On 07/13/2015 07:39 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
What I see is that proprietry software is just the visible tip of the iceberg, but its largely open source underneath.
Me too. I'd be interested to see some sort of analysis of "software pathways", chains of software packages that were hit when a large sample of use cases were exercised. I'd guess that pretty much any use case that involves the internet relies on open source somewhere in the chain. The only proprietary package I use on a regular basis is Quickbooks. I don't think I need to see the chains invoked when I, say, download a tax table update or submit payroll for a direct deposit. But I would like to see the chain invoked when I, say, "Save to PDF". I'd also like to know which tools they use to make their data files sharable across multiple clients. I can imagine those chains are all proprietary and licensed ... but I have no idea. On that same front, Gary's right about that last 20%. But user-facing software has a much harder last 20% than what happens behind the scenes _because_ those occult tools are allowed to be very focused, tight, and single purpose, whereas user-facing tools have to handle, ameliorate, shunt, faciliate the myriad things a general intelligence can/will do. User facing tools have to deal with morons and geniuses, whereas internal tools can get away with well-defined contracts. Another factor, I think is the old saw that we humans only want to pay for things we can see/touch ourselves. This may be more true of Americans than elsewhere (based on how much we bitch about our relatively low taxes). But I think it's fairly natural to object to, say, "hidden" fees at banks or for childless couples funding schools through property taxes. So, it may not be so much that proprietary software pays to do that last 20% of work, so much as that nobody will pay for anything but the user-facing equipment. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
