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by James Robertson.
Original Post: Half a point?
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Paul Krill thinks that SCO may have a point about open source and the economy:
The economic question, however, also deserves further review. Linux and open source are popular because of the free nature of this software paradigm, although money is being made on open source through support and licensing arrangements.
However, if the trend of giving away software continues to gather momentum, how do developers and software companies put bread on the table? Work a second job?
Paul, and SCO (and most software firms, for that matter) miss a basic point here - it's not the software (per se) that has value. It's the ability to put it to use that has value. And part of putting it to use is knowing that you can get help if it breaks. This holds for hardware (warrantees) as well as for software. In order to feel comfortable about running mission critical software, most firms want to know that they can get someone in (guaranteed) to fix it if it breaks. That has little relationship to license issues
What it does though is make it harder for a vendor. A vendor has to prove that they can service and support their stuff more quickly and more reliably than some other firm can. That might be a problem, based on the culture of some firms...
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