS models are about yielding revenue (and profit) that are somewhat linearly inline with expenses. The "traditionalists" are looking for the exponential growth.
Open source is just on the fast track to zero. Proprietary s/w is in the same race. As one product becomes popular, others jump into the fray and then the natural curves of economics kick in, lower the prices.
Open source allows companies to focus less on s/w development (though good OSS-based companies always remain firmly involved), focus more on fostering a thriving community, and spend the majority of their efforts on the area that the proprietary companies eventually have to focus on (paid services, bundled products, etc...). The OSS companies get there first, are typically more nimble because they aren't stuck wasting resources on keeping licensing revenues high. They have already accepted that such a model is a constantly dwindling one.
If you don't understand that a business model can exist that leverages free stuff, then you shouldn't be reading what Stallman has to say.
Sun, IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft and thousands of consulting firms (big and small) make LOTS of money by giving away free software.
You use that free software to sell SCARCE resources: services (business analysis, custom programming, expert installation, production support, training, etc...), hardware, non-free software, etc...
They hypothetical programmer loses their house because you believe they simply write software, give it away for free, and collect a paycheck. The reality is that the real OSS programmers are much smarter than that. The software is only a PART of their business model. It is a sales and marketing tool, and an effective one at that!
If you can only see the "OSS programmers don't make any money", then you should not consider running a s/w company, especially one that would leverage an OSS model. There is WAY more to running a s/w company than creating software. You stick to the cubicles and whiteboards, let non-myopic people run the business.
But that way of thinking is also fraught with backward thinking too. If the core is a paid for product, then you won't get a large userbase (unless you create *fantastic* software). If you have a large userbase, then supporting them and creating a user community is just icing on the cake...you've already got a good base.
The benefit of OSS is that you can establish and grow a base very quickly. Successful OSS companies leverage the fact that people can download and try their s/w on their own timeline. You leverage that fact as the main marketing tool, with people posting to/. and writing up in trade rags about this cool new project to check out.
Once the s/w gets a footprint with the costumer, they recognize the value of it and now want customizations and/or support because the s/w has VALUE only after they've played with it.
The model you are proposing is about increasing VALUE only after they have bought into the core product.
"Marginal cost" is the cost of producing a single unit of a known entity. So the first unit (development costs) do not factor into this, and w.r.t. bandwidth, most software companies already have to have an internet connection so there is no extra cost to them. In other words, the marginal cost of producing a copy of a s/w product is zero (or close enough to it that it doesn't matter).
The MAJORITY of software in the world is produced under contract (i.e. custom software). That some companies continue to fight the *facts* of economic fundamentals and insist on being paid for work they've gone off and done without being paid is mind boggling.
Don't write the software for free. Find your first customers (or more), have them pay for the development of that product (i.e. pay for the development costs, which is salaries, infrastructure, operations, marketing, commissions, bonuses, etc...). Yes, this is harder than simply writing some software and hoping people will pay more for it than it will become worth over time (i.e. marginal costs == zero), but at least it means you are living within the realities of how the world works.
Don't get me wrong, there is the window of opportunity where after you initially develop the s/w you can get people to pay for that s/w after the fact (e.g. they'll pay for early access & convenience), but that window narrows if your product is simple, becomes popular or if there is competition.
I have a prototype Bold. When it shut it off, the battery drains completely in a matter of an hour. So I keep it on all night, but set its profile to "Phone Only" ("Off" would be another option, but emergencies are emergencies.)
Because the upgrader does a full device backup before upgrading all the apps and OS. It probably *could* be done OTA without the backup feature, but I'm not sure how much of the device's memory would be consumed trying to maintain two complete copies of the OS and native apps along with the user's data.
Gee, you describe people as an "asshole", a "nutjob", and "a waste of living tissue", then you expect me to take you seriously as to the necessity for corporal punishment?
If the child is disciplined *properly* from the get-go, and taught to respect and understand the concept of *consequences*, they will either follow the right path or not.
Spanking is just ONE TYPE of consequence. If they choose the path that gets them punished, they'll do that regardless. Physical consequences *might* be a bigger deterrent, but I'll bet that those kids that are spanked tend to choose wrong more often (i.e. get more spankings).
Yes, a child's friends have huge influences on them. However there are many variables at play here, the first being that your child likely will avoid making friends with children that cause them to face bad consequences frequently.
How does EMO/goth/other-"scary"-alternative play into the concept of spanking? By the time a child is choosing this path, they had damn well better be beyond spanking...or are you endorsing physical punishment for 15 year olds?
On top of this, spanking more often than not is applied incorrectly (in the heat of the moment) and without proper follow up (kids crying, move on to other things now). This is no longer "discipline".
