on "closed source" hardware (Score 1)

A good articale Alan, though I do take task with the statement "No company now would commit to a closed hardware strategy. It would cost them more than using commodity components." Lots of companies do just that especially where there are more important issues than cost.

The "closed hardware" companies who expect to receive direct return for their development have a very definate need to be different for exactly the reason that their gear costs more. This leads to innovation in the areas that their customers require, thereby supplying a better valued product. Various companies such as IBM, HP, Sun, DEC.. er Compaq etc. supply *LOTS* of closed hardware systems to customers that are happy to pay the cost, because the hardware meets their needs.

In the "open hardware" area (notably the PC industry) we have hardware that is quite frankly rubbish. This hardware has the advantage that because of it's cost it has made computing more accessable and allowed small hardware designers experimentation in various areas. However because of the entrenched compatibility requirments (I still have an XT ethernet card in 1 linux box) we have hardware that has lots of realy broken features. (10 IRQs !!!!).

Closed hardware manufacturers have the ability to throw away computer models that are no longer relevant, and thereby cleanly advance hardware architecture in a way that the PC industry can't.

A lot of what's new and great in PC architecture has been hanging about in proprietry systems for a long time (15 years or so difference for memory managment when the 386 arrived - another 3-4 years before software that could use it caught on).

OSS gives me the best of both worlds - I can run my open software on "closed hardware" :-)