[LUAU] Linux apps getting more expensive?

[Doug Stanfield]

Some interesting discussions are happening around the "Open Software"
movement about new economic models for software.  The basic idea is that if
collaberative software is done in the right way it creates an environment
with peer review that makes vastly superior code.  Then if someone or some
company requires some not yet there functionality they can pay someone to
code it.  It gets added to the published code base for the software, goes
through the review process and is added to the public domain.

Programmers get paid so they can eat, the needed functions are added, the
source is available, and it still is free, or cheap as a part of your
favorite distribution.  I'm sure there's more to it and there may be a few
barriers to this working real well, but the basic idea could work in a
mature enough "Open Software" market.

As someone who works for a company that spends tens of thousands of dollars
a year buying and upgrading software from "that" company I know how much
money is available.  If even a small percentage were diverted to this kind
of thing it could revolutionize things.  It would mean software gets better
and the total amount spent is less.

-Doug-
(That sig:)
Of course I wrote this at home on my own time on my own equipment so it
means nothing to my employer and should be taken in the light of my
contribution to discourse totally unrelated to official policy.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Wong [mailto:wongc at math.ed.hawaii.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, January 28, 1999 10:24 PM
> To: luau at luau.hi.net
> Subject: Re: [LUAU] Linux apps getting more expensive?
> 
> 
> On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, David and Max wrote:
> 
> > >Yes, software has been becoming more expensive... I see a 
> movement towards
> > >the DOS/Windows mode of operations. But even DOS/Windows 
> had Shareware...
> > >and the need for a good, free, wordprocessor will 
> eventually win out.
> > 
> > That's what I'm concerned about.  I hate seeing anything so 
> money-dependent
> > like what's happening in Dos/Windows/Others world happens 
> to the linux
> > community in the future.
> 
> Call me a radicial, but money isn't bad. Programmers need to 
> eat :) . It's
> true that when money gets involved you lose a lot of the 
> idealism, but I
> think GPL'd stuff is way better than shareware EVER was in 
> the DOS world.
> The quality is that much higher.
> 
> I believe there's room for both.
> 
>