Joel On The Economics of Open Source 383
Stephen writes "The ever-incisive Joel Spolsky discusses the economics of open source software in his latest Joel on Software column. Why do so many large companies want to develop open source software? It's not because they have suddenly converted to Stallmanism."
Good article, but browsers complement servers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe I answered my own question. (And did anyone else read "Stallmanism" as "Stalinism" the first go-around?)
Re:Good article, but browsers complement servers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good article, but browsers complement servers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Name-brand recognition.
The part you mention is actually the one flaw in an otherwise great article: he mentions that Netscape gave away the browser in hopes they'd be able to sell servers-- which, in the time immediately after the free MSIE hit the market, was true-- but then neglects to mention that this did not work. Which is a large part of why Netscape is no longer a company. For the exact reasons you mentioned-- interchangability and stuff-- Netscape's browser presence meant jack shit for their web server platforms and enterprise servers and such.
(This may be a good time to mention the theory that AOL bought Netscape not just to grow, and not just so that they had the browser to use as political leverage against MS, but also so that they had control of the netscape.com start page. AOL worked out that supplying the browser does give you control over the default start page, which many users will ever change-- which, to a media company like AOL, equates to an ungodly number of hits as your page pops up every time someone opens a new window. Somehow, though, AOL doesn't seem to have used this to the same advantage MSN has.)
Re:Good article, but browsers complement servers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Real life isn't quite that simple... for the basic stuff the browser doesn't matter, but for the more advanced stuff (browser-based administration, XML datasets being transferred around, applet support, etc...) you're going to get better results with the "native" browser.
A better example would be streaming media - you nead a RealPlayer browser to get data from a RealPlayer server - and (to tie it into the browser argument) if you control the web browser, you're in a much better position to control the media browser... or the instant messenger... or the mail client.... etc.
So if 99% of people use IE, and thus use Windows Media Player and MSN Messenger, it's going to be pretty appealing to use the Windows server package, rather than use a patchwork of other people's servers.
Re:Good article, but browsers complement servers? (Score:2)
I thought the article was well worth reading, but the statement that browsers were a good complement commodity to servers seemed strange to me. How so?
Netscape si now a consulting company which is mainly assisting in crafting intra net, browser controlled, business applications.
Instead if writing client apps or using X11 for "windowing" with a "server application" the browser is used.
Instead of having a true "thin client" a PC is used. Well, the customer has a PC for using MS Office.
He also has browser.
Nescape has the "networking computing" and server computing and "web app" know how. So making Browsers commodity makes thin clients obsolet and boosts "simple unix based" server sales because it makes BIG IRON client/server solutions less attractive.
Bottom line the customer wins: no big iron needed, reuse of the PC, no thin client needed. Basicly no software to distribute and install on teh client except of the browser.
angel'o'sphere
Re:Good article, but browsers complement servers? (Score:2)
Re:... browsers complement servers? Big picture! (Score:2)
However, the big picture intervened here, in many ways. First, I think Joel is right, companies want to commoditize complementary products, because it leads to more sales for them. But different organizations will want to commoditize different things, because it's in their interest. As a result, sometimes the interaction of different players can result in the commoditization of many product categories. This can have a very beneficial result to the consumer, because commodity products are often in the consumer's best interests.
Looking at the Netscape case, Netscape had an interest in a commodity browser to support a proprietary server. But server administrators, using open source software approaches, managed to commoditize the server (Apache), ruining that approach. And Microsoft exploited its monopoly hold on Windows and OEM licensing agreements to prevent Netscape from getting their product on many PCs (as well as eliminating any possibility of selling Netscape for a profit). (In this case, some of these actions have been found illegal, but I believe similar things can happen even without illegal activity). As a result, Netscape ended up open-sourcing Mozilla. Now both the client and server sides can be viewed as commodity products: the server certainly is a commodity product, and Mozilla certainly limits what Microsoft could charge for a web client. This is a result neither Microsoft nor Netscape would have wanted, but it's better for the consumer.
Misread (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone else misread that as "Stalinism"?
Re:Misread (Score:5, Funny)
The word "Stalinism" is deprecated, the correct term is "GNU/Communism".
Just Some More Anti-RMS Propoganda Is All (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course not. That was the entire point of coining the term "Stallmanism." It is the use of language to subliminally implant and drive home a particular political stance, in this case a strongly anti-RMS, anti-FSF, anti-freedom (or at least, apathy-toward-freedom) stance.
In short, the usage of such a term is a cheap form of propoganda on the part of the Slashdot poster (the term is not used by Joel Spolsky in the article itself). Which isn't really surprising, since most slashdot article posts have a strong bias in their summaries
Re:Just Some More Anti-RMS Propoganda Is All (Score:5, Insightful)
Because freedom is important.
The current fashion in thinking (perhaps the only common fashion in thinking through the ages) is in the intellectual laziness of deciding that political choices are too hard, or unimportant. That, somehow, despite our choices, things will continue on, and our freedoms will not be taken away. Even small things are worth getting your knickers in a twist about if that have wide ramifications. If beige suddenly became the color of the Christian Right party, I would try to get my townhome association to paint our houses purple or something, and would search for non-beige computer hardware. Suddenly, a nitpicky little choice like what color something is would have wide and important ramifications.
Similarily, arguing over the subtleties of language when referring to the founder of the Free Software movement is a nitpicky little detail with similarily wide ramifications. Something can be said for humor and satire, but the choice of the word 'Stallmanism' is neither.
It is an attempt to associate the entire movement with a corrupt and evil government headed by a paranoid and bloodthirsty dictator who murdered 20 million people. Somehow, to me, that seems worth paying attention to.
I think you need to grow up and stop taking the easy way out. Or, you need to reveal your true colors, and tell it like you think it is. If you are in the latter category, admonishing the opposition for talking about things that you also think are important (even if you think differently about them) is hypocrisy of the worst sort.
Re:Just Some More Anti-RMS Propoganda Is All (Score:5, Insightful)
I must take rather strong exception to this assertion.
We live in a society that (in terms of copyright law) basically says:
You as the original author, by default, shall automatically deprive everyone else on the planet from any basic freedom they might otherwise have to use, copy, modify, or disseminate what you happened to create (freedoms which the species happened to enjoy some 3 million odd years previously, btw). What is more, because of the peculiarities in how digital systems function, you can impose whatever onerous restrictions above and beyond the removal of those freedoms you wish to, as a price for granting anyone the privelege of using what you created, and in fact you are encouraged to do so.
In this context the free software foundation has said simply "If you include our work in your own work, you must agree not to go around restricting other peoples freedoms in this manner, and you may not impose additional onerous restrictions on other people."
