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Open Source: The Capitalists' Choice

28 points by bensummers 16y ago

andrewtj 16y ago
As there is no other implementation of what I'm working on in the open that works, this piece, save for the comment on generating competition (which I think would validate the service), would actually argue more for keeping my service's code closed.
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  He's explicitly not arguing from your perspective. If you had the choice of running a railway monopoly then you'd be crazy to throw that opportunity to price gouge customers away too. He's saying we shouldn't celebrate such acts as free-market capitalism since they don't provide the benefits to society that free-market capitalism does.
  - andrewtj 16y ago
    He's explicitly not arguing from your perspective. Ah, but he needs to: If you had the choice of running a railway monopoly then you'd be crazy to throw that opportunity to price gouge customers away too. Regular folks know this too, and no one wants to do business with a company that is perceived as making naive decisions.
VMG 16y ago
Very shallow analysis. In a free-market system nothing stops you from competing with closed source software (for every meaningful definition of the word "competing"). The comparison with railways is just silly.
amalcon 16y ago
This doesn't seem to advocate for open source, so much as for open standards. The problem he observes with MegaCorp Office 2010, as he transparently terms it, is not that it's difficult for the general public to add features or fix bugs. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to compete with due to network effects, and that problem would be alleviated by an open standard.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  "Open Source promotes a more efficient market because competition is not shut out so easily". The problem the article describes is more in the open-standards direction, however. It also confuses communism with dictatorship, an idea I thought we left behind around the 80s.
rbranson 16y ago
It also tends to remove the inefficiencies of duplicated work as over the long haul, open source projects tend to merge and dominate, after a phase of intense competition between rival projects. This means software developers spend more time creating unique software, which is significantly more productive over re-implementing the same commodity software over again. This is REAL economic value. Just look at what the very mature GCC project has done for so many platform companies and developers in general. It's also much cheaper to procure open source software, because there's no purchase justification, budgeting, or sales process.
strebler 16y ago
Of course it helps companies - we'll give away the fruits of our labor for nothing! It's beautiful, but really, I think no other profession is as naive as we are.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  You give away a part of what you do in exchange (or optional retribution) to using what others gave you. I am using a very powerful Unix-like OS under a very nice GUI and typing it on a browser and none of them would exist if lots of people and companies hadn't donated code, time and resources to these projects. I am happy they did and I am willing to share some of what I do to make this whole ecosystem better. I also share because if I didn't, I would have to maintain my code independently and a great part of it does not give me any product or competitive advantage - it's my cost. When I give them back, I can count they will be part of the whole and they will be maintained by others in case I fail to do it. When I do it, others share the cost of maintaining it, reducing mine. It's actually pretty dumb to keep everything to yourself.

28 points by bensummers 16y ago

As there is no other implementation of what I'm working on in the open that works, this piece, save for the comment on generating competition (which I think would validate the service), would actually argue more for keeping my service's code closed.

ZeroGravitas 16y ago
He's explicitly not arguing from your perspective. If you had the choice of running a railway monopoly then you'd be crazy to throw that opportunity to price gouge customers away too. He's saying we shouldn't celebrate such acts as free-market capitalism since they don't provide the benefits to society that free-market capitalism does.
- andrewtj 16y ago
  He's explicitly not arguing from your perspective. Ah, but he needs to: If you had the choice of running a railway monopoly then you'd be crazy to throw that opportunity to price gouge customers away too. Regular folks know this too, and no one wants to do business with a company that is perceived as making naive decisions.

VMG 16y ago

Very shallow analysis. In a free-market system nothing stops you from competing with closed source software (for every meaningful definition of the word "competing"). The comparison with railways is just silly.

amalcon 16y ago

This doesn't seem to advocate for open source, so much as for open standards. The problem he observes with MegaCorp Office 2010, as he transparently terms it, is not that it's difficult for the general public to add features or fix bugs. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to compete with due to network effects, and that problem would be alleviated by an open standard.

rbanffy 16y ago
"Open Source promotes a more efficient market because competition is not shut out so easily". The problem the article describes is more in the open-standards direction, however. It also confuses communism with dictatorship, an idea I thought we left behind around the 80s.

rbranson 16y ago

It also tends to remove the inefficiencies of duplicated work as over the long haul, open source projects tend to merge and dominate, after a phase of intense competition between rival projects. This means software developers spend more time creating unique software, which is significantly more productive over re-implementing the same commodity software over again. This is REAL economic value. Just look at what the very mature GCC project has done for so many platform companies and developers in general. It's also much cheaper to procure open source software, because there's no purchase justification, budgeting, or sales process.

strebler 16y ago

Of course it helps companies - we'll give away the fruits of our labor for nothing! It's beautiful, but really, I think no other profession is as naive as we are.

rbanffy 16y ago
You give away a part of what you do in exchange (or optional retribution) to using what others gave you. I am using a very powerful Unix-like OS under a very nice GUI and typing it on a browser and none of them would exist if lots of people and companies hadn't donated code, time and resources to these projects. I am happy they did and I am willing to share some of what I do to make this whole ecosystem better. I also share because if I didn't, I would have to maintain my code independently and a great part of it does not give me any product or competitive advantage - it's my cost. When I give them back, I can count they will be part of the whole and they will be maintained by others in case I fail to do it. When I do it, others share the cost of maintaining it, reducing mine. It's actually pretty dumb to keep everything to yourself.