Thing is, this has NOTHING to do with "spanking". The problem is that parents aren't willing to discipline. A good public embarrassment or denial/revoking of privileges is as effective as a spanking IF your children have respect for you.
A good portion of the problem is that parents don't get the respect and are doing nothing (or the wrong thing) towards getting it. Ignoring your kids behaviors and disrespectful acts does not resolve anything and often encourages more of the same.
Parents need to ask themselves *why* the children are misbehaving. A smack on the ass can be worse than simply ignoring the problem. Discipline isn't just about ending the immediate misbehavior...
It takes mature adult to raise well adjusted, respectful and respected individuals. Spanking might be part of the discipline used towards that end, but I truly question its effectiveness when put in combination with the FOLLOW-UP necessary for proper discipline.
It isn't the heat-of-the-moment, eliminate-the-danger discipline tactic that solves the overall behavior problem.
Boy, wish you had been around to help with the first moon landing...
Hard to do? Yes.
Impossible? No.
When the majority of us recognize the fact that this is an evolutionary change with fantastic potential for worldwide benefits, then it will happen. We've seen this kind of focused energy and resources before, we'll see it again.
Slashdot Mirror
Your definition of "all the other databases" is way, way different than mine...
Or simply become more productive, which you should with experience and know-how.
Initially Java was developed to help sell embedded systems. It took off into a fully generalized language that enterprises adore...thus selling more enterprise hardware to run it all on.
Does Java sell more of other vendors' hardware too? Sure...but being the keepers of the system means they have more insight on how to monetize their scarce resources (hardware) from their abundant and free offerings.
Yes, you have to make money off the scarce goods. That is how a business model should work. However "licenses" and "patents" are ARTIFICIAL SCARCITIES. You are working against the fundamentals of economics by leveraging the law to stop the NATURAL propogational tendencies of your wares. "Information wants to be free" isn't a philosophy...it is an economic reality because those that have your software/music/movie/other-digital-works recognize there is a ZERO COST to making a copy of it.
I don't want my company working against my customers.
bundled products? You mean proprietary software
Yes, quite possibly, though it would be much better if that bundled other thing was a SCARCE resource (proprietary software, hardware, t-shirts, online services, seating at an event, etc...). Of course, nothing says that it has to be my business that makes the other stuff.
also, paid services and support typically take a lot more resources, effort, and capital that most companies starting out simply do not have
So how exactly did Accenture, Anderson, EDS, RedHat and others get started? They started by having a single developer take care of the initial customers. As they grew their customer base (i.e. as the revenues grew), they brought in more people. The founders often went with very little (or without) for the first months/years in order to keep the payroll low during initial growth. Don't like it?
There are also many companies (most consulting firms) that started off by first getting a big sale on a consulting gig prior to doing any development. Find that first customer to pay for development of that product at cost (often by taking a portion of equity in the company).
Licensing fees usually give the company capital for support and services.
Nonesense. Most s/w companies couldn't survive the first year without some type of revenue. You can't sell licenses without having a product to deploy.
MOST startups are either two guys living off their parents while they develop that initial product, or they are SMART business people that sell their services to get started. Three of the four startups I have worked for were customized software projects that the founders negotiated rights to the source code (or at least shared ownership with the initial customer).
This is probably why all major open source projects are subsidized by large companies with deep pockets (open office=sun,php=zend,mysql=mysql corporation,firefox=mozilla foundation+google).
Notice that EVERY SINGLE product you listed above started as a small open source project not tied to any company. The big companies you mention (sun, google) bought/partnered with the OSS project in order to BUNDLE the free with their own scarce offerings. In the case of zend and mysql (now SUN), they are companies that took free and leverages other SCARCE resources ("official" releases, support, services, etc...)
These large corporations don't make their sole income from open source software.
Correct. And they didn't make their money off selling free software. They leveraged the free to generate revenue.
It hasn't stopped Adobe or Microsoft.
Okay, when you get your startup to the point where you can compare yourself to being at least 1% of these two giants, let's talk about business models.
If you are trying to build a business based on their current models, you have lost me completely.
This is not the model that Microsoft had when they got started (they landed CONTRACTS with larger vendors TO WRITE SOFTWARE).
This is not the model that Apple started with (they are a HARDWARE VENDOR that have a lock on the entire chain (h/w, o/s, most apps)). Note that Apple actually does invest in the OSS model too (OSX being a *nix, they leverage GNU tools and support OSS project such as WebKit).
Hell, even Mysql has a licensed version. It's never dwindling if you get a base of users using your software and you continue to charge for major updates..or extensions.
Yes, MySQL's model is an interesting one. However they didn't start out from zero as this. They have evolved, initially being a SERVICES company that supported and customized a FREE software product. They turned to a dual licensing model later in their lifetime. What they do realize is that most companies want SUPPORT for any production system, so those com
The DotBust made a lot of businesses wary about Sales.