Lacking the "freedom" to imprison other people in your cellar hardly makes you less free, indeed quite the contrary as such a restriction protects you from being incarcerated in turn by another third party.
This entire argument that the GPL's built in protections of the software freedom it grants, and its innoculation against abuse by unscrupulous third parties (cf. "tragedy of the commons") is IMHO quite nonsensical, as the above metaphor should help to illuminate.
Even were that not so, using a more specific (or even incorrect) definition for the word freedom (as the U.S. government frequently does, for example) is a far cry from villianizing someone not through logical argument, but through the coining of clever phrases that equates a foundation's founder with a bloodthirsty dictator who murdered millions. To imply the two are equal is absurd. To imply the deliberate and systematic villianization of a man is less extreme than the alleged misuse of the word freedom (which, as I already pointed out, isn't being misused at all), is IMHO nonsense of the lowest form.
Re:Misread (Score:2)
"It's not because they have suddenly converted to Stallmanism."
Anyone else misread that as "Stalinism"?
So there's actually a difference?
Re:Misread (Score:2)
More nitpicking (Score:3, Funny)
Like my father always said... (Score:2, Insightful)
Then my father said to me one day "why don't you charge for it"
I responded "because it's free, it doesn't cost me anything to program it"
Father - "well, how much time do you put into it?"
Me -"a couple of hours a day" (back in HS)
Then he said, "so are you saying those two hours of your time is not worth any money?"
I then just stared and realized what he was trying to get across to me. I can work for free, I can do a lot of things for free, but the my time becomes worth $0 by those calculations. When in reality it should be worth far more.
Open Source software is free for some, but for all of the programmers and all of the companies behind the scenes it's very costly.
Something to think about (I still love Linux, though.
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:5, Insightful)
The greatest lie of our market-based system is that time equals money, in all circumstances. (Please note the qualifier.) We should not become so obsessed with money that our activities are dictated by it.
His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly!
If you and your girlfriend are having sex (for free), do you regret it because you spent six hours making passionate love and didn't charge her for it? Does she regret it because she didn't charge you? After all, time is money and hookers typically charge a couple hundred bucks an hour.
(I won't bother with the "did you buy her dinner, then you paid for it" argument, since it misses a number of nuances
Contrary to popular myth greed ins't good, and most of the time time isn't money. Greed may be a reality we have to live with (especially living in a society that deiefies and nurturs it the way ours does), but it comes at a very high cost. I could charge someone for the time I spend boring holes in the sky in my little Beech Sundowner, but since I'm doing it for pleasure, and taking a friend along for a ride doesn't cost me anymore than flying by myself does, the only thing greed would bring me in that context is a little money at the expense of taking a hobby I love and turning it into Yet Another Mundane Job. No thanks.
The same applies to free software. Those who write free software (myself included) do so because we love to do it, not because we are trying to get rich doing so. If you're writing free software because you hope to get rich by doing so, then you're in the wrong field.
The amount of great software I've received for free, not to mention the amount of freedom I've gained in both my business and home life by using free software, more than compensates me for the time I put into it, whether it is writing stuff as a hobby, or testing it (and reporting bugs) for my job. The payoff is in the collaboration, a collaboration to a degree which wouldn't exist between people blinded by their myopic, Ayn Randian Greed.
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:5, Funny)
Where do I find one of those?
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2, Funny)
Not unless you count the cost of an occasional vinyl repair kit...
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2)
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2)
No, but most people don't use this as a business plan either (I've heard some Internet statistics that challenge this but you get the point). The point is, I may love programming software, and I may get great OSS based programs in return (give/take relationship), but it doesn't feed my family or pay the bills.
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2, Insightful)
I didn't mean for it to come across as my time is worth money. My message meant to be that my is worth more then nothing. Therefore, even if I donate it to a project such as Linux, it is still worth something.
The main essence of my original post, and my fathers comments is that as long as we are mortal (not living forever) our time is worth something. Just like as long as people believe paper with pictures of Laurier (in Canada) or Washington (in the US) or someone else is worth something, then they are. Even though they are just pieces of paper in reality.
Now, I am not saying that I wouldn't decide to donate my time to worthy causes. As I do spend a lot of time programming and retouching my search engine, as well as other projects. And if I ever felt that I could help with Linux I definitely would be willing to. I am just saying that even though it doesn't cost me anything in dollars and cents, it does cost me time. Time which I do not have an endless supply of.
As well, if I decide to have sex with my g/f or do anything else recreational. It isn't time that is worth nothing. It is time that I have decided to spend on romance, and entertainment.
I think the gist of my father's message is a good one for people, and perhaps a happier one then originally came across.
You only have so much time on this planet, spend it wisely, as your time is worth something to you. Not in dollars and cents, but in experiences, freedom and your life. If you decide to donate your time, remember that you are doing just that donating your time to what you believe is a worthy cause.
I think that's a good morale for people today, and it definitely isn't just greed.
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2)
Money is merely a system for abstracting value so it can be easily traded and transferred, to your children; between millions of consumers, factory workers and shareholders; and instantly across oceans. It's flawed, as you point out, but it's workable and nobody has significantly improved on it (that I've heard of, though I'm no economist).
I think Joel's point is that some open source advocates claim that, because you pay $0 for OSS, it costs nothing. But it does cost time, which does have value. If the time belongs to a for-profit company, then that time has monetary value -- the company pays for those hours, which could be used for something more profitable.
And even if the OSS contributors don't work for for-profit companies, their time does cost them just as much, even if it's hard to attach a number to.
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2, Insightful)
Your sex example. I place a high VALUE on sex.. so no, I don't regret doing for 10 minutes because I place a high value on it.
In economics money is used to provide an expression for value. It creates a stable base on which all types of economic comparisons are made. And as such, time has a certain value to it (and an associated opportunity cost). In other words if I spend an hour programming something for free... that brings me a feeling of satisfaction (lets say $80 worth of satisfcation). I could have spent that hour cooking, but that only brings me $20 in satisfaction... see?
Business place value on time. If someone spends 4 hours learning how to use Mozilla they have brought very little value to the company (After all, what does Mozilla have that IE doesn't.. and they already have sunk the cost of learning IE)...If they spend those 4 hours writing documentation, they have created value for the company.
Your example even demonstrates this. You place a certain value on your hobby... you also likely value the no-hassle pleasure you get form bringing a friend. To turn this into a business would decrease its value. An economist would put a dollar amount on this value.. and then could use it to explain your behavior.
In this sense.. everything has a value including time. Time is valuable, and how you use that time has an associated cost.
