Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 00:43:45 +0100 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: FST777@phreaker.net Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org, Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Subject: Re: When does it make sense for a company to open-source its code? Message-ID: <a05200f33ba9abacabe36@[10.0.1.2]> In-Reply-To: <0HBT00H6WFNMOC@net.WAU.NL> References: <0HBT00H6WFNMOC@net.WAU.NL>
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At 1:21 AM +0100 2003/03/16, Frans-Jan v. Steenbeek wrote:
> one thing is that a huge part of the testing / bug-reporting, porting and
> enhancing can be done for free. Another thing is that people get to know
> the name of the company easier. Just to name a few. Expecially if the
> involved company makes its internal-used software Open Source and some
> expensive "sale-ware" binary.
If you look at the traditional software development model, there
is a ramp-up at the beginning, a big hump during initial development,
a slow ramp down as the project progresses towards release, and then
a long tail as the project enters the "maintenance" phase. Going
through multiple revisions of a project will tend to cause this same
cycle all over again, but at lower levels than the initial
development effort.
During the initial phase, short-term expenses are high, and you
have to do work on things that many open-source developers won't or
can't do. These are things relatively easily solved by companies
that can afford to pay for development.
However, during the maintenance phase, most find that the ongoing
cost of support is quite a bit higher than the initial development
costs, high enough that they can bankrupt companies that are not
properly prepared. This is something that open-source communities
can handle much better.
Doing a mixed model really is the best choice for both communities.
The company gets to avoid paying most of the ongoing maintenance
& support costs for the software (that cost is instead born by the
open-source community itself).
OTOH, the open-source community gets features implemented (by the
company) which would not otherwise have seen the light of day (I'm
sure you can find many more examples than I can think of, but
consider all the work that was done for the Whistle InterJet and
which was contributed to FreeBSD).
This really is the best of both worlds. You *can* eat your cake
and have it too.
--
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be>
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.
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tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++)
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