Re: OSD && DFSG - different purposes - constructive suggestion!
On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 01:37:54PM -0500, Brian T. Sniffen wrote:
> >> * There's less incentive to develop new changes: unless you can afford
> >> a stable of developers large enough to deploy new features faster
> >> than your competitors can copy them, you gain no competitive
> >> advantage from innovation. Software gets developed only to scratch
> >> personal itches.
> >
> > This sure sounds like a (poor) argument against open source in general.
>
> Not at all. Open-source is great for infrastructure software --
> Linux, Apache, Emacs. Many companies have private modifications to
> Linux or Apache which they use internally; some of these get released,
> some don't. Everybody benefits by contributing to the common good.
> For example, several network infrastructure companies use Linux on
> their embedded devices, release kernel changes and improvements, and
> keep their core technology in-house. It's not that it's under a
> proprietary license, just that it's not distributed at all. This
> model works wonderfully for the free software community and for those
> companies.
I'm not disagreeing with this. I'm saying that your argument (top quote) can
be applied to open source in general, and we all know it to be false in that
case; so how are web apps so different?
--
Glenn Maynard
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