[ Thanks to Robert Adkins for
this link. ]
“OSS and proprietary software have carved out their own niches
in the kingdom of software.“The evolutionary selection pressures on OSS are quite different
from those shaping proprietary species. In the case of OSS,
selection pressure is about successful collaboration within its
user or developer community: only software that attracts
contributors survives. In proprietary software, the selection
pressure is driven entirely by user purchasing decisions: only
market successes survive. These differing criteria–user
participation vs. market success–are surprisingly complementary
because they address different legitimate user needs…”