In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
m writes:
>And lets face it. If MS had a good product, they would have a much larger
>market share and linux would be a non-issue. MS just makes shitty stuff.
>Its not about "open source".
Directly, it isn't.
Indirectly, it is.
>its about how well it works.
Although that comes from the software being open source. If it's open
source and broken enough to affect me or my employer, I can and will fix
it, and send patches back to the maintainers. If it's not, the higher the
hurdles are the more likely I/we will spend time finding a workarround or
switching products instead.
Regardless of how good your test team and tools are, there are going to
cases you don't test for, and bugs are going to escape into the field. With
more competant people in the field that have source you're more likely to
have the bug manifest in a situation where someone can and will do something
about it. Open source has the potential to make software more stable than
its closed counterparts, and often does in practice.
By virtue of having more people able to make changes, open source
also increases your chances of someone being able to justify
the expense (time, opportunity cost from not applying talent elsewhere,
money, etc) to add a feature.
>>important, open specs are a competitive advantage. Over time, they are
>>likely to win if all else is equal... and in the long run, all else *is*
>>equal.
>
>
>Open specs are a competitive disadvantage, because all players are equal.
It depends entirely on the circumstances. With small niche markets, you're
much more likely to run into situations where open specs can make a huge
difference in the number of sales you make. Look at what happened to
the PC multiport serial board market. OTOH, with millions of sales for
Wintel PCs, sales increases in the thousands of units aren't going to
make a difference in your bottom line.
If you're selling black boxes, it may not matter. Or your customers may
find it reasuring that if you go belly up or discontinue the product they
can still buy support from some one else.
--
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