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Alan Lord (News) wrote:
> I disagree. Making *everything* open source would be pyrrhic panacea.
> Competition is good. Competition is what has spurned the FOSS movement
> and proprietary vendors alike. Trying to eradicate the proprietary
> market is unrealistic and would stifle innovation.
But isn't this the cornerstone of Free Software? Because the source
code is available to all and may be re-used under compatible licenses,
and the Free Software community isn't concerning itself with playing
silly patent games, everyone is competing on a level playing field.
If one product develops an innovative solution that sets it apart from
the rest, it naturally becomes the favoured product -- because it is
better, not because users are locked into it. When its competitors
catch up and implement that innovation themselves, all are forced to
look for something else to set them apart from the pack, and thus the
software keeps improving.
In addition, if a particular set of developers doesn't like the way one
product is going, they are free to fork the project and create their own
version. This practice itself often drives innovation for the
betterment of both projects.
Compiz/Beryl/Compiz Fusion is a good recent example of this. Compiz was
forked, and continued to focus on the architecture while its fork,
Beryl, focused more on the effects. Both were excellent for different
reasons and eventually merged back into Compiz Fusion.
I remember hanging out on the Samba mailing lists back when Luke Kenneth
Casson Leighton (LKCL for short) forked the code into Samba TNG to
develop PDC functionality for Samba, and thinking what an incredible
development model this Free Software allowed - in spite of the frequent
flame wars!
The fact that many Free Software products are also based on open
standards only makes it easier for users to switch between competing
products and bolsters this cycle of continual improvement.
While I agree that there will almost certainly continue to be a mixture
of proprietary and Free software, I don't agree that removing
proprietary software from the equation would stifle innovation.
JT
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James Tait, BSc|xmpp:jayte...@wyrddreams.org
Programmer and Free Software advocate | VoIP: +44 (0)870 490 2407
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