You're completely missing the whole point of open. Open isn't about profit, it's about creating a commodity that everyone can benefit from. If you judge it by the rules of a different game, of course it's going to fail.
Open means that something that has become a commodity can be shared and updated for minimal expenditure. Everyone can then spend their R&D budget on the next layer, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
Why do you think that WebKit was open sourced? Why do you think that OS X and iOS use an open source kernel?
This is the kind of article I expect to see from someone who has "equivalent of a Masters degree in Computer Science".
served by a web server running the apache web server. you know, the free, open source, piece of software. what other open source software are you using, appleinsider? DED, you?
A fairer yardstick to measure "success" would be what economists call "social surplus".
Let's say that open source developer A creates a software that she gives away for free and that generates a utility of $10 Dollars for each consumer (meaning that the consumer has a willingness to pay up to $10 for the software). Then the social surplus is $10 and it all goes to the consumer.
Now instead assume that developer A runs a for-profit firm and sells the software for $5. The consumer will derive a net surplus of $5 now. In this case, the social surplus is equally divided between profits to the developer and consumer surplus.
Obviously, Apache and other open source projects generate huge economic surplus even though they make 0 profits.
It's a lot easier than stealing something closed, isn't it?
Lol what?
Apple - "Hey I have this open source software that anyone can use and modify"
Google - "Oh cool let me add that to a browser I'm building."
Apple - "Stop THIEF!"
Google - "What the hell? You said its open source, how am I stealing it?"
Apple - "I meant its only open for me to use and Apple fan developers to do all the coding work so we don't have to pay them and keep our massive profits."
This is hilarious. Apple and everything it does is built on BSD. Between Linux and BSD you have 95% of all smart phones.
Open completely dominates this industry.
The only thing these days that isn't open is MS Windows. Which is losing everywhere you look.
Look in any geek household these days. What runs on an open OS? Routers. Cable boxes. TV's. Smartphones. Cable modems. NAS boxes. Tablets. What do they connect to? Server farms. When is the last time you saw a server farm running a closed OS?
This was discussed in an article that the former Chairman/CEO. Ben Rosen, of Compaq discussed. Back in the 80's, Apple had approached Compaq and others about licensing Mac OS to run on their PCs to offer an alternative to Windows. They had it running on X86 processors. Ben Rosen had told Jobs that he thought it would make a good idea for a variety of reasons and they Apple would be better of designing the OS and hardware and continuing to do the same thing they were doing from the beginning. BTW, after Compaq got bought up by HP, Ben Rosen switched from Windows to Mac and wrote Jobs that letter thanking him for exposing him to the Mac, because it's now his computer or choice.
I heard rumblings several years back that both HP and Dell wanted to license OS X to through on their computers and offer to their customers.
From what I heard from RELIABLE sources is that Apple (jobs) didn't think it was a good idea for several reasons and one of them is that Apple, being the developer of hardware and software, felt it would be in the best interest if they didn't because Apple can support their OS and hardware combination better than a third party hardware vendor can and there would be different user experiences since HP and Dell might not implement the same feature set of hardware since Apple, at the time, had built-in FIrewire and these guys didn't as standard equipment, and Jobs didn't want to damage the user experience from being different from hardware mfg to hardware mfg as that was, and still is a bone of contention with the Microsoft business model.
I think that because IBM and Microsoft were in bed together from their beginnings, that's what gave them clout to the business world and then the home, and Jobs just didn't have the Enterprise background, which he needed. Even Jobs admitted that he lacked that expertise. Slowly but surely Apple is becoming more Enterprise friendly and as a result, they are getting more bigger business as a result. But they still need work in that area.
I don't know if Apple could easily handle a large swap of Enterprise customers switching platforms all at once so the other way is that companies are now opening up to their employees the BYOD model, which IS working for Apple. Some companies as much as 30% of the employees at some companies are bringing their own MB to work instead of the corporate issued PC. Some companies are actually starting to open up to their users the ability to choose between a Mac and PC as their work computer, but there are a lot that are buying iPads for many employees.
