Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 11:23:26AM -0500, Brian T. Sniffen wrote: >> * There's less incentive to develop new changes: unless you can afford >> a stable of developers large enough to deploy new features faster >> than your competitors can copy them, you gain no competitive >> advantage from innovation. Software gets developed only to scratch >> personal itches. > > This sure sounds like a (poor) argument against open source in general.
Not at all. Open-source is great for infrastructure software -- Linux, Apache, Emacs. Many companies have private modifications to Linux or Apache which they use internally; some of these get released, some don't. Everybody benefits by contributing to the common good. For example, several network infrastructure companies use Linux on their embedded devices, release kernel changes and improvements, and keep their core technology in-house. It's not that it's under a proprietary license, just that it's not distributed at all. This model works wonderfully for the free software community and for those companies. -Brian -- Brian T. Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/