Another way to look at is that open source really helps a free economy. No offense to open source projects but most projects do not give us something new as much as give us a free alternative of something that already exists. This is simply the commoditization of a software solution where cost has been driven to it's lowest level.
This is not unlike any other industry where commoditization drives the price down. Anyone can build a bolt for a car & car manufactures use the cheapest version that meet some basic requirements. The only real difference is that in the physical world manufacturing costs far outweigh design costs. In software, manufacturing costs can truly go to zero.
How does that help the economy? Well it allows those truly doing innovative work to build upon commodity software to provide a differentiating solution with less cost.
A good example - Tivo. While they may have improved the version of Linux they use in Tivo, generally it's just the required nuts and bolts to them. They were then able to focus on aspects specific to their product that allowed them to produce a differentiating product with out being restricted by limitations or burdened by royalty costs of a closed system.
(Again no offense to those doing inovative work in OOS projects, I'm only trying to point out an economic argument!:)
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Another way to look at is that open source really helps a free economy. No offense to open source projects but most projects do not give us something new as much as give us a free alternative of something that already exists. This is simply the commoditization of a software solution where cost has been driven to it's lowest level. This is not unlike any other industry where commoditization drives the price down. Anyone can build a bolt for a car & car manufactures use the cheapest version that meet some basic requirements. The only real difference is that in the physical world manufacturing costs far outweigh design costs. In software, manufacturing costs can truly go to zero. How does that help the economy? Well it allows those truly doing innovative work to build upon commodity software to provide a differentiating solution with less cost. A good example - Tivo. While they may have improved the version of Linux they use in Tivo, generally it's just the required nuts and bolts to them. They were then able to focus on aspects specific to their product that allowed them to produce a differentiating product with out being restricted by limitations or burdened by royalty costs of a closed system. (Again no offense to those doing inovative work in OOS projects, I'm only trying to point out an economic argument! :)