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2)
Your scope is too narrow and your argument is therefore flawed. No one seriously claims that every human transaction is driven by some simplistic concept of monetary greed. Folks tend to act, ultimately, out of enlightened self-interest. That's much more basic than money. You code for the reasons you note above and you are satisfied that you benefit from doing so. Likewise, I work in my garden because I enjoy the work and enjoy eating the fresh vegetables that result. I give away fresh vegetables to my neighbors because I like them and because I like to do my part in maintaining a friendly social atmosphere in my neighborhood. Making money's not really a factor.
Free software isn't free, it's simply subsidized. Unless you're independently wealthy or living off someone else's paycheck you'd better be making money doing something or you're going to have difficulties paying for your hobbies. The amount of time people can spend working on free software or flying airplanes, like any other project not done for money, is limited by how much time they're willing to spare from doing other more necessary things in life.
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2)
Example: I've played hookey from work for sex. My company was at the time billing me out at US$100 per hour. I was risking losing my job. It was worth it.
The reason you don't pay for sex is because the transaction, the act of paying for it, has a real cost Sex that you pay for is worth less than sex that you get for free.
All of my time has value. I prefer to think of it the other way around, though: All money is time. Money can be limitless. Time marches on.
Bryan
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2, Funny)
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2)
First, that is incorrect. Without a commercial license you CANNOT charge a passenger for their portion of the plane's depreciation (planes generally appreciate in value anyway, but that's another story). You can only charge their pro-rata cost of fuel (and oil, if any), landing/parking fees, etc. Even estimated per hour costs of maintenance are off limits.
Second, all of this bears absolutely no relevance to the point I was making. If I didn't have a commercial pilots license I could easilly go out and get one (besides, doing lazy eights and chandellas is fun), which would in no way change the fact that if I were to start charging friends for flights I would turn a fun hobby into a mundane job.
It would also be illegal to do flights for hire in a Part 91 aircraft
Re:His Father is a Dinasaur (Score:2)
Free Software does not mean 'gratis', it means software freedom. There is a difference, as RMS and others have been at pains to point out for years now.
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:2)
Actually, it is the greatest truth of any economic system. And it is an understatement.
Money is nothing more than an attempt at an objective measure of value with the underlying assumption is that there is no objective measure of value. Time has value. A smile has value. Everything has value.
Each of us, however, values everything differently. This fact is something so very fundamental, yet it is something socialism and communism miss entirely. Though money helps us translate our valuations into a rough average, capitalism recognizes this is a rough average. For this reason, under capitalism, all transactions make everyone involved richer.
Let's look at a simple example. I have a piece of chocolate cake and you have a piece of vanilla cake. Unfortunately, I hate chocolate and you hate vanilla. How much do you think the chocolate cake is worth to me? How much the vanilla cake? If I saw the two side-by-side in a store, I would probably pay $2 for the vanilla and $0 for the chocolate. Assuming the chocolate cake was all I had in this world, we would say I hate no net worth. Furthermore, assuming the reverse was true for you, you would also have no net worth. In the economic universe consisting of the two of us, we have a total net worth of $0. The minute we trade cakes, however, our individual net worths jump to $2 and the entire net worth of our universe to $4 (until we eat the cakes!).
My point? My point is that every decision we make has value. That includes how we spend our time. Choosing to spend time doing X instead of Y has value. You cannot escape it. You wallow in self-pity instead of take the $7/hour job at McDonald's after getting laid off because wallowing in self-pity is worth more to you than $7/hour. And because money is the only thing close to a quantification of the value we place on our decisions--including on how we spend time--time is in fact money.
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, so?
I mean really. As long as you are getting wealthier, does it bother you that someone else is getting a lot (and I do not mean to minimize the disparity, so I will repeat A LOT) richer?
What bothers me about Bill Gates is how he is getting richer. Not the fact that he is getting richer or that he is getting richer at a significantly greater rate than I am.
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:2)
Of course, since I have such *WONDERFUL* Open-source programs, everything's gonna be peachy.
Not to sound like a troll, but time == money. I really don't have the luxury to volunteer my time to software projects anymore. Almost every project I've worked on and attempted to put volunteer time into ends up either really pissing me off, or ends up shooting itself in the foot (stampede anyone?).
Unless I get paid to work on something, so I can raise my family, then I don't want to hear a thing from you about it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm totally for people who can afford to give up their time to write open-source software. I work on Mozilla for christ's sake (I'm a netscape employee). I love working on the project, but I guarantee you, if I weren't getting paid to do it, I wouldn't. Now, this is an ideal situation, because I get to work with lots of cool people from the community. But, if it came between open source and feeding my family, I would choose to feed my family, thanks.
Free Software and Marxism (Score:2)
It is interesting to me that an argument using Capitalist concepts as a base to critique Free Software was modded down and a reply that used Marxist (Communist) ideas was modded up. Funny enough, most Slashdotters probably wouldn't realize how much they agree with Marx and Engels Manifesto of the Communist Party [anu.edu.au] and probably would take offence to being described as having communist leanings. I guess it goes to show you how negativity in the popular media can alter perception of ideas that may have some worth in them.
The really interesting thing about Free Software is that it seems to be a microcosm of the only scenario where Communism can be truly workable; when the cost of replication of goods or services of value tends to zero.
cost != money (Score:2)
At one point Joel points out that just because there isn't money involved does not mean that there are no costs. Chosing one thing always costs you the "opportunity cost" of potentially making a different choice. For example, if you are chosing to spend (note the word spend) time writing some piece of software, it costs you the opportunity to do something else with your time (like beg someone for sex).
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh yes, there are. Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, XFree86, Emacs, gcc, Apache, Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, (La)Tex, are just some examples. I am sure there are many more within the scientific communities for more specialized tasks.
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:3, Interesting)
One payment you received: experiance
Another: Your contributions as well as many others have permitted FREE (beer) software to develop which costs you nothing to get.
And yet another: Friends -- the people who download your software may not be able to pay you but one day they may help you get a job by being a reference.
Linux got his job at transmeta because of what he did. Imagine if he charged for Linux from the start...
So yes there are payment methods other than $$$...
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:2)
Another possible reward: You play it like Grampa Simpson and say "I just want attention". Supposedly scifi geekdom has had the name "egoboo" (for ego boost) as the "currency" people get for making cool fandom stuff for free. You gain the respect of your peers, a little attention, a stronger place in the community, people listen to you more. I think Open Source banks on this to a certain extent as well...it also ties into the experience to put on your resume aspect.
