> They're reducing the price to zero for the parts of their product to which business is now irrelevant and for which free and open collaboration is now more va

> They're reducing the price to zero for the parts of their product to which business is now irrelevant and for which free and open collaboration is now more valuable than secrecy and proprietary ownership - and good on them for it. And possibly bad for them. See Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement [1], by Gwern. > Joel Spolsky in 2002 identified ... the pattern of “"commoditizing your complement"”, an alternative to vertical integration, where companies seek to secure a chokepoint or quasi-monopoly in products composed of many necessary & sufficient layers by dominating one layer while fostering so much competition in another layer above or below its layer that no competing monopolist can emerge, prices are driven down to marginal costs elsewhere in the stack, total price drops & increases demand, and the majority of the consumer surplus of the final product can be diverted to the quasi-monopolist. This move is good for IBM. Not clear what the repercussions will be for other players - even open source developers. [1] https://www.gwern.net/Complement https://www.gwern.net/Complement