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There are other known examples of proprietary platform problems (e.g. the Linux/BitKeeper debacle; abandoned products by Borland, Microsoft and others leaving d

There are other known examples of proprietary platform problems (e.g. the Linux/BitKeeper debacle; abandoned products by Borland, Microsoft and others leaving developers alone in the middle of the desert) Proprietary software is inherently bad for practical reasons, not just for philosophical/idealistic reasons. Now, I'm not saying software developers should not make a living (I'm one myself). It's just that we didn't solve the problem of getting income from open source yet (as far as I'm concerned, the service model of Red Hat, IBM and others is irrelevant).

ced 19y ago
ced 19y ago
It's not inherently bad. There are trade-offs. Yes, proprietary software carries increased legal risks. OTOH, it is often better precisely because there is more incentive to build it than to build OSS.