Quantify this! (Score:5, Insightful)
This argument from above so are you saying those two hours of your time is not worth any money is similar to the MPAA's "lost sales" argument especially in cases where in reality no sales would have actually taken place -- you can't make income off a job you don't have. More simply, if no one is willing to pay you for doing whatever it is you're doing, you can't make money doing it. In that case, you have two options: you can do it for free because you like to (in my case, the concrete example would be "publish for copies"), or you can go off in the corner and sulk.
Incidentally and additionally, the previous poster's argument only makes sense at the individual level, and not at the organizational/business level. Businesses have to do things that will make them money; that's what they're for. However, further deposition into the logical consequenses of that statement leads into politics and ideology, though, and is irrelevant to this comment.
Re:Quantify this! (Score:3, Insightful)
You are so totally wrong. EVERYTHING you do has value. Money is nothing more than an attempt to quantify that value. Your choice to take a bath instead of shower has some value to you. We do not tend to quantify that value with money since it has no value to anyone but you. However, the choice you make to shower or bathe versus going au naturale does have value. And the easiest way to quantify that is through terms like, "I would buy him some soap if only he would shower!" In other words, the cost of soap is clearly what your bathing is worth to me. In other words, money is a unit of value measurement just as sure as meters are units of distance measurement. and everything has value.
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but the cost is really widely distributed, so that compensation for any individual is complicated. Let me give you an example.
I run Linux. I also have an HP printer, so I use the hpoj [sourceforge.net] software. I also like the CUPS [cups.org] print spool software. HPOJ and CUPS don't integrate very well. So I wrote, and distribute under GPL, a CUPS backend that allows it to integrate with HPOJ. I contributed about 2-3 hours of time to get this to work. But in return I got hundreds and hundreds of other people's work. I got a working printer and a very flexible print spooler running on a free operating system! And for that I made it so that other people can do that too. I contributed 2-3 hours of work that has value, because it saves time for whoever else uses it (2-3 hours multiplied by the number of users). Thus it contributes back to the economy of opensource/free software, making it all more valuable. I pay small amount of time, and I get back huge amounts of time. Moreover, my contribution makes it so that the next guy will get even more back for his/her contributions. Everyone that contributes a small amount of time, gets paid back much more than they contributed.
What makes opensource/free software different is that it allows large numbers of people to contribute their work to each other, and cumulatively save themselves tons of work. I gladly trade 2-3 hours of work for 2-3 hundred hours of work. It saves me time and money.
I like Joel's article, but it doesn't explain the tradeoff of how people get paid in opensource. It doesn't explain the small amount of effort input for huge amounts of gain returned that opensource/free software allows and encourages. And that's got to be part of the economic equation that explains opensource. It only tries to explain the economics of why IBM, HP, et al, are contributing to opensource. It ignores the fact that IBM, HP, et al, are also trading their small contributions of time for the huge amount of time and money that they save.
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:2)
Lets put it in a different way. I needed a java project manager for my company. I found one, but it didn't work very well. I helped to iron out the bugs. My company got a __free__ project manager, except that they __paid__ me for my time. I got a great deal, the other developers of the project got help.
Inch time foot gem (Score:5, Interesting)
A lord asked Takuan, a Zen teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office and sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others. Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters and gave them to the man:
Not twice this day
Inch time foot gem.
The day in which you coded that software you gave away for free will not come again. A small bit of your time is more valuable than the largest diamond. It's limited and you can never buy more. Never put a price on your time. It cheapens it.
(BTW, if anyone knows exactly which characters Takuan wrote down, I'd be eternally grateful if you told/showed me, email is jcsehak.at.yahoo.com)
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:2)
Of course, if you want to have it as an income source, you should reason like this. If you are doing it for the fun of it - and for the opportunity to learn stuff - then it just isn't a good value calculation. Trying to equal time and money in everything you do is a pretty destructive way to see your life. Why go to the movies, spend time with your friends or read a book, when you could spend that time much more productively with a second job and lots of overtime?
/Janne
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of your time spent as an investment. The fact of the matter is that a teenager's time is not particularly valuable. If you really wanted to monetize the time you spent programming you probably would have had to spend it pulling weeds or bagging groceries. A commercial software company wouldn't have been even remotely interested in paying you for your time, and it would be very difficult to get contract work. That means that in order to sell your programs you would have to come up with a scheme to market, distribute, and collect payment for your work. Shareware is the obvious answer to your problem, but making money via shareware isn't precisely a straight-forward excercise, especially if you are planning on making money on a piece of software that you only work on part time. Once people start paying for software, they expect things like a support phone line, upgrades, fancy documentation, etc. all of which add up to much more than a couple of hours a day.
In other words the chances of actually getting paid for software written as a high school student (even if it is exceptional) are not particularly good. Especially if you aren't willing to treat your software as a business (meaning working business hours).
However, programming, even if you aren't getting paid for it, is a much more useful investment of your time than most of the things that high-school students do. You could have spent those hours playing video games, for example. Programming is one of the professions where many of the most important skills are essentially self-taught. Good programmers emerge after hours and hours of programming, and like many other skills the sooner you start learning the better off you will be when you are in a position to profit from your work. You learned valuable skills while programming the software you gave away. If you would have tried to charge for the software your userbase would almost certainly been much smaller, and you probably wouldn't have made any money anyhow (although you would have learned some useful information about the software industry).
I am not belittling the lesson that your father taught you, but Joel is right when he says that the reason that people are putting money into Free Software development is because they expect to make money from their investment. The fact of the matter is that your story illustrates the fact that software doesn't necessarily have to be ridiculously expensive to develop (high school students can do it in their spare time). Since Free Software also allows the development costs to be spread out widely it is no wonder that Free Software is advancing at a rapid pace.
Re:Like my father always said... (Score:2)
You may not like it, but it is still economics. Every decision that you make has an opportunity cost. Deciding to run a BBS meant that you had less time to bag groceries (or whatever). Along similar lines going to school means that you have less time to pursue a career. In your case running a BBS turned out to be a fairly wise investment of your time in that it helped you gain some valuable skills that you are probably now using to make a living. Likewise, the primary reason that people go to school is that they believe that the time spent gaining an education will increase the market value for their services enough so that the time spent was worth the exchange.
Of course, they usually phrase it as "I want to get a good job," but that is simply because very few people really get the hang of simple economics.
The fact that you actually enjoyed improving your skills by running a BBS is simply part of the reason why economics works.
Joel the Economist (Score:2, Flamebait)
Rules for Economics of Open Source (Score:5, Funny)
step 2: ???
step 3: Profit
step 2= (Score:2)
Less gready,
More liberal place.
Step 3= Go to heaven ( or wil a nobel prize?)
