"but I'll bet the developers there would be a little insulted by your claim that they make no contribution if you carried any weight with your opinion"
Sorry, I never said that they made NO contribution. I said VERY LITTLE, relative to amount of OSS work that goes on - even though they receive most of the financial reward.
As for you, I suspect you are an IT support person - not a professional developer. In your case I would imagine you and your company loves OSS software. After all who doesn't like free (as in beer)?
Doubtful you are an OSS developer. You are an IT person. You are a consumer of the free software, not a producer. Linus doesn't make his nice salary from OSS either. Even if he did, that is no comfort to all the lost development jobs caused by OSS.
Actually, I am right. And I have shown why in the parent post. Please read it. The implementation can go away and it has little impact. It is the open standard that is important.
As for "reinventing the wheel" I have addresed that argument in another post in this thread.
I doubt you have contributed anything to the projects. I believe that you are an IT person, not a developer. You like consuming free things, but are not a producer.
The Internet is based on Open Standards not open implementations. The particular BSD implementation you speak of could go away tommorrow and it would hardly make a difference. A reference implementation does make it a lot easier to build additional implementations, but that is besides the point here.
Baloney to the statement that the Internet wouldn't be around except for the BSD TCP/IP stack. That is totally unsupported speculation and is certainly not true. Open standards are important, Open Source is not.
Disproved what? The original statement is that the internet was built on OPEN STANDARDS and then he goes off about an IMPLEMENTATION of the standard, which is irrelevant.
As for his other "proofs", they are not proofs at all. gcc is inferior to its commercial counterparts in efficiency. It is only used because it is FREE (as in beer).
I love it when you guys scream "troll" whenever anyone challenges your worldview.
"What, do you expect to get paid for the rest of your life to re-implement one piece of code? No, fix a problem, get paid, help others fix the problem and move on. Stop trying to suck as much cash as you can out of one positive thing you've done and get on to filling more needs."
First of all, poppycock. The developer isn't getting paid at all. He has effectively devalued himself/herself.
I also have an issue with those people who say "why should you make money re-implementing? do it once, and then everyone shares in the results"
This is bad because at any given time there are only X amount of customers. If I as a developer come in and provide a solution to a customer that also solves Y number of customers problems, then there are X-(1+Y) number of customers now left.
I have now reduced the demand for my services and that is a very bad thing for me. In hard times it is good to have X amount of customers, not X-(1+Y). So what if I am reimplementing something? IT IS PUTTING FOOD ON MY TABLE. All of you out of work developers and new college grads should think about this.
Sorry, the BSD TCP/IP stack is not a protocol. It is simply an implementation. Oh I am sure that using that reference implementation made it easier for the megacorporations like IBM, MS, etc to speed up their own TCP/IP implementations. Yes, I agree, it sure is good for the corporations!!!
"Decreasing costs and support load is generally how I earn my bonuses. I reduced our corporate IT costs by over $600,000 per annum with OSS over the course of six years. With the promotions and correspondingly larger salary I recieve, I've been able to buy two new cars, a house, and build a gaming network in my basement. All from what you claim is "working for free"."
YOU ARE PROVING MY POINT HERE. Who is making th emoney off of the OSS? The corporations, NOT THE PERSON MAKING THE SOFTWARE. I am glad you have two new card, a house, a gaming network. WHAT DOES THE OSS DEVELOPER GET? NOTHING.
Listen up all you budding programmers, here is the CRUX of the problem with OSS.
oh yes, O'Reilly, IBM, Merrill Lynch LOVE OPEN SOURCE! They get all those developers to work for them for free! Must be great, don't need to pay those pesky engineers anymore - they were making too much anyway.
P.S. Linus doesn't make 200k a year developing OSS.
"Greed" has nothing to do with it. The question is who is getting the real value from Open Source? Not the ones producing it for sure. I am simply warning young programmers not to fall into the OSS trap. Don't work for free for the corporations. Don't devalue yourself.
