----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean-Francois Dive" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 1:12 AM Subject: [SLUG] GPL, an argument .
> Hi all, > > After a long discussion with someone about the GPL and the open source > model of business, he raised a point which i cant find any very valid > argument, maybe you guys will be able to gimme your point on this: > > The idea is that developping free sofware leads the author to it's own > professional death: This point of view can only be sustained if there is a finite limit to the overall amount of work. It also assumes a finite limit to man's / industry's demands of computing. Howerver little we have learned from the past we have all witnessed first hand that the new computer that we thought was so impressively fast just a few months ago, is now testing our patience by making us wait (it seems). We constanly see each development hasten further developments - the machines, OSs and apps of the past used to develop the future. >>if the opensource movement works to it's extreme > extend, what will happens to the company that sell whatever proprietary > sofware ? It's faith is death or recycling. As most of the opensource > developpers are professionals, this directly leads them to a no job > future. The extended idea he raises is that developping an opensource > software simply cut any value of the work we do. I know this guy, I see him everyday - he works on our local council's road crew. Those guys have got the clues - why build a good road and then do something else, when you can build a crap one and have a job for life patching the potholes. Yeah I know this guy his brother is a developer for M$ and his sister is a correspondence clerk with Centrelink. Maybe the road crew model is the way to go though - I mean we could write a crap program then have a job for life writing patches for it. Even write patches for the patches. - Oh - if we happen to eventually write a patch to provide some features that we couldn't get to work in the first place - the customer will be so happy they will pay us for it again. > > My point of view is that the business model of a simple software > engineering company will have to move towards service integration and > consultancy, but this is true that in a way this movement may lead a major > change in the industry. The reason customers have been there for these companies has always been about the perceived service and intergration benefits the CUSTOMERS THOUGHT they were purchasing. It is only an arrogant self centred view of our industry that leads many of our number (prob the majority) to think that the success of our businesses is about how wonderful our product is. In reality our success is dependant on how wonderful OUR CUSTOMERS' PRODUCTS ARE. In the 70's and 80's we all had to recode and redesign the user interface everything we wrote. When you bought a new printer you had to key (and sometimes code) the driver seperately for every application and often for every type of report you wanted to use it with. In 1983/4 we routinely billed 2-4 hours ( it often took 6 hrs depending on the apps) to set up a new printer for a client. I'm talking about a 9 pin dot matrix or daisywheel printer. Not only were we reinventing the wheel every day but everyone spent their days reinventing the same wheels. There were no standards. All the manufacturers aggreed that there should be a standard but they proprietry make up of the standards committees resulted in each mfr refusing to change and wanting the rest of the world to adopt their particular printer control code and even cable as The Standard. It took years (and Autodesk, Ventura, M$, etc) before the end user had a reasonably transparent printing system. A system that allowed their businesses to be more effective/ productive. GPL / open source doesn't suffer from this malady - everyone works on the problem collaboratively and problems are solved in weeks rather than years a nd sometimes even in days. BTW the resulting wheels are round, puncture proof, happen to work really well and are far superior to anything I ever came up with on my own. We all bolt on our new wheels and get on with the real job of helping to decode the Human Genome or improving production lines in a refrigerator factory. The "Mainframe boys" of the 60s & 70s didn't want to adopt the PC model for fear they would do themselves out of a job. Guess they had the right idea. They stretched their effective reign to about 30 years. Hey! - M$ have been around for 20+ years and counting. I wonder if they will reign for as long as the "Mainframe Boys" M$ has produced 3 core apps that the world was hungry for. 2 are OS's ( and the progeny of the original 2), the third was a wysiwyg WP package. Those apps have put them in a position to cash in on other apps the world was interested in including most infamously internet apps. BUT most continue to be a great source of grief to their users and none can claim to be transparent to their customers core business. The customers are maturing in their tastes - they are more demanding and are becoming more discerning. M$ recognised this trend and their marketing ppl have been applying the BCG Matrix (Boston Consulting Group - Star, Dog, Cash Cow) for some time now. And according to the last reports I heard about the (lack of) sales of XP it looks as if their OS could be downgrading from "Cash Cow" to "Dog" status. Perhaps these thoughts are not as humble as they could be and I apologise for the axe grinding. Hope they help support your point of view. Morrissey The 4am Cynic -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