Re:Rules for Economics of Open Source (Score:2)
Joel Is Psychic (Score:3, Funny)
Now that's funny. How did he know I'd be snoozing at exactly that point in the article!
Another basic economics principle.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's look as his examples:
Netscape is trying to commoditize the browser market .. in order to dominate the server market. This would have been plausible in, say, 1997. I find it amazing that he tries to push this by anybody--the browser was commoditized.. and servers turned out to be irrelevant! Where is netscape now?
IBM is investing in open source software to bolster its consulting services ... -- wait a minute. IBM's fortune was made in the early 50s by being the king or proprietary--you couldn't even buy their computers--you had to lease them! The US government eventually stopped this, but IBM's greatest period of success in the computer age was when it had a complete monopoly on sales and service of its own, very closed product lines. With the IBM 360 series, IBM saw some erosion of this due to "plug compatible" peripherals produced elsewhere. With the IBM PC (btw.. the author's description of IBM's "success" in commoditizing the PC makes NO sense whatsoever), IBM did poorer still--we all know how badly they did.
But let's look at the specifics--IBM is a BIG company. Let's say (hypothetically) it could put its full weight behind OSS and therefore contribute a whopping 3% to the total corpus of reasonable OSS stuff. Suddenly, it has what--spent a lot of money for the benefit of all while increasing what it can personally consult on by a whopping 3%. Even if there are network, learning, or syndicate effects, this situation screams "free rider problem."
Ditto for Transmeta..
It's almost ironic that the author pics such dead or dying companies like Netscape, Transmeta, IBM, etc for his examples.. Look, I like these companies as much as anybody for their past, but let's face it..
I could go on, but this article is a big swing and miss.
Not the PC, the INTERFACE (Score:3, Interesting)
no, it makes perfect sense, if you read it. he's describing how IBM published the specs to the interfaces so that 3rd party vendors could create plug-in cards. with cards, PCs can do more, making them more valuable in more situations, causing demand for them to increase.
-c
Re:Not the PC, the INTERFACE (Score:2, Insightful)
-c
Re:Not the PC, the INTERFACE (Score:2)
Re:Not the PC, the INTERFACE (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, the original author never claimed the strategy was a success. He was asking "Why did they do that?" not "Did it work?" His explanation of why they did it makes a lot of sense. They didn't think that making a clone PC would be held to be legal, so their strategy obviously didn't include clones.
So the unspoken lesson here is, you might have a solid economic reason for doing what you do, and still get spanked in the marketplace.
Re:Not the PC, the INTERFACE (Score:2)
The point is that if IBM didn't commoditize PC hardware then it would probably have been Apple that created the standard. In which case IBM would have seen their mainframe market dominated, and they would have completely missed the PC revolution. Besides which it can very easily be argued that IBM's PC lines failed when they tried to close the PC architecture with their proprietary MCA bus.
By this time PC buyers were very interested in maintaining a commodity PC market, and so IBM sales plummeted while Compaq, Dell, Gateway and other non-proprietary PC makers flourished. The fact that the PC market was IBM's to lose is evidenced by the fact that many people still bought the proprietary IBM machines, only to find that none of the inexpensive hardware add-ons would actually work in their machine.
Not the point (Score:4, Insightful)
His point wasn't that it was a necessarily *successful* strategy (although arguably Microsoft makes up for all the other failures) - he was just providing the motivation for companies to adopt open-source, presenting the argument that they're not doing it for moral reasons.
If you think he's wrong about their motivation, go ahead a present a different one. But saying that he's wrong because some of his examples haven't been successful completely misses the point of his article - it wasn't "Why companies should adopt open-source", it was "Why companies *are* adopting open-source".
Anyway...
Netscape is trying to commoditize the browser market
Which is the era which he was talking about...
IBM is investing in open source software to bolster its consulting services
IBM spends a *small* amount of money relative to the amount it brings in from consulting... by adopting Linux and Apache, it can bring in huge consulting dollars without spending the money to develop a whole OS or web server. The money is in the skill used to put together the consulting package (ie. web applications with WebSphere, etc.), not in the commodities (the OS and web server, as well as the hardware, in this case).
Re:Another basic economics principle.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just what is your definition of "dead or dying"? What makes a compnay successful?
Re:Another basic economics principle.. (Score:2)
Nobody expects you to be objective around Slashdot, but it would be wise to at least consider what you are saying before doing so.
Your opinions smack of a high school student who has a bone to pick with corporate america. Your opinions are unfounded and easily disproven; I've alreadydone this. No amonut of handwaving and strawman arguments can make your wrong opinion right; no one in their right mind would say that IBM is dying, nor that any AOL/Time Warner company is "dead and dying." And just to explain so that you can understand, a company is an idea, not some living creature, they evolve and change over time, like Netscape has.
So, in conclusion, I'd say you need to spend some time in some business classes (I'm sure you can take some when you get to college), and then maybe you'll understand my point.
Re:Another basic economics principle.. (Score:2)
While that may be true, being overly closed accounts for some of IBM's (as well as others') greatest failures. Recall PS/2, a brilliant bus architecture that even had Plug-n-Pray-like features. IBM kept specs to itself and would only license stuff for $$$, and PS/2 soon got pushed out of the PC-market by the slightly inferior but open EISA-standard. Another issue was backward-compatibility (EISA is compatible with ISA, PS/2 isn't), and, to be honest, I'm not sure which one was the major factor.
A similar case was VESA with its VBE/AF standard for accelerated video. They charged $$$ for it, and I know exactly _one_ program that uses it (actually, the Allegro library ), and I think they started using it only after the standard became open. It is sad that the project that provides Open VBE/AF drivers seems to be less than alive.
Re:Another basic economics principle.. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, Joel is right. Back in '95 or '96, Jim Clark said Netscape sell printing presses, but first we have to teach people to read.
My own take on Netscape's collapse in the server market is that they stretched themselves too thin. Netscape Enterprise Server 2 was an excellent product, fast, stable and flexible. Version 3 of most of their products - and there were a lot of them by now - almost universally sucked, they had been rushed out of the door, and it showed.
IBM is investing in open source software to bolster its consulting services
I think Joel's right here - IBM Global Services is what makes the money for IBM, consulting and outsourcing. If IBM can compete on data centre implementation and operations, something they have always excelled at, they can get software for free and hire people cheaply, because sysadmin and programming skills will be commoditized.
Suddenly, it has what--spent a lot of money for the benefit of all while increasing what it can personally consult on by a whopping 3%.
Really, contributing to open source is just their approach to learning about how to make open source software work in a managed facility, so they can adapt and maintain it - they could care less about "the community". It's a better way to train their people, letting them cut their teeth in the real world rather than in a classroom.