For the most part people use Apache, BIND, sendmail, et al simply because THEY ARE FREE. Indeed, if people didn't use BIND or sendmail they would be much better off considering the holes in these products.
The fact is, people love Open Source because it is FREE (as in beer). Corporations love it too, they get all of those developers to work for free (as in beer) while they reap the profits. In Redhats case the executives made HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars off of the community while contributing very little back.
By contributing to Open Source you are devaluing yourself and the programming profession.
Please read the following before committing your IP and company to Open Source:
Open Source Doesn't Make Economic Sense For Most
The open source organization has presented a few cases that supposedly explain why OS works economically. However, if you examine the cases objectively you will find that the cases are flimsy and non-specific and do not address any specific concerns. They attempt to bolster their case by pointing out a few "successes", among which Caldera and Red Hat are displayed as shining examples.
The real economic question of the OS model is how is money made, and who is making the money. Who is being rewarded financially for the enormous development effort? The open source initiative claims that there are at least four different models that allow someone to reap rewards. Oddly, it is not mentioned that it is not necessarily the people who did the development work that gain financially.
The four primary business cases mentioned by OS proponents are "Selling Support", "Loss Leader", "Widget Frosting" and "Accessorizing."
The first case proposes that money can be made via selling support for the free software product. This is by far the strongest case and is proven to work, for a few small companies. The two companies that are shown as positive examples of this business model are Red Hat and Caldera, who distribute and support the Linux operating system. What is never mentioned is that neither of these two companies has contributed significantly in relative terms to the Linux development process. Its important to note that using this business model, the people that make the money are usually not the ones who have invested in the development process. So much for the strongest case.
The second case is based on the idea that you give away a product as open source so you can make money selling a closed source program. This also can work, but it should be noted that the money is being made off the closed source product and not off of the open source. An example of this model would be Netscape, who gives away the source code of their client browser so the OS community can do development, but keeps their "cash cow" products completely closed. Obviously, this case may only work if you have a software product that lends itself to this sort of "give away the razor and make money on the blades" system. The truth is that the vast majority of software is monolithic. So much for the loss leader case.
The third case, "Widget Frosting", sounds completely practical. The premise that hardware makers produce open source software so that the OS development community will work for free to produce better drivers and interface tools for their hardware products. It sounds great on the surface, especially for the company that produces the hardware: they get free drivers and do not have to pay for expensive developers. The OS community wins by getting presumably stable drivers and tools. What is not mentioned is the reason hardware makers usually don?t do this is because they do not want to reveal trade secrets regarding their hardware design. Production of efficient drivers requires an intimate knowledge of the hardware the driver is for. It is almost always the case that it is in the hardware developers? best interest to keep their hardware secrets close to home. This also brings up the question of why isn?t hardware "open"? So much for the frosting case.
The final case, "Accessorizing", is similar to the first, but throws in the idea of selling books and complete systems with the open source software, and other accessories as well. It is obvious that selling books qualifies as support, and that it really belongs in the first case. The idea of selling computer systems, T-Shirts, dolls, again begs the question: "Who is making the money?" As with the first case, it is not necessarily the people who have done the development work. Additionally, the question of how much money can be made selling books, t-shirts, mugs, etc, is never answered. O?Reilly Associates is frequent
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Nope, wrong. The standard is defined by the various RFC's, not the implementation. For gods sake.
Apache is only "successful" (widely used) because it is free (as in beer). People like free stuff.
"but I'll bet the developers there would be a little insulted by your claim that they make no contribution if you carried any weight with your opinion"
Sorry, I never said that they made NO contribution. I said VERY LITTLE, relative to amount of OSS work that goes on - even though they receive most of the financial reward.
As for you, I suspect you are an IT support person - not a professional developer. In your case I would imagine you and your company loves OSS software. After all who doesn't like free (as in beer)?
Yes, we all know why it is GOOD for the CONSUMERS of the software.
