Yes, F/OSS has that huge advantage... but even though I'm an F/OSS advocate, I think it's naive to ignore the economics of such projects. They have a much harder time getting off the ground, especially those aimed at a mass market to which you'll have trouble selling a support plan. There are business models, but they're more complicated and don't provide as much income.
I do wish companies that abandon projects would OSS them more often though.
I do wish companies that abandon projects would OSS them more often though.
Agreed. But to their credit, Google have some history of open-sourcing things[1][2][3][4], so maybe there's a chance that this product will be released as well. At least one can hope...
Comments
Yes, F/OSS has that huge advantage... but even though I'm an F/OSS advocate, I think it's naive to ignore the economics of such projects. They have a much harder time getting off the ground, especially those aimed at a mass market to which you'll have trouble selling a support plan. There are business models, but they're more complicated and don't provide as much income.
I do wish companies that abandon projects would OSS them more often though.
I do wish companies that abandon projects would OSS them more often though.
Agreed. But to their credit, Google have some history of open-sourcing things[1][2][3][4], so maybe there's a chance that this product will be released as well. At least one can hope...
[1]: http://code.google.com/opensource/
[2]: http://code.google.com/opensource/projects.html
[3]: http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=label:google
[4]: http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/