Suchith, On Thu, Jun 4, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Suchith Anand < suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:
> Very good point and here is where we need help (maybe from an Economics > expert). > > There are many studies already done which we can build upon. For example > the Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the > competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) > sector in the EU at > http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/files/2006-11-20-flossimpact_en.pdf > > So any ideas/inputs greatly welcome. > A common strategy of proprietary vendors is giving nearly for free their products for education and training, for example the agreements proposed by Microsoft to Italian universities [1] and the Italian Ministry of education [2] - I'm sure they propose similar agreements all around the world but I cite the Italian example because in the past few days has raised the indignation of many, although this doesn't come as new because such agreements have been in place for several years now and they are only renewed from time to time. In order to make an estimation of the real cost that such an agreement implies, you can not refer to the agreement itself : you would read that the proprietary vendor "donates" something, and the government receives without giving nothing. The hidden cost, however, is the missed empowerment of a generation, that will most likely depend upon the software that they have learned to use at school. How would you quantify this economically? This is a tough problem! I only cited Microsoft but there are plenty of examples, in nearly any field of application. In GIS the impact is even worse because it's a more specialized software, therefore if you want to move to open source having learned proprietary, the learning curve is steeper. Anyway, I would like to thank you for bringing this up, because it's utterly important to speak about this. Furthermore, analysing the "market of open source software" is extremely interesting, if you consider how relatively new is, and new models of business could be considered also learning from the strategies of proprietary vendors. [1] http://www.microsoft.com/it-it/education/leadership/accordo-microsoft-crui/default.aspx#fbid=oGMOM9RxpgQ [2] http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2015/05/29/news/accordo_miur_microsoft-115578889/ -- Best regards, Dr. Margherita DI LEO Scientific / technical project officer European Commission - DG JRC Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) Via Fermi, 2749 I-21027 Ispra (VA) - Italy - TP 261 Tel. +39 0332 78 3600 margherita.di-...@jrc.ec.europa.eu Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may not in any circumstance be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.
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