Then again, the idea of "there could be many people working on it to advance the product" idea has been bandied around regarding Open Source for a long time. Part of what companies give to software isn't just people to do the work and support it, it's also about cohesiveness. While you may have "hundreds/thousands" of people working on Linux or Linux apps, third party cohesiveness is almost non-existant. IE, Adobe can call Microsoft and say "Hey, here's what we are going to do.." and they know that the answers MS gives them represent a stable coding base, and their team can be assigned individual roles.
Let's say I start developing photoshop for Linux. Outside of the fact that I've got multiple install methods (RPMs, pre-compiled, etc.) I've also got a codebase that is constantly in movement.. I start work with say, Kernel 2.3. I don't know what Kernel 2.4 is going to have/may change because with hundreds of people working on it, things change constantly (doubt this? Ask people who have been dicking with wireless support for the last few years in Linux). I like Linux. I think it's a great concept, and it serves a great purpose if handled right. But because it's open source, it gets a lot of positives and picks up some negatives. I can't imagine someone trying to develop something like say, OCR multi-app utilities with a backend like KUPS and believing the output could be compatible with every app in the PC.. whereas on a PC, I know using MS's base tool, every app will grab hold of the output. If you are a third party developer of a serious business app that involves printing, graphic work, CAD, or business software (let's say Intuit, Adobe, etc.) would you really invest big money into Linux versions? Right now? -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thane Sherrington Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 10:15 AM To: The Hardware List Subject: Re: [H] Open Source Heretic At 11:54 AM 14/07/2005, Ben Ruset wrote: >Okay, so you pay for the software from MS *and* get support for a period >of time. With Linux you're not paying for software and then have to find >some 3rd party vendor. That's how I understand it, yes. (It is also my understanding that at some point, you pay for MS support.) >I don't think anybody will disagree that it's easier to admin a Windows >server than a Linux server. Can't comment on that. It is easier to admin a Netware server than a Windows server. >Yeah, but how long will that take? If it takes you 5 years to develop a >program on your own when a funded company could have it done in 5 weeks, >how does that help computing in general? And competition is not "take my >product and modify it" it's usually "lets create a product of our own that >does X but also does Y." Except that once a program is released as FOSS, there could end up being many more people working on the program than in a funded company. At least, that's what I read. I've never worked in either, so I can't say from personal experience. >I wonder how many Samba implementations have paid support. Or how many >mySQL loads are supported by mySQL the company, vs the number of free >installs out there. There's a lot of people using a lot of software >without paying a dime. Why spend a ton of money to develop software when >the vast number of users will end up taking your ideas for free. Sort of like pirated Windows, I guess. :) T
