On Sun, Nov 27, 2005 at 11:23:44PM -0500, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: > Not necessarily. There's no reason why a vendor developing tax > software cannot release their software as Free Software. They > still can sell their software, the same way Red Hat can sell its > software. And they have the benefit of having hundreds pairs of > eyes reviewing their software for them. Nothing really > different here.
High-end tax software, as used by accountants is actually a good example of software that is less likely to go open in the foreseeable future. It would still be nice to have this sort of software available on the GNOME desktop, not because people can use it at home, but because there are a lot of accountants in the world who need to use this sort of software. This type of tax software contains lots of communication with tax department style code which is unlikely to be allowed out into the open. This sort of software does not lend itself to the 1 million eyes approach, as it filled with lots of rules specific to tax law, and thus needs to have certification from specific bodies before it is worth two bob. There exists a lot of this highly vertical software that contains too much of other people's IP to be released freely, does not fit into the company's traditional business model, or is simply too complex and require too much specialist knowledge to be much use as open source software, that it doesn't bother me in the slightest that it is not open. It would however, be really nice if we can give them a free and open, yet stable, platform for their software so that perhaps one day they will be able to free up and open at least some parts of their technology (ala VMWare). --d -- Davyd Madeley http://www.davyd.id.au/ 08B0 341A 0B9B 08BB 2118 C060 2EDD BB4F 5191 6CDA _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
