Friday, September 9, 2005, 5:44:25 AM, Clint Sharp wrote: > Perhaps we'd also like to have a discussion about the downsides of open > source and what an open source entrant into a market like aggregators > does to the market and the quality of the software available? I advised > Jay and co. against making the product open source initially because of > my fears of destroying the market for video aggregators before it was > created. Open Source causes a commoditization of the market, and for a > young market you're essentially destroying the incentive to develop > feature filled easy to use software.
Hmm. As a long time software developer on many projects both "open" and "closed", I'm not sure I can agree with this. The point of "open source", even in the wider context that you mention later in your post, is that details of how things work are made available to consumers, placing them on a potentially equal footing with developers/producers. I can't honestly see how this, in itself, leads to "destroying the market". I can see how giving away "acceptably good" software for free can have that effect, which is what I see has happened with HTTP and DNS servers. I think it's important to see the difference between letting people _see_ what's inside, and letting people _change_ what's inside. To assume that "open sourcing" something always implies the second one is missing the point. I know of plenty of good software that is released under what some call "developer source". The source code is available to look through, but the software producer keeps control of what changes are made to the published version. This can have a _lot_ of advantages: + it can reduce the support load by allowing keen users and other volunteers to answer technical questions on public forums and lists. + it allows smart users to work out _exactly_ what's going on when something fails, and to therefore submit much more focussed and usable bug reports, sometimes even with suggested fixes. + it allows those same smart users to go to the "horses mouth" when documentation is unclear, missing, or seems to conflict with reality. + it can make your product more attractive to customers worried about what might happen if you go out of business or stop supporting the product. + it can even act to _prevent_ unscrupulous people stealing your hard-wrought code, because it is so obvious to everyone where it came from - to paraphrase an old saying "if you make it a crime to see your code, only criminals will look at it" And the bottom line is that you can still charge for the end result, if you want to. Take a look at http://www.caucho.com/ for example. They use this model, and have made a lot of money from customers big and small, selling what is essentially an improved web server. -- Frank Carver http://www.makevideo.org.uk ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back! http://us.click.yahoo.com/T8sf5C/tzNLAA/TtwFAA/lBLqlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