Remember, IBM created the PC industry, then lost control of it. They created the relational database industry, and lost control of it. They know a great deal about how to survive and make money in a commoditized environment, and that's on "value add" - i.e. services.
Your post is a big swing and miss... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually this is not a failing of the article but a failing of the people the article references. Many people like to think that the reason that Open Source is popular among businesses is because it is "free as in speech" which although being a nice fuzzy-feelgood reason is not a BUSINESS reason. On the other hand, trying to commoditize a certain market while making money of off its complement "giving away the razor and charging for the blades" is a well known tactic amongst business types and is something that can fully be brought to bear with Open Source. In this case Joel's article clearly articulates this point with numerous examples.
However the problem of Free Riders tends to be orthogonal in well executed versions of the "give away razors" strategy. In well executed versions of this strategy, the business is uninterested if the market it has commoditized now has a low barrier to entry as long as there is still a significantly barrier to entry in the market for its complement. Specifically, IBM doesn't care that any Johnny Come Lately can enter the Linux distro business because the same doesn't apply to their consulting or hardware businesses that benefit from the commoditization of the OS.
It's almost ironic that the author pics such dead or dying companies like Netscape, Transmeta, IBM, etc for his examples.. Look, I like these companies as much as anybody for their past, but let's face it..
Anyone who considers IBM [yahoo.com] to be dead and dying knows nothing about the current state of the software industry.
Re:Another basic economics principle.. (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as IBM's involvement with OSS, sure, they won't contribute that much to the total corpus of OSS. But IBM can fill in the gaps they care about. Software is always in the state of being just a little bit wrong for what you want (e.g., "I'd love to use it, but I can't stand it if Alt-d doesn't get you to the Location bar..."). IBM wants software which works exactly right in the situations they care about.
All of the reviews I've seen of linux installations by new people have gone: "It worked amazingly smoothly, up until the part where I tried to get {something} working, at which point I got stuck and frustrated. If I just skipped that step, everything was perfect, but I couldn't use my {something}." If IBM can fix this one thing, the OSS solution their consultants sell will work instead of not working. The customer won't pay 99% for a 99% solution, they'll find someone else who can promise a 100% solution. If IBM contributes the last 1% (in the configurations IBM wants to use), they get the customer instead of not getting the customer.
Of course, the benefit of using OSS is that IBM can actually work on the 1% that doesn't work, rather than trying to get their direct competitors to fix it.
Great Read! (Score:3, Insightful)
The "make your compliment a commodity" idea is great. Not a new idea, but I have never heard it put that way before, the examples (Flights to Miami vs. Hotel rooms in Miami, etc) make it even better.
I am not a Joel on software fan. Even if you arn't either, read the article. It will give you great examples of economics to pull out next time someone questions how Open Source can make money and survive.
-Pete
Quite good, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
The argument here seems to be people make free-as-in-beer software because its cheap. But they may also do it because it produces better software (therefore reducing the TOC for the other products).
These two things are not necessarily in conflict.
Frankly, I also think that a number of arguments used are pure Aunt Sallys. Has anyone ever really said IBM have converted to communism? If so, which mental institution were they speaking from at the time?
Reason for Java (Score:5, Insightful)
I say the reason Sun released Java was to allow all the Windows app programmers to make apps that work on SPARC chips and Solaris as well as Windows.
It was a strategy of weakness, a "Me too" strategy. Not aimed at promoting their hardware, but demoting the more numerous boxen of their competitor.
*And* demoting their competitor's OS, which also had far more apps.
And Microsoft was very afraid of this possibility.
Still is (C#, anyone?).
Re:Reason for Java (Score:3, Insightful)
Once Sun is a contender they can begin to compete and leverage their reputation and product advantages. Computer hardware is a commodity, in about the same way cars are.
If Java were faster.. (Score:2)
Re:Reason for Java (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the WORA aspect of the product fit into a larger strategy for a while. Then they came up with "the network is the computer".... the network delivers code that can run on any computer, and services that run on high powered hardware. Who sells the hardware that delivers code and services?
Sun.
I think the commodotize your complement analysis is brilliant, and I appreciate being exposed to it, but like all principles and theories, its application is the trick. How many times in physics did you misapply a correct physical principle? In Econ, it's even easier.
And we also operate in a world where no one principle is the end of the story.
Sun's strategy is half-baked, but not as much as Joel thinks it is.
Who is he quoting? (Score:3, Insightful)
Joel "read me I'm the next Jon Katz" Spolsky wrote, inter alia:
Where does Spolsky get these myths? Does anybody seriously believe that Gerstner has gone all hippy-love on his shareholders? Has anybody published the idea that Sun and HP are ideological converts to Free Software? Does this even past the "huh?" test?
The "myths" are straw men, uncited, unsupported. Without them, what is Spolsky saying? That businesses use Open Source for... business reasons? That wouldn't be much of a story, would it?
Move along, nothing to see here. Proving you're smarter than people who don't exist by making up their positions and knocking them down isn't much of an exercise.
Re:Who is he quoting? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're mild parodies of what seem to be mainstream views on Slashdot. You'll find lots and lots of people arguing, for example, that record companies are evil and all music should be given away free. People *love* to hear that IBM is doing work to support Linux, but that the same time don't remind them that IBM is a business. They don't want to hear that. They like to think that IBM is doing this out of the goodness of its heart.
In general, Slashdot represents the ideal of college students without much disposable income.
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
OF COURSE IBM is doing so out of a business/profit motive. I defy you to find any actual person who thinks otherwise.
But the point is, it doesn't matter what IBM's motivation is - as long as IBM plays by the rules that govern Free Software, everybody benefits (including IBM)
Do I care if my neighbour acts nice to me because he likes me, or if he's buttering me up for future favours, or because his God commanded him too and he's in fear for his soul if he does not? No. All that matters is that he be a good neighbor.
And there is every indication that IBM is a good neighbor to Free Software.
The news flash here is that IBM has managed to convert itself into a company whose business plan is based around contributing to the common good, rather than locking everybody into proprietary, IBM-only solutions, as had been their modus operendi for the previous 40 or so years.
DG
SUN and GNU (Score:2)
Sun are intending to use GNU tools for there Unix.
because GNU is now more-or-less de-facto Unix standard.
Now all Sun need to do is change there name to UNG and everything will fit perfectly inplace.
Now if HP were to use GNU then maybe there Unix wouldn't have buffer limits of cat etc.....
