> Do you remember when open source meant people just working on stuff for fun and trying to provide free as in speech alternatives to pay crap?
OSS is a path bound to failure.
On the one hand, going OSS means the project will never have the resources because it ain't charging money. On the other hand, it will never be able to charge money because people don't want to pay for something that's advertised as free. That's a vicious circle.
The average non-crap software is taking astronomical effort to make and it's getting harder and more complex over time. A bunch of guys working for free in their spare time just don't have the resources to keep up.
P.S. When in doubt, remember that the difference between the great pyramid of Kheops and Microsoft Windows, is that Windows took more effort to make.
Free software refers to freedom, not price[1]. Companies have been making money selling free software for more than 20-30 years at this point (even free software that is developed in the open).
Philosophically speaking, maybe. In practise though, free software are considered because of pricing and not freeness.
Bring a PAID open-source software for a comparison in front of your directors and/or fellow engineers. I did that many times, from $1000/year to $3M/year subscription.
Even the most open-source aficionados will quickly reveal that he doesn't care about open-source. All he thinks about is pricing.
I gladly pay for free software, and donate to several groups of developers developing free software. Maybe I'm in the minority, but at least I stick to my principles -- free software for me is about freedom (I contribute to many projects that I use every day, which I wouldn't be able to do without free software). Price is irrelevant.
In addition, I work for a free software company -- everything I work on is done in the open and all of our customers have freedom when they use our software. So I really do practice what I preach, and encourage others to follow suit.
OSS is a path bound to failure.
On the one hand, going OSS means the project will never have the resources because it ain't charging money. On the other hand, it will never be able to charge money because people don't want to pay for something that's advertised as free. That's a vicious circle.
The average non-crap software is taking astronomical effort to make and it's getting harder and more complex over time. A bunch of guys working for free in their spare time just don't have the resources to keep up.
P.S. When in doubt, remember that the difference between the great pyramid of Kheops and Microsoft Windows, is that Windows took more effort to make.