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To clarify my point, my problem is not with open source in general, it's with 'feature-by-feature clones of an innovative piece of software'. The process of bu

To clarify my point, my problem is not with open source in general, it's with 'feature-by-feature clones of an innovative piece of software'. The process of building, say, VisiCalc is a lot riskier and harder than turning Excel into Libre Office Calc. If Bricklin had known he was going to have to compete with free in a matter of a few months after release, he might have done something else entirely. This may be hard to understand for people that haven't ever designed anything difficult, but frankly, it's _so_ much easier to clone something than build it the first time. Even just knowing that something is possible is a huge leg up. If you think routinized F/OSS cloning of software is an actual service to innovation, you need your head examined. If nothing else, it makes going into a patent frenzy with every idea far more tempting. It's hard for me to prove a counterfactual, of course, and show all the wonderful things that have been discouraged by the prospect of immediate shitty open source clones. I fully accept that open source allows us to build innovative things on top of other software layers - it's not necessarily all bad. But it's not necessarily all good either.

kiba 15y ago
Yes, they are annoying competition, but FOSS competition is ethical. You may feel like they are hurting your piggy banks, but you certainly have no ground in going after them. In any case, I don't think people should worry too much. FOSS developers often work for free, and they probably sucks at doing the hard bit of advertising, documentation, and finding out what users find hard about it. If you can't compete with hobbyists, you have no business in being in that field.
- onan_barbarian 15y ago
  Bollocks. F/OSS, when most effective and disruptive, is often the product of other corporations out to drive the value of a component that they don't make to zero, to free up resources for the stuff that they actually do.
city41 15y ago
Aren't you basically saying that whoever came out with the original software idea should be given an amount of time where they can profit from it without worrying about competitors? Like, say, a software patent?
- onan_barbarian 15y ago
  No. I'm not seeking to change to world or propose any new systems, and I find software patents objectionable. I just don't like the uncritical celebration of F/OSS as always helpful to innovation when there are clearly cases where it is a mixed blessing.
daemin 15y ago
One way to think about a FOSS clone is for it to take out the bottom level of (potential) customers from you, the one's that are never really satisfied, don't want to pay the full price etc. One's for which the ROI is negative (counting in support time etc). So sure there might be a FOSS clone of your product, but they would only be copying the features that you've currently got, not the ones which you are developing. Could almost think of it as a lite version. This is of course only one possible way of thinking about it.
wladimir 15y ago
So you think Excel was an "innovative piece of software" in the first place? It wasn't. Many spreadsheets existed before that. A much more practical angle: there is no MS Office or equivalent for operating systems such as Linux and BSD, so the OS people had to write their own. To be honest I think the developers of LibreOffice are heroes. Not many people in the open source scene want to be seen working on 'boring clone' projects like an office productivity suite, and would rather innovate. But the fact is, it is a necessary evil for many users, and the availability of OO has helped Linux adoption a lot.
- iwwr 15y ago
  For a long time Excel was/is the best (feature-wise, UI) spreadsheet program out there. Even if OO/LibreOffice or other F/OSS have duplicated most of the functionality, it still makes sense to get an actual licensed copy if you need it for business. To the grandparent poster, even if F/OSS is copying features, you still have the advantage of being first mover; it just means you have to keep updating and refining. There is also the non-trivial advantage in being paid to do this work. Moreover, if customers find it better to just switch from your product, incurring inevitable transfer costs, there is something wrong already.
- onan_barbarian 15y ago
  You appear not to have read the post you are responding to. I'm particularly baffled as to why you are reassuring me that other spreadsheets existed pre-Excel given that my post mentions VisiCalc and Dan Bricklin. As we used to say in high school: "No shit, Sherlock". Nor are you making a germane response to my post, which is not that LibreOffice is bad and Excel is good, but that if the creator of Visicalc had been in the situation where a few short months after he created his spreadsheet someone was going to clone it and give it away for free, he may not have bothered.

kiba 15y ago

Yes, they are annoying competition, but FOSS competition is ethical. You may feel like they are hurting your piggy banks, but you certainly have no ground in going after them. In any case, I don't think people should worry too much. FOSS developers often work for free, and they probably sucks at doing the hard bit of advertising, documentation, and finding out what users find hard about it. If you can't compete with hobbyists, you have no business in being in that field.

onan_barbarian 15y ago
Bollocks. F/OSS, when most effective and disruptive, is often the product of other corporations out to drive the value of a component that they don't make to zero, to free up resources for the stuff that they actually do.

city41 15y ago

Aren't you basically saying that whoever came out with the original software idea should be given an amount of time where they can profit from it without worrying about competitors? Like, say, a software patent?

onan_barbarian 15y ago
No. I'm not seeking to change to world or propose any new systems, and I find software patents objectionable. I just don't like the uncritical celebration of F/OSS as always helpful to innovation when there are clearly cases where it is a mixed blessing.

daemin 15y ago

One way to think about a FOSS clone is for it to take out the bottom level of (potential) customers from you, the one's that are never really satisfied, don't want to pay the full price etc. One's for which the ROI is negative (counting in support time etc). So sure there might be a FOSS clone of your product, but they would only be copying the features that you've currently got, not the ones which you are developing. Could almost think of it as a lite version. This is of course only one possible way of thinking about it.

wladimir 15y ago

So you think Excel was an "innovative piece of software" in the first place? It wasn't. Many spreadsheets existed before that. A much more practical angle: there is no MS Office or equivalent for operating systems such as Linux and BSD, so the OS people had to write their own. To be honest I think the developers of LibreOffice are heroes. Not many people in the open source scene want to be seen working on 'boring clone' projects like an office productivity suite, and would rather innovate. But the fact is, it is a necessary evil for many users, and the availability of OO has helped Linux adoption a lot.

iwwr 15y ago
For a long time Excel was/is the best (feature-wise, UI) spreadsheet program out there. Even if OO/LibreOffice or other F/OSS have duplicated most of the functionality, it still makes sense to get an actual licensed copy if you need it for business. To the grandparent poster, even if F/OSS is copying features, you still have the advantage of being first mover; it just means you have to keep updating and refining. There is also the non-trivial advantage in being paid to do this work. Moreover, if customers find it better to just switch from your product, incurring inevitable transfer costs, there is something wrong already.
onan_barbarian 15y ago
You appear not to have read the post you are responding to. I'm particularly baffled as to why you are reassuring me that other spreadsheets existed pre-Excel given that my post mentions VisiCalc and Dan Bricklin. As we used to say in high school: "No shit, Sherlock". Nor are you making a germane response to my post, which is not that LibreOffice is bad and Excel is good, but that if the creator of Visicalc had been in the situation where a few short months after he created his spreadsheet someone was going to clone it and give it away for free, he may not have bothered.