OSS vs Proprietary

augie schwer at sonic.net
Tue Sep 24 16:43:58 PDT 2002


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On Tue, Sep 24, 2002 at 01:02:53PM -0700, Lincoln Peters wrote:
> >First, ubiquitous standards are very important from many people's
> >viewpoints, this is something that Linux Desktops do not have, and
> >probably will not have. 

this is an important point. if you are a developer creating a new GUI
tool for linux, what tools do you use? QT? Gtk? etc...?

> >The second is development of complex projects
> >like operating systems, or Desktops will probably never get the
> >resources devoted to them from the open source world that a company
> >like
> >Microsoft could devote to them. The result would be that OS would
> >continually be playing catch up to proprietary solutions, while never
> >adding innovative or new features.
 
open source projects will get more resources that are better, and for
cheaper than a proprietary project. 1000's of programmers can work
together across the network on a project, and because they are working
on it for the love of coding, or for fame, and not just a paycheck
they will produce better code, because their ego, and peer review
demands it.

i don't think linux is playing catch up on any of it's OS solutions.
in fact i think because linux isn't tied down to producing a product
for sale it is able to explore new territory, and be playful and
creative in its eveolution. i would argue that advanced features will
come out of an open source project before they do from a proprietary
project because of the better and wider exchange of ideas. for example
linux came out with a 64-bit OS before the much better funded
microsoft.
 
> >Anyway, to summarize things, I do not think that open
> >source/free software will ever be able to continually commit enough
> >resources to a complex software product that a proprietary company
> >would
> >be able to. However, for simple applications that do not change often
> >(i.e. something like Apache), OS looks to be a great alternative.

i think an open source project will always outlast a proprietary
project, because a proprietary project is tied to its own economics,
and too its own internal politics. where as an open source project
lives free in the wild, and doesn't ever have to die, because someone
somewhere can always have the code for themselves, and revitalize the
project again. if a proprietary project dies, it is dead, no one can
bring it back to life except for that company, and if that company
dies, then that project dies with it.

- -augie


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