Wary about sales? Sales is the MOST IMPORTANT part of a s/w business...of ANY business. If you are wary about sales, then make sure you work for someone who isn't.
But the companies that survived the DotBust weren't those who had good ideas. They were the ones who had ideas that couldn't sell, or who had poor business plans.
Those that had a proper business approach might have found sales pipelines slowed or dried up, but they were paid for the work they did (including profits). So at worst they walked away from a dead market with a small amount of dough (profits!) in their pockets.
I'm guessing you'd want to go from proof-of-concept to a venture investor to develop the deep work just to be sure you won't get hosed by some unbelieveable glitch like the one that damn near took down Microsoft when they had to Reboot their codebase for LongHornedVista.
Let'set something clear here: in the history of Microsoft, at no point did they find themselves deep in a hole. They have always had the funds and/or signed contracts for the work that they went off a did. Sometimes they did work on a new product that they funded themselves, but that was well after they had massive cash-positive flows to easily handle the expenditure (cash-negative) for that new development.
They did not go out and develop MS-DOS 1.0, then go looking for a customer. The reason that IBM and others have an intertwined history with MS is that they funded MS's early development efforts.
Don't let hysteria and hyperbole ("DotBust") make you write off an entire industry. The IT world went through a pain of hurt because they (and their investors) took their eyes off business and economic FUNDAMENTALS. Those who understand business didn't get caught up in all that (well, I know that some very savvy business folks took advantage of the situation...but they also realized that it was to be a sort lived situation before a full collapse would occur).
Then with some core tech that can be finalized in a few variant ways, then go dig up your customer and tell him "X software is only 7 months out. Sign here."
That still involves doing at least some preliminary work before getting paid. That is usually how a new product comes to market: initial investors (the coders themselves, or the idea people, or the company developing the new product) develops a prototype and begins pitching that. Only when initial early adopters show a sincere interest (e.g. sign a contract) does the hard investment in the product development happen.
Citation needed.
Okay, are you trying to tell me that the price of a download of, say, 10MB, is significantly more than zero? Because that is what we are talking about with "marginal costs". You can't look at the overall infrastructure price, that is the Cost Of Doing Business (and all that). "Marginal cost" is the price for an individual copy once you have established your initial costs of development, infrastructure and operations.
How would such a business model work for, say, video games? Or what other model would you suggest?
There are lots of choices, and I can't list them all because they haven't yet all been thought of.
Each one I list you can shoot down as "well, that will work for a (big|little|custom|smart|cheap) company, but not for others". The thing is that each vendor (or each type of vendor) can think of their own way of tying the development of a zero-marginal-cost item to a non-zero-marginal-cost item.
For example, many games today are developed for free and there is a subscription service to access online communities (a SCARCE resource that has a non-zero-marginal-cost).
See? Find someone to pay for the development of the resource so that they can tie it to something else...that is if the game maker can't figure out how to do so themself.
But there are other models too. The biggest problem I see when talking with my s/w development friends (and here and in other forums) is the lack of desire to "think out of the box" when it comes to business models. We're developers, we don't want to have to figure out all that money crap.
Just write code, (something or other), people pay for it. If your first thought is to architecture, development approach and themes...you're s/w company is not off to a good business start.
Then OSS is not for you. Make sure you don't end up competing, because you won't win.
Good luck finding that exponential ROI. And make sure you don't sit idle or choose the wrong direction...you'll be surpassed by "free" before you know it.
No organization with that mindset is going to build a thriving OSS community.
If a community builds up around the core despite the s/w developers, then that community will quite quickly eliminate the need for the core ;-)
Ultimately it comes down to the fact that the "traditional model" for software companies (build, sell, sell, sell, demolish/buy competition, sell, sell, sell) that ends up with one company making hundreds/thousands fold ROI will not work in an OSS model, because Professional Services has a limited ROI. There is no "zero marginal cost" item that you are selling. There is a very much non-zero marginal cost per hour of services sold.
That might be the elephant in the room when people fight that OSS is wrong. It is wrong if you are hoping to make an investment and yield ridiculously large return on that investment. The OSS models are about yielding revenue (and profit) that are somewhat linearly inline with expenses. The "traditionalists" are looking for the exponential growth.
Open source allows companies to focus less on s/w development (though good OSS-based companies always remain firmly involved), focus more on fostering a thriving community, and spend the majority of their efforts on the area that the proprietary companies eventually have to focus on (paid services, bundled products, etc...). The OSS companies get there first, are typically more nimble because they aren't stuck wasting resources on keeping licensing revenues high. They have already accepted that such a model is a constantly dwindling one.
Sun, IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft and thousands of consulting firms (big and small) make LOTS of money by giving away free software.
