Comment An interesting comment (Score 1) 61
There are some situations in which proprietary is better and some which call for open source. There are essentially three different types of software developed:
1)Foundation Software. Examples of this would be Linux/*BSD, BIND, Sendmail, gcc, hardware drivers, and (maybe) Emacs. These are all products on which other products are built. These should be open-source for three reasons:
- Stability is essential. These are the foundations upon which everything else is built, so peer review is necessary.
- These basic tools should be available to everyone to enhance competition (lower barriers to entry).
- Similar to the prior consideration, Open Sourcing these would prevent any one vendor from having a monopoly lock (a la Microsoft).
2)General application software. Examples: Wordperfect, MS Office, Databases, etc. Most apps that people buy. These products should have rigourously open _standards_ but they could or could not be open-source. My feeling is that once an open source competitor enters the market, other vendors would eventually have to move to open source.
As long as the standards were open and adhered to, proprietary products could compete on the basis of what features they offered as well as their implementation of the standards. The open standards would prevent monopoly lock.
Open sourcing these products would probably increase reliability overall, but the business model would change; instead of selling a product, the company could sell services associated with the product, proprietary extensions (plug-in modules), or a brand name (like Heinz ketchup).
3)Specialized application software. Examples might include games, or specialized searching algorithms, etc -- anything where the value is in the _uniqueness_ of the software. Network externalities would probably not apply.
These should be the prime target for proprietary software houses. In this case, there is real intellectual property embedded in the software, and _that_ is what is being sold. The software is only a necessary vehicle.
Of course, this is only my (rather pragmatic) view, and fairly un-Stallmanesque.
1)Foundation Software. Examples of this would be Linux/*BSD, BIND, Sendmail, gcc, hardware drivers, and (maybe) Emacs. These are all products on which other products are built. These should be open-source for three reasons:
- Stability is essential. These are the foundations upon which everything else is built, so peer review is necessary.
- These basic tools should be available to everyone to enhance competition (lower barriers to entry).
- Similar to the prior consideration, Open Sourcing these would prevent any one vendor from having a monopoly lock (a la Microsoft).
2)General application software. Examples: Wordperfect, MS Office, Databases, etc. Most apps that people buy. These products should have rigourously open _standards_ but they could or could not be open-source. My feeling is that once an open source competitor enters the market, other vendors would eventually have to move to open source.
As long as the standards were open and adhered to, proprietary products could compete on the basis of what features they offered as well as their implementation of the standards. The open standards would prevent monopoly lock.
Open sourcing these products would probably increase reliability overall, but the business model would change; instead of selling a product, the company could sell services associated with the product, proprietary extensions (plug-in modules), or a brand name (like Heinz ketchup).
3)Specialized application software. Examples might include games, or specialized searching algorithms, etc -- anything where the value is in the _uniqueness_ of the software. Network externalities would probably not apply.
These should be the prime target for proprietary software houses. In this case, there is real intellectual property embedded in the software, and _that_ is what is being sold. The software is only a necessary vehicle.
Of course, this is only my (rather pragmatic) view, and fairly un-Stallmanesque.
