From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Mar 16 16: 9:48 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07B2137B401 for ; Sun, 16 Mar 2003 16:09:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from vador.skynet.be (vador.skynet.be [195.238.3.236]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A3EB743FA3 for ; Sun, 16 Mar 2003 16:09:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from brad.knowles@skynet.be) Received: from [10.0.1.2] (61.140-200-80.adsl.skynet.be [80.200.140.61]) by vador.skynet.be (8.12.8/8.12.8/Skynet-OUT-2.21) with ESMTP id h2H08kY9007956; Mon, 17 Mar 2003 01:09:08 +0100 (MET) (envelope-from ) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: bs663385@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <0HBT00H6WFNMOC@net.WAU.NL> References: <0HBT00H6WFNMOC@net.WAU.NL> Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 00:43:45 +0100 To: FST777@phreaker.net From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: When does it make sense for a company to open-source its code? Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org, Jonathon McKitrick Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania. GCS/IT d+(-) s:+(++)>: a C++(+++)$ UMBSHI++++$ P+>++ L+ !E-(---) W+++(--) N+ !w--- O- M++ V PS++(+++) PE- Y+(++) PGP>+++ t+(+++) 5++(+++) X++(+++) R+(+++) tv+(+++) b+(++++) DI+(++++) D+(++) G+(++++) e++>++++ h--- r---(+++)* z(+++) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message