Doubtful you are an OSS developer. You are an IT person. You are a consumer of the free software, not a producer. Linus doesn't make his nice salary from OSS either. Even if he did, that is no comfort to all the lost development jobs caused by OSS.
That hardly proves that the BSD stack caused TCP/IP to become widely adopted. It sure helped, but was not nescessary.
OSI failed because it didn't offer many advantages and was overly complex. It was not needed. I am sure some maniac implemented a open OSI reference.
Actually, I am right. And I have shown why in the parent post. Please read it. The implementation can go away and it has little impact. It is the open standard that is important.
As for "reinventing the wheel" I have addresed that argument in another post in this thread.
I doubt you have contributed anything to the projects. I believe that you are an IT person, not a developer. You like consuming free things, but are not a producer.
The Internet is based on Open Standards not open implementations. The particular BSD implementation you speak of could go away tommorrow and it would hardly make a difference. A reference implementation does make it a lot easier to build additional implementations, but that is besides the point here.
Baloney to the statement that the Internet wouldn't be around except for the BSD TCP/IP stack. That is totally unsupported speculation and is certainly not true. Open standards are important, Open Source is not.
Disproved what? The original statement is that the internet was built on OPEN STANDARDS and then he goes off about an IMPLEMENTATION of the standard, which is irrelevant.
As for his other "proofs", they are not proofs at all. gcc is inferior to its commercial counterparts in efficiency. It is only used because it is FREE (as in beer).
I love it when you guys scream "troll" whenever anyone challenges your worldview.
"What, do you expect to get paid for the rest of your life to re-implement one piece of code? No, fix a problem, get paid, help others fix the problem and move on. Stop trying to suck as much cash as you can out of one positive thing you've done and get on to filling more needs."
First of all, poppycock. The developer isn't getting paid at all. He has effectively devalued himself/herself.
I also have an issue with those people who say "why should you make money re-implementing? do it once, and then everyone shares in the results"
This is bad because at any given time there are only X amount of customers. If I as a developer come in and provide a solution to a customer that also solves Y number of customers problems, then there are X-(1+Y) number of customers now left.
I have now reduced the demand for my services and that is a very bad thing for me. In hard times it is good to have X amount of customers, not X-(1+Y). So what if I am reimplementing something? IT IS PUTTING FOOD ON MY TABLE. All of you out of work developers and new college grads should think about this.
Sorry, the BSD TCP/IP stack is not a protocol. It is simply an implementation. Oh I am sure that using that reference implementation made it easier for the megacorporations like IBM, MS, etc to speed up their own TCP/IP implementations. Yes, I agree, it sure is good for the corporations!!!
In RELATIVE TERMS, not significant. This is relative to the entire OSS effort.
"Decreasing costs and support load is generally how I earn my bonuses. I reduced our corporate IT costs by over $600,000 per annum with OSS over the course of six years. With the promotions and correspondingly larger salary I recieve, I've been able to buy two new cars, a house, and build a gaming network in my basement. All from what you claim is "working for free"."
YOU ARE PROVING MY POINT HERE. Who is making th emoney off of the OSS? The corporations, NOT THE PERSON MAKING THE SOFTWARE. I am glad you have two new card, a house, a gaming network. WHAT DOES THE OSS DEVELOPER GET? NOTHING.
Listen up all you budding programmers, here is the CRUX of the problem with OSS.
oh yes, O'Reilly, IBM, Merrill Lynch LOVE OPEN SOURCE! They get all those developers to work for them for free! Must be great, don't need to pay those pesky engineers anymore - they were making too much anyway.
P.S. Linus doesn't make 200k a year developing OSS.
"Greed" has nothing to do with it. The question is who is getting the real value from Open Source? Not the ones producing it for sure. I am simply warning young programmers not to fall into the OSS trap. Don't work for free for the corporations. Don't devalue yourself.