Re:Who is he quoting? (Score:2)
I think it's still quite useful to know exactly how Open Source provides business benefits for IBM. Both so the model can be replicated, and so IBM's involvement can be better understood. If you know why your business partner wants to do something, it will help you make better descisions as to how to make their involvement work well for you too.
Total miss at the end (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Java wasn't made from a hatred of Microsoft. Heck, they event contracted Microsoft to handle the Windows implementation of the spec (before Microsoft decided to violate the contract).
2) Sun make implementations for Windows (for the market share) and Solaris (their stuff), because Java is software and Sun is a hardware company that coincidentally also makes software.
The Solaris platform already was semi-crossplatform in that it's another Unix: If you write software that will run on Solaris it can be modified to run on most other Unixen.
So why didn't Sun go the Apple route and make a totally proprietary and closed architecture and operating system? The same reason Apple left their "route" and embraced BSD, PCI and whatnot:
Because proprietary sucks.
If you're the only one going your way, you end up taking all the chances, doing all the work and become your own "weakest link".
If you go with published specs, open standards and shared source, you will get competition, yes, but you will also get better quality though that competition, and you will be able to benefit from the work of others, because you can more easily understand what they do, and be able to match their features.
You win.
Summary & some of the more interesting quotes (Score:2, Interesting)
So if PC hardware is cheap, more people can afford the price of entry and you can charge more for the OS (eg, Windows). If enterprise OSs and software are cheap, you can charge more for your consulting services (eg, IBM).
Why is Mozilla "cheap"?
[Given that IE is free, what is the incentive for Netscape to make the browser "even cheaper"? It's a preemptive move. They need to prevent Microsoft getting a complete monopoly in web browsers, even free web browsers, because that would theoretically give Microsoft an opportunity to increase the cost of web browsing in other ways -- say, by increasing the price of Windows.]
Java does exactly what Sun *didn't* want:
[If you can run your software anywhere, that makes hardware more of a commodity. As hardware prices go down, the market expands, driving more demand for software (and leaving customers with extra money to spend on software which can now be more expensive.)
Sun's enthusiasm for WORA is, um, strange, because Sun is a hardware company. Making hardware a commodity is the last thing they want to do.
Oooooooooooooooooooooops!]
Sun & Java... (Score:2)
Since Java is 'fastest' on their new SunFire servers (the top end model has like 106 procs), they get you to code/develop your app on your PC, then when you want more power, you go to their servers.
How well this plan has worked is debatable, but that's my opinion that the author has missed when talking about Sun.
Wow, now I won't get flamed... (Score:3, Insightful)
For those of you who either slept through or didn't even take an economics class, this article provides enough of a basic intro into micro/macro economic theory to not only allows the author to make some fairly advanced points, but also to allow the reader to fully understand some of the greatest misconceptions surrounding the OSS movement as well as modern computer-based industry as well.
One of the biggest points that I think the author made in his article (without saying it directly) was that OSS programmers are not business analysts. Sure, what seems very simple and straight forward, free software, sonds like a good idea, but I'm glad the author pointed out that while the software my be 'free' there are many costly issues and circumstances that surround such software, such as re-training (sorry kiddies, most business-people have no desire or will to RTFM, so the reality that is created is costly training seminars), support (since it's open source, other than usenet and a few other forums, there is no free support availible, which means someone has to foot the bill to get one of you LUNIX D0oDz out of your mama's basement and into the server closet), hardware costs (yeah, linux and other OSS support SOME hardware, sometimes even cheap hardware, but not ALL hardware), and of course incompatibilities with exdisiting systems.
With all this build up, even the cost of the systems analysis for a change to OSS becomes prohibitive.
To expand on the author's analogy of chicken to beef (chicken being OSS and beef being something proprietary); sure, the chicken might be free, but in this situation, you have to butcher the chicken yourself and hire a chef to prepare it for you, whereas you can simply walk up to a the counter and order a hamburger.
It's what it keep saying over and over again: No one wants to have to re-invent the wheel to get the job done, and as per my own experience, using Linux in a non-technical environment is like trying to invent the shelby cobra when all you have to work with is a dull bronze chisel and a little water.
Re:Wow, now I won't get flamed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Uhm.... Bullshit.
The secondary costs of installing and using MS-Windows is about the same (or perhaps more) than installing and using Linux. That, coupled with the primary costs of using MS-Windows (licensing and media fees) puts MS-Windows at a higher cost than Linux.
To extend *your* extension of the analogy, it's like you can walk into a diner and order a hamburger, or you can get a chicken sandwich for a couple of bucks less, because the chicken costs the restaraunt nothing.
This idea that MS-Windows has no secondary cost because it has a primary cost is stupid.
TCO (Score:3, Informative)
The secondary costs of installing and using MS-Windows is about the same (or perhaps more) than installing and using Linux. That, coupled with the primary costs of using MS-Windows (licensing and media fees) puts MS-Windows at a higher cost than Linux.
...
This idea that MS-Windows has no secondary cost because it has a primary cost is stupid.
Yes, and to add some figures behind your statements, Paul Murphy [winface.com] has done some extensive TCO studies of Windows vs Various unix systems, and found that in many cases, a sanely configured Solaris solution (far from the bargain basement of the *nix world) can often save over 60% compared to the comparable Windows solution. The real world numbers are likely even more slanted towards Unix, because he leaves out the expensive hardware replacement that Windows pushes on you to keep running their software.
[linuxworld.com]
A strategic comparison of Windows vs. Unix, LinuxWorld, October 2001
Software as a commodity (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the slashdot crowd are technical heads so I would say that it is in the best interest of most of us to get GPL'd stuff working, with the possible exception of packaged closed software developers, about 5% of all developers.
This way the money will go to us, instead of CEOs or marketing departments.
Joel the Troel. Free software is cheaper for all. (Score:2, Flamebait)
It's presumptious of you, however, to tell us why IBM, RMS, and everyone and their dog is doing what they do. The spin is a little nausiating. Let's examine some of the nasty ones:
At this point, it's pretty common for people to try to confuse things by saying, "aha! But Linux is FREE!" OK. First of all, when an economist considers price, they consider the total price, including some intangible things like the time it takes to set up, reeducate everyone, and convert existing processes. All the things that we like to call "total cost of ownership."
What confusion? You forget that studies consistently prove the lower cost of ownership of free software? Not that it's what I tell people. I generally point out freedom, control, security and then cost. Now I see the confusion, it's a straw man. What else does this silly Sallmanist say?
Secondly, by using the free-as-in-beer argument, these advocates try to believe that they are not subject to the rules of economics...