I can tell by poster's comments many have a very short attention span since they obviously didn't read the entire article. Daniel always writes long, in depth, technical articles and it's apparent many readers just don't don't get it. For those of you who live on Mars, the way things work on planet Earth are as follows: he who makes the most money wins! In addition, companies, especially those who are publicly traded, have to make money in order to survive. They don't survive by being good citizens giving away "free" software. They can do that a bit of the time but the majority of the time has to be spent producing a product that sells enough to keep the company in business.
I can tell by poster's comments many have a very short attention span since they obviously didn't read the entire article. Daniel always writes long, in depth, technical articles and it's apparent many readers just don't don't get it. For those of you who live on Mars, the way things work on planet Earth are as follows: he who makes the most money wins! In addition, companies, especially those who are publicly traded, have to make money in order to survive. They don't survive by being good citizens giving away "free" software. They can do that a bit of the time but the majority of the time has to be spent producing a product that sells enough to keep the company in business.
That, plus not understanding that nothing in the article suggests that open source development has not contributed to the advancement of computing technology, but rather that it has failed to generate much profit for those companies that have relied on it for their products.
A fairer yardstick to measure "success" would be what economists call "social surplus".
Let's say that open source developer A creates a software that she gives away for free and that generates a utility of $10 Dollars for each consumer (meaning that the consumer has a willingness to pay up to $10 for the software). Then the social surplus is $10 and it all goes to the consumer.
Now instead assume that developer A runs a for-profit firm and sells the software for $5. The consumer will derive a net surplus of $5 now. In this case, the social surplus is equally divided between profits to the developer and consumer surplus.
Obviously, Apache and other open source projects generate huge economic surplus even though they make 0 profits.
Pure economic Gobbeldy gook !
You can't ascribe a $ value to something that doesn't have a price, then wrap it up nice and neatly and call it social surplus.
The fact that a dev turns around and sells it for $5 means its value is FIVE dollars not whatever number you pull out of your hat. If the dev could charge $10 do you think he/she would ? Of course they would. Then your social surplus would be what, 0 or would you try and up it because of lost Opportunity Cost just so that you can have a social surplus ?
What about if the dev sold it for $20 - does that mean that your social surplus is a negative number ? Is it now costing an economy to have something sell for what people are willing to pay for ?
My point being that it has to be able to be measured accurately - otherwise it's meaningless.
I think you forgot the /s, but, since I think your comments are representative of a certain mentality...
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacTel
Open has been successful though. Android took the feature phone and buried it. Everyone has been better off with Android on the cheaper phones.
Are they really better off though? The usage data suggest that most of these people with Android phones are just using them as feature phones. In fact, as a suggested at least a couple of years ago, Android is the new feature phone OS. The difference, of course, is that all these people are now saddled with a data plan that they, from all evidence don't need or make use of. So, are they really better off, or has Android mostly been a boon to the carriers? Again, the evidence points to the latter outcome.
Quote:
I don't know if Google has been all about profit. Maybe they just want to elevate the level of technology out in the world. In other words - be good. Google Glass is a good example of that.
This is patently laughable, especially on the eve of the Reader shutdown. Google doesn't do anything just to, "elevate the level of technology." Everything they do is about gaining control -- control of information and access to it, control of personal data, control and exploitation of data they have no rights to (e.g., Google Books) -- and leveraging that control to make money, period. Sure, they spin a nice "just so" tale, and they pay their PR people handsomely to do so, but that's all it is, a tale. The level of rapacious greed for money, control and power at Google, and the hypocrisy and dishonesty they engage in to further those ends, makes Microsoft in its heyday look like amateur hour.
And, as pointed out, the sad part is that there will always be plenty of people, incapable of, or too lazy to engage in, serious critical thought, who will unthinkingly buy in to the fairy tale.
