Microsoft seems to be doing very well without open-sourcing its
development tools.
I'm not sure what open-sourcing has to do with scaling. Are you talking
about user-base or scalability of Revolution itself?
I think "open source" is almost a fad/buzzword; I'm not sure how
important it really is when it comes right down to it. In order for
open source to be of any use, it needs an active developer community
that is maintaining and enhancing the code (at that without any economic
incentive). OpenDarwin didn't work out, would OpenRevolution? How many
of you want to muck about in the Revolution engine and freely contribute
enhancements (and make sure those enhancements work across Mac, Linux,
and Windows in all the different flavors)?
Right now we have a team of dedicated developers working on improving
and enhancing Revolution, developers who have a big economic stake in
the success of the product.
Peter Alcibiades wrote:
David writes: "Both are much much harder in my environment with a pure closed
source solution - and it is getting harder."
The issue really is powerlessness, not just against the supplier, but against
events beyond the control of the supplier. Hypercard showed one form of this
very clearly. You can get orphaned as a user, no matter how much goodwill
and committment the supplier has. The problem is that the number of
attractive open source alternatives of which this is not true is multiplying
all the time.
It may be very hard to make money by open sourcing your bread and butter, but
it also may be very hard to get your product to the scale it needs to be and
can be, while keeping it closed, so its not risk free either way.
If you were consulting to Rev, you'd say this was one that had to be looked at
very carefully. But my goodness, it would be a bet the company kind of
decision. Good luck, if you are thinking about it.
Peter
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