The “Value Proposition” of Open Source

[ Thanks to LinuxScribe
for this link. ]

“When I approached attendees with the question of Open
Source value, I got many of the same responses, and many of them
came down to cost, but there were also mentions of freedom,
community and the opportunity cost of *not* releasing Open Source
code. I also heard access to source, but I’m inclined to discount
it’s importance to most users. In fact, when considered
individually, none of these benefits explain the continuing
popularity of Open Source software. Cost comes down to the vendor,
who is free to set a price that guarantees widespread success.

“Simplicity, as mentioned by Urlocker, is a function of
engineering and product management. Freedom may be defined in many
ways, but if you’re talking about the freedom to use as you want,
without going through a middleman, and the freedom to install and
distribute wherever you like, then those terms may be written into
any proprietary software EULA. If freedom means the freedom of
writing any plugin or widget I want, then we’re back to engineering
and product management. Freedom could also mean freedom from vendor
lock-in and the ability to move data freely to whatever desired
platform. It would seem that this is a matter of vendors operating
more intelligently and recognizing the reality of doing business in
the 21st Century.”

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