Comments
You're completely missing the whole point of open. Open isn't about profit, it's about creating a commodity that everyone can benefit from. If you judge it by the rules of a different game, of course it's going to fail.
Open means that something that has become a commodity can be shared and updated for minimal expenditure. Everyone can then spend their R&D budget on the next layer, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
Why do you think that WebKit was open sourced? Why do you think that OS X and iOS use an open source kernel?
This is the kind of article I expect to see from someone who has "equivalent of a Masters degree in Computer Science".
So Google could steal it properly, unlike everything else.
'Course they managed to screw it up anyway.
It's a lot easier than stealing something closed, isn't it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pooch
served by a web server running the apache web server. you know, the free, open source, piece of software. what other open source software are you using, appleinsider? DED, you?
Or the OS X kernel, or Safari's WebKit, or...
http://www.apple.com/opensource/
Daniel,
Why are you so angry?
Let's say that open source developer A creates a software that she gives away for free and that generates a utility of $10 Dollars for each consumer (meaning that the consumer has a willingness to pay up to $10 for the software). Then the social surplus is $10 and it all goes to the consumer.
Now instead assume that developer A runs a for-profit firm and sells the software for $5. The consumer will derive a net surplus of $5 now. In this case, the social surplus is equally divided between profits to the developer and consumer surplus.
Obviously, Apache and other open source projects generate huge economic surplus even though they make 0 profits.
Well done, DED. Another article to incite the idiots (and result in the expected new troll accounts).
Lol what?
Apple - "Hey I have this open source software that anyone can use and modify"
Google - "Oh cool let me add that to a browser I'm building."
Apple - "Stop THIEF!"
Google - "What the hell? You said its open source, how am I stealing it?"
Apple - "I meant its only open for me to use and Apple fan developers to do all the coding work so we don't have to pay them and keep our massive profits."
Open completely dominates this industry.
The only thing these days that isn't open is MS Windows. Which is losing everywhere you look.
Look in any geek household these days. What runs on an open OS? Routers. Cable boxes. TV's. Smartphones. Cable modems. NAS boxes. Tablets. What do they connect to? Server farms. When is the last time you saw a server farm running a closed OS?
This war is OVAH. And open has won. Bigtime.
Typo! I believe it should be cookie tracking and not "cooking tracking"...
Quote:
Originally Posted by jungmark
I don't think that is hurting Apple.
This was discussed in an article that the former Chairman/CEO. Ben Rosen, of Compaq discussed. Back in the 80's, Apple had approached Compaq and others about licensing Mac OS to run on their PCs to offer an alternative to Windows. They had it running on X86 processors. Ben Rosen had told Jobs that he thought it would make a good idea for a variety of reasons and they Apple would be better of designing the OS and hardware and continuing to do the same thing they were doing from the beginning. BTW, after Compaq got bought up by HP, Ben Rosen switched from Windows to Mac and wrote Jobs that letter thanking him for exposing him to the Mac, because it's now his computer or choice.
I heard rumblings several years back that both HP and Dell wanted to license OS X to through on their computers and offer to their customers.
From what I heard from RELIABLE sources is that Apple (jobs) didn't think it was a good idea for several reasons and one of them is that Apple, being the developer of hardware and software, felt it would be in the best interest if they didn't because Apple can support their OS and hardware combination better than a third party hardware vendor can and there would be different user experiences since HP and Dell might not implement the same feature set of hardware since Apple, at the time, had built-in FIrewire and these guys didn't as standard equipment, and Jobs didn't want to damage the user experience from being different from hardware mfg to hardware mfg as that was, and still is a bone of contention with the Microsoft business model.
I think that because IBM and Microsoft were in bed together from their beginnings, that's what gave them clout to the business world and then the home, and Jobs just didn't have the Enterprise background, which he needed. Even Jobs admitted that he lacked that expertise. Slowly but surely Apple is becoming more Enterprise friendly and as a result, they are getting more bigger business as a result. But they still need work in that area.
