[wplug] Open Source vs Closed Source Economics

[Vanco, Don]

	No real comments on anyone's post (hence my top post) but an
interesting perspective from me now that I've been selling Linux to
Enterprise customers for over 5 years: 90 of my customers just install
the OS and run it pretty much as-is.  They might tweak some config
files, alter a few kernel flags, but for the most part that's it.  I can
count on one hand the number of customers we've had that have hit a real
impasse with OpenSource code.  Biggest issue I've had in the last few
years was lack of LVM in RHEL 2.1.  But that's just my take...
	"Tweak and Expand"?  For me it's "Load and Run".

	I'm sure things are different for the SMB market where cost
constraints many times force "altering technologies" to your will... but
I never see that stuff.  I never get anyone trying to attach a digital
camera to an Oracle server.

JMO
Don

>-----Original Message-----
>From: wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org 
>[mailto:wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org] On 
>Behalf Of Brandon Kuczenski
>Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 11:32 AM
>To: General user list
>Subject: Re: [wplug] Open Source vs Closed Source Economics
>
>
>On Thu, 14 Apr 2005, Greg Simkins wrote:
>
>> For those who already subscribe to ZDNet, you may have 
>already seen this link, but I think the type of thoughtful 
>analysis in the linked article is so much more helpful than 
>the doctrinaire approach of RMS:
>>
>> http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=1265&tag=nl.e539
>>
>>
>
>Greenspun says: "Greenspun: No, because if it's closed source, 
>they can't 
>just download the TAR file and have their IT people make the needed 
>changes. They have to go to you to make the customizations. "
>...
>
>That's exactly the point.  I'm certainly not an open-source advocate 
>because it's good for venture capitalists, but because it's good for 
>users.
>
>Greenspun also says: "So, in other words, open source is great for 
>unsolved problems that people don't understand very well. An 
>open source 
>word processor is not very interesting because the word processor was 
>invented in the 60s by IBM and pretty much most people now 
>agree on what a 
>word processor should have. The newer the business problem, the more 
>imperative it is that the solution be open-sourced so that the 
>customer 
>can tweak and extend that system."
>
>But if that model is followed, then either the project source 
>will have to 
>BECOME closed at a later date, or the open-source community 
>will inherit 
>the project when it is mature.
>
>The genius of open source is that no work has to ever be duplicated. 
>Businesses that want to make money by forcing their customers 
>to duplicate 
>work are, I'm sorry to say, market inefficiencies.
>
>Business perspective != economics perspective.
>
>-Brandon
>
>_______________________________________________
>wplug mailing list
>wplug at wplug.org
>http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
>