[Ilugc] Is the proprietary camp winning ?
- From: prem@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Prem Kurian Philip)
- Date: Thu Oct 12 15:41:10 2006
From: Kenneth Gonsalves <lawgon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Ilugc] Is the proprietary camp winning ?
On 12-Oct-06, at 10:43 AM, Vamsee Kanakala wrote:
I'm really saddened when people paint "proprietary" to be the enemy
when it's putting the food on so many tables here. Some people want
to be paid for their work, let it be so
are you implying that foss cannot earn people money???? that people
arent getting paid for doing foss??????
The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of all programmers make
their money writing propreitary software.
There is a reason sofware companies prefer the propreitary route when it
comes to developing software for their clients. The FOSS method of making
money is to give the software free, but charge for the support/service.
However, IMHO this approach to business only works for:
A - Enterprise software such as ERP products
B - Enterprise Servers
C - Anti-virus products (where regular interaction with the vendor to get
updates/maintenance is critical)
D - Custom developed software (where the software may be so specific to
the customers requirement that it doesn't make sense for them to share the
source code with other customers or where the customer is tied to the
vendor for maintenance)
For most other kinds of software users will try and get by as much as
possible with the limitations of the software if it means that they don't
have to pay for support.
For instance, in all this time that I have used Windows or Linux, I
haven't had to pay for support even once. Neither have I paid for JBOSS,
PostgreSQL, MySQL etc. It is not that I haven't had problems with these
software, but it is because I was either able to get around the problem
with some effort, or got someone to help me out without having to pay the
vendor.
The millions of copies of pirated software floating around even though the
vendors will not support them is a testament to the fact that once a
software is released, most people won't ever go back to the vendor of the
software for support.
I do believe that there is a definite business case for using FOSS
software especially for enterprise-level software, software for
governments, any custom developed software etc because you don't want to
tie yourself down to a vendor, however, if your business is not entirely
dependent on the software (that is, you can replace it with a equivalent
software without affecting your business), then you can afford to be be
neutral in your decision about using propreitary or FOSS software and then
price, features and user friendliness become the most important issues and
not the FOSS/propreitary nature of the software.
This decision neutrality makes it possible for vendors to choose the
approach which most often financially benefits them more - which is to
develop propreitary software.
So no, I don't think either FOSS or propreitary are winning this battle.
Thanks,
PK
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