For the most part people use Apache, BIND, sendmail, et al simply because THEY ARE FREE. Indeed, if people didn't use BIND or sendmail they would be much better off considering the holes in these products.
The fact is, people love Open Source because it is FREE (as in beer). Corporations love it too, they get all of those developers to work for free (as in beer) while they reap the profits. In Redhats case the executives made HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars off of the community while contributing very little back.
By contributing to Open Source you are devaluing yourself and the programming profession.
And what a great move that was. Zero revenue. Mass layoffs. Needed to get bought out by a media conglomerate, who is now bleeding money.
Great strategy!
No, I do not. I simply post it where it is RELEVANT. This is extremely relevant to the topic.
No, it is not an Open Source document. It is not released under a compatible Open Source License.
Please read the following before committing your IP and company to Open Source:
Open Source Doesn't Make Economic Sense For Most
The open source organization has presented a few cases that supposedly explain why OS works economically. However, if you examine the cases objectively you will find that the cases are flimsy and non-specific and do not address any specific concerns. They attempt to bolster their case by pointing out a few "successes", among which Caldera and Red Hat are displayed as shining examples.
The real economic question of the OS model is how is money made, and who is making the money. Who is being rewarded financially for the enormous development effort? The open source initiative claims that there are at least four different models that allow someone to reap rewards. Oddly, it is not mentioned that it is not necessarily the people who did the development work that gain financially.
The four primary business cases mentioned by OS proponents are "Selling Support", "Loss Leader", "Widget Frosting" and "Accessorizing."
The first case proposes that money can be made via selling support for the free software product. This is by far the strongest case and is proven to work, for a few small companies. The two companies that are shown as positive examples of this business model are Red Hat and Caldera, who distribute and support the Linux operating system. What is never mentioned is that neither of these two companies has contributed significantly in relative terms to the Linux development process. Its important to note that using this business model, the people that make the money are usually not the ones who have invested in the development process. So much for the strongest case.
The second case is based on the idea that you give away a product as open source so you can make money selling a closed source program. This also can work, but it should be noted that the money is being made off the closed source product and not off of the open source. An example of this model would be Netscape, who gives away the source code of their client browser so the OS community can do development, but keeps their "cash cow" products completely closed. Obviously, this case may only work if you have a software product that lends itself to this sort of "give away the razor and make money on the blades" system. The truth is that the vast majority of software is monolithic. So much for the loss leader case.
The third case, "Widget Frosting", sounds completely practical. The premise that hardware makers produce open source software so that the OS development community will work for free to produce better drivers and interface tools for their hardware products. It sounds great on the surface, especially for the company that produces the hardware: they get free drivers and do not have to pay for expensive developers. The OS community wins by getting presumably stable drivers and tools. What is not mentioned is the reason hardware makers usually don?t do this is because they do not want to reveal trade secrets regarding their hardware design. Production of efficient drivers requires an intimate knowledge of the hardware the driver is for. It is almost always the case that it is in the hardware developers? best interest to keep their hardware secrets close to home. This also brings up the question of why isn?t hardware "open"? So much for the frosting case.
The final case, "Accessorizing", is similar to the first, but throws in the idea of selling books and complete systems with the open source software, and other accessories as well. It is obvious that selling books qualifies as support, and that it really belongs in the first case. The idea of selling computer systems, T-Shirts, dolls, again begs the question: "Who is making the money?" As with the first case, it is not necessarily the people who have done the development work. Additionally, the question of how much money can be made selling books, t-shirts, mugs, etc, is never answered. O?Reilly Associates is frequent
Yes, it was an interesting exercise. It just shows that moderation only works correctly if it is applied justly and without bias.
Interesting! Checkout this post of mine where I actually took the parent post and replaced PocketPC/iPAQ with Palm:
1 16 983
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=66461&cid=6
I got a +3 Interesting rating, while the parent poster got a -1 Troll.
Fascinating.
Thats really cool and clever. Micro$haft. So cool.