Speech on Linux...

[Tim Writer]

Anton Markov <anton-F0u+EriZ6ihBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> writes:

> Let me clarify that. General software (i.e. kernel, browser, etc. - the
> stuff that open source is strongest in) should be free for
> non-profit/personal use. Businesses have to either pay a fee, or
> actively contribute to the software (sort of like a community source
> license idea). Specialized (narrow market) software such as games, CAD,
> bank systems, etc. can be proprietary. I mean, how many people here
> really need to use the same bank system as TD?

Anyone with an account at TD. :-) Seriously, many bank web sites still don't
work well with open source browsers despite serious warnings from CERT about
the dangers of continuing to use IE. While it may not make sense to
completely open source their on-line banking sites, clearly they could
benefit from the use of open source web frameworks and content management
solutions. And they could "pay" for the use of open souce software by
contributing back to (some of) the tools they use. Since they already pay a
large number of in-house developers and consultants to work on their closed
source systems, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by
redirecting (some of) those efforts to supporting open source systems which
already work as well or better than their in-house code.

As Robert said in his follow-up, something like 90% of code in production is
written in-house. How much of that, do you think, is a result of NIH
syndrome? In my experience, most of it. Imagine a world where just half of
these largely wasted resources were redirected to open source
projects. Computers might actually be useful. :-)

-- 
tim writer <tim-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>                                  starnix inc.
905.771.0017 ext. 225                           thornhill, ontario, canada
http://www.starnix.com              professional linux services & products
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