You use that free software to sell SCARCE resources: services (business analysis, custom programming, expert installation, production support, training, etc...), hardware, non-free software, etc...
They hypothetical programmer loses their house because you believe they simply write software, give it away for free, and collect a paycheck. The reality is that the real OSS programmers are much smarter than that. The software is only a PART of their business model. It is a sales and marketing tool, and an effective one at that!
If you can only see the "OSS programmers don't make any money", then you should not consider running a s/w company, especially one that would leverage an OSS model. There is WAY more to running a s/w company than creating software. You stick to the cubicles and whiteboards, let non-myopic people run the business.
The benefit of OSS is that you can establish and grow a base very quickly. Successful OSS companies leverage the fact that people can download and try their s/w on their own timeline. You leverage that fact as the main marketing tool, with people posting to /. and writing up in trade rags about this cool new project to check out.
Once the s/w gets a footprint with the costumer, they recognize the value of it and now want customizations and/or support because the s/w has VALUE only after they've played with it.
The model you are proposing is about increasing VALUE only after they have bought into the core product.
"Marginal cost" is the cost of producing a single unit of a known entity. So the first unit (development costs) do not factor into this, and w.r.t. bandwidth, most software companies already have to have an internet connection so there is no extra cost to them. In other words, the marginal cost of producing a copy of a s/w product is zero (or close enough to it that it doesn't matter).
The MAJORITY of software in the world is produced under contract (i.e. custom software). That some companies continue to fight the *facts* of economic fundamentals and insist on being paid for work they've gone off and done without being paid is mind boggling.
Don't write the software for free. Find your first customers (or more), have them pay for the development of that product (i.e. pay for the development costs, which is salaries, infrastructure, operations, marketing, commissions, bonuses, etc...). Yes, this is harder than simply writing some software and hoping people will pay more for it than it will become worth over time (i.e. marginal costs == zero), but at least it means you are living within the realities of how the world works.
Don't get me wrong, there is the window of opportunity where after you initially develop the s/w you can get people to pay for that s/w after the fact (e.g. they'll pay for early access & convenience), but that window narrows if your product is simple, becomes popular or if there is competition.
I have a prototype Bold. When it shut it off, the battery drains completely in a matter of an hour. So I keep it on all night, but set its profile to "Phone Only" ("Off" would be another option, but emergencies are emergencies.)
Run a BES on your LAN and enable MDS. No need for VPN then.
Because the upgrader does a full device backup before upgrading all the apps and OS. It probably *could* be done OTA without the backup feature, but I'm not sure how much of the device's memory would be consumed trying to maintain two complete copies of the OS and native apps along with the user's data.
You have a definition for a "short lunch"?
What the hell kind of sysadmin ARE you?? You certainly don't wear the same brand of suspenders us REAL techies do.
If the child is disciplined *properly* from the get-go, and taught to respect and understand the concept of *consequences*, they will either follow the right path or not.
Spanking is just ONE TYPE of consequence. If they choose the path that gets them punished, they'll do that regardless. Physical consequences *might* be a bigger deterrent, but I'll bet that those kids that are spanked tend to choose wrong more often (i.e. get more spankings).
Yes, a child's friends have huge influences on them. However there are many variables at play here, the first being that your child likely will avoid making friends with children that cause them to face bad consequences frequently.
How does EMO/goth/other-"scary"-alternative play into the concept of spanking? By the time a child is choosing this path, they had damn well better be beyond spanking...or are you endorsing physical punishment for 15 year olds?
On top of this, spanking more often than not is applied incorrectly (in the heat of the moment) and without proper follow up (kids crying, move on to other things now). This is no longer "discipline".
A good portion of the problem is that parents don't get the respect and are doing nothing (or the wrong thing) towards getting it. Ignoring your kids behaviors and disrespectful acts does not resolve anything and often encourages more of the same.
Parents need to ask themselves *why* the children are misbehaving. A smack on the ass can be worse than simply ignoring the problem. Discipline isn't just about ending the immediate misbehavior...
It takes mature adult to raise well adjusted, respectful and respected individuals. Spanking might be part of the discipline used towards that end, but I truly question its effectiveness when put in combination with the FOLLOW-UP necessary for proper discipline.
It isn't the heat-of-the-moment, eliminate-the-danger discipline tactic that solves the overall behavior problem.
I thought I read:
Sure feels that way sometimes...sick gov't!
Yes, but unfortunately for you the kids aren't traipsing on your lawn these days.
You remember the brand of hairspray? Man, now THAT's advertising you simply couldn't buy!
I second that.
Hard to do? Yes.
Impossible? No.
When the majority of us recognize the fact that this is an evolutionary change with fantastic potential for worldwide benefits, then it will happen. We've seen this kind of focused energy and resources before, we'll see it again.