Wrong again! If you keep economic priciples in mind while reading free software organization pages, you will note and remember many economic reasons offered support software freedom. It's the makers of propriatory software that would like to make themselves beyond the reach of economic laws. They attempt to do this by abusing copyright and patent law, and engaging in other anti-competitive behavior. RMS rightly noted that the results of such behavior is economic waste in the form of double work and the inability to use software as you would.
The rest of the article is inconsequential after the false frame work has been applied. Free software advocates are not ignorant of economic laws and one of the main advatages to free software is lower total cost of ownership. Only propriatory software concerns have a financial intrest to deliberatly waste the efforts of users.
Re:Joel the Troel. Free software is cheaper for al (Score:2)
"...studies consistently prove the lower cost of ownership of free software."
Really? Which software and which studies? Compared to which propreitary applications? I can believe Apache is cheaper (not to mention better) than IIS. But what about Star Office vs MSFT Office? Is this a study of technically proficient users, or not?
"The rest of the article is inconsequential after the false frame work has been applied."
OK. Now that is frankly ridiculous. Even if you disagree with some of his comments about OSS, that does not make the rest of the article meaningless. Indeed, the rest of the article is thought provoking, and contains more than a sliver of truth. (Ie, IBM wants OSS to be a success because then it can make money running your Apache server for you.)
It seems there is way too much religion in your post: "if you point to flaws in the OSS model [which I don't believe his does] then you must be against OSS. and those who are against OSS are ignorable."
Good read, but what about Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple has the right idea. Their current ad campaign talks about switching -- how you can do the same things on a Mac as a PC, except on a Mac it's easier. This tries to make software a commodity while keeping the UI separate (not the core OS, Apple wants that to be a commodity, too). It also emphasizes that it's easy to switch -- low switching costs are really, really important.
Apple's core advantage is the amount of integration it can offer between hardware and software. It looks like they're trying to de-emphasize anything that's purely software (unix, apache, browser, for sure
The only problem is that Apple is still going it alone on some of their hardware components -- maybe because they've decided they can't make money trying to offer the same ease of use and integration across so many possible hardware configurations. Such a task either represents a real opportunity for the open source community, or a black hole of wasted effort trying to keep up. I'm not really sure which.
It is about freedom too (Score:3, Insightful)
The point he misses is that freedom is good for economy too. Freedom is what makes the jump onto the bandwagon a no-risk jump. Freedom is what makes the legal implications so clear, that you're not risking a lot by joining. When HP chose Debian as their basis for Linux development, it was because of the pains Debian developers go through to make sure their distro is truly free. It makes it very FUD-resistant, and that is something very important.
Why is it that people often assume that whats good for freedom is bad for economy, and whats bad for freedom is good for economy? While most of the IT industry may think that way, it doesn't need to be so.
JAVA Commoditizes Developers!! (Score:2, Insightful)
This article that I have read in a long long time (Score:2)
Re:support (Score:3, Interesting)
The openness of the systems (even for non-Open systems like Solaris) makes them easy to maintain. All Unices behaves mostly alike, usually trivial to bring them to single user, fsck and reboot for example.
There are plenty of capable Unix admins, and plenty of resources for said admins - usually lab shelves are coming down with O'Reilly books, the web has plenty and if Usenet archives on Google can't solve your problem, well...
I'd argue, based PURELY on my current job experience, that the TCO of PCs is higher. We were a Unix based design lab, now we're PC based with Unix server farms. I've more calls on Support now than ever as I can't fix anything myself.
Re:support (Score:2)
This might be true -now-, if you deploy say a Linux desktop with no "get used to your new system" training, or you screw it up or whatevr, but basically the whole "OSS software support costs more than MS support" is just a short term argument. Right now MS is dominant, so MCSEs are 10 a penny (and lets face it, 12 year olds can get that qualification - experience virtually doesn't factor into it).
Now imagine that 60% of desktops run Linux, and Linux runs 80% of business machines. Now which is cheaper - MS support personnell or UNIX support? Linux of course, because it's wider spread and has higher number of people who are experienced with it. This isn't a general argument against open source.
Re:good point, goes too far (Score:3, Informative)
Ugh. Sorry, but you must be a youngin'. C has called "high-level assembly language" for years. As it says in the Jargon File:
"C is often described, with a mixture of fondness and disdain varying according to the speaker, as 'a language that combines all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the readability and maintainability of assembly language'. "
-jon
Re:good point, goes too far (Score:2)
The C programming language is best described as a hardware-independent assembler language.
Ugh. Sorry, but this one is a bit hard to swallow. Bytecode was not a new concept when java hit the schene, but that is no reason confuse portable source from portable binaries. Or to start making high- (or mid-) level languages equivalent to assembly code.
The last talk of James O. Coplien I attended here in our town: "C is portable assembly language(it was designed to be that), wheras C++ is a expressive hybrid language which supports OO(it was desigend liek that) and not an oo language, per se."
The argument that C is a portable assembly language is perfectly right, it was designed to be so.
angel'o'sphere
P.S. yes I think Joe is overapplying the idea especially if he thinks SUN is "complementing" it self away. Hint: the netweork is the computer. Hint-2: pervarsive computing. Hint-3: migrating code.
Re:Joel the troll (Score:2)
When the criticism is by someone level-headed, it's not trolling. Trolling is when silly people start arguments just so they can argue justify their own beliefs.
Re:Joel the troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:economics of fun ? (Score:2)
Re:Contributing to Joel (Score:2, Insightful)
He didn't say that people contribute to OSS because there's money to be made, he said that companies invest money in OSS because it furthers their business strategy, and pays itself off as a result.
How could you confuse IBM/HP/SUN with Linus/ESR/RMS?
Pheh!
Re:Mozilla conclusion? f6 = alt-d !!! (Score:2)
Re:Recursion factor... (Score:2, Insightful)
When you operate in a commodity market, you either accept commity prices (low margins, focus on cost of production, relatively stable sales) or you attempt to differentiate your product to increase your margin (pulp free, added sugar, reduced acid). Marketing can also help build brand loyalty by building a perceived difference (Heintz is not the only seller of thick katchup).
We already have commodity prices in the low end of hardware (Walmart?), and are quickly getting into commoditized OS (Linux, BSD...). The software that runs on these is not yet commoditized (not all software is platform independent and interchangeable) but much of that is happening as well.
Hardware companies will survive by either acecpting commodity prices (beige box computers) or by differentiating themselves (higher quality components) or brand loyalty (Dell, Compaq ...)
OS organizations will have the same forces to deal with. Since the incemental cost is low (CD's and install books or bandwidth), the prices will be low. Some will try brand loyalaty (Microsoft, RedHat) others differentiation (Delivered with other software, quality perceptions).