I don't know if Apple could easily handle a large swap of Enterprise customers switching platforms all at once so the other way is that companies are now opening up to their employees the BYOD model, which IS working for Apple. Some companies as much as 30% of the employees at some companies are bringing their own MB to work instead of the corporate issued PC. Some companies are actually starting to open up to their users the ability to choose between a Mac and PC as their work computer, but there are a lot that are buying iPads for many employees.
I can tell by poster's comments many have a very short attention span since they obviously didn't read the entire article. Daniel always writes long, in depth, technical articles and it's apparent many readers just don't don't get it. For those of you who live on Mars, the way things work on planet Earth are as follows: he who makes the most money wins! In addition, companies, especially those who are publicly traded, have to make money in order to survive. They don't survive by being good citizens giving away "free" software. They can do that a bit of the time but the majority of the time has to be spent producing a product that sells enough to keep the company in business.
Android, is DOOMED!
Quote:
Originally Posted by rob53
I can tell by poster's comments many have a very short attention span since they obviously didn't read the entire article. Daniel always writes long, in depth, technical articles and it's apparent many readers just don't don't get it. For those of you who live on Mars, the way things work on planet Earth are as follows: he who makes the most money wins! In addition, companies, especially those who are publicly traded, have to make money in order to survive. They don't survive by being good citizens giving away "free" software. They can do that a bit of the time but the majority of the time has to be spent producing a product that sells enough to keep the company in business.
That, plus not understanding that nothing in the article suggests that open source development has not contributed to the advancement of computing technology, but rather that it has failed to generate much profit for those companies that have relied on it for their products.
I think you have hit the nail on the head with this article.
I also had no idea that Firefox was a money pit. I guess I thought volunteer effort was just that along with volunteer resources. I guess not.
Pure economic Gobbeldy gook !
You can't ascribe a $ value to something that doesn't have a price, then wrap it up nice and neatly and call it social surplus.
The fact that a dev turns around and sells it for $5 means its value is FIVE dollars not whatever number you pull out of your hat. If the dev could charge $10 do you think he/she would ? Of course they would. Then your social surplus would be what, 0 or would you try and up it because of lost Opportunity Cost just so that you can have a social surplus ?
What about if the dev sold it for $20 - does that mean that your social surplus is a negative number ? Is it now costing an economy to have something sell for what people are willing to pay for ?
My point being that it has to be able to be measured accurately - otherwise it's meaningless.
I think you forgot the /s, but, since I think your comments are representative of a certain mentality...
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacTel
Open has been successful though. Android took the feature phone and buried it. Everyone has been better off with Android on the cheaper phones.
Are they really better off though? The usage data suggest that most of these people with Android phones are just using them as feature phones. In fact, as a suggested at least a couple of years ago, Android is the new feature phone OS. The difference, of course, is that all these people are now saddled with a data plan that they, from all evidence don't need or make use of. So, are they really better off, or has Android mostly been a boon to the carriers? Again, the evidence points to the latter outcome.
Quote:
I don't know if Google has been all about profit. Maybe they just want to elevate the level of technology out in the world. In other words - be good. Google Glass is a good example of that.
This is patently laughable, especially on the eve of the Reader shutdown. Google doesn't do anything just to, "elevate the level of technology." Everything they do is about gaining control -- control of information and access to it, control of personal data, control and exploitation of data they have no rights to (e.g., Google Books) -- and leveraging that control to make money, period. Sure, they spin a nice "just so" tale, and they pay their PR people handsomely to do so, but that's all it is, a tale. The level of rapacious greed for money, control and power at Google, and the hypocrisy and dishonesty they engage in to further those ends, makes Microsoft in its heyday look like amateur hour.
And, as pointed out, the sad part is that there will always be plenty of people, incapable of, or too lazy to engage in, serious critical thought, who will unthinkingly buy in to the fairy tale.