On Mon, 20 Oct 2008, Chuck Cole wrote: > The commercial shamware, er software "industry" typically believes that > free and open source will erode (ie, "destroy") their markets. They are > not entirely wrong: Linux has taken major share in the server market, > and impacts other segments as well. It's not something active that is > being done by free stuff or GPL. But if something can be produced and distributed at no cost to the consumer, then how much was the product really worth in the first place? Not enough, surely, to put three men into the top 5 richest in the country! It was just a lucky quirk of the market at the time that gave these guys the massive, massive wealth they have accumulated for their mediocre products. It's ending now. It isn't destroying anything. It's just changing the way business is done. If this isn't making multi-billionaire executives happy, I'm fine with that. It creates a lot of opportunity for people with less money to start businesses that will make them a living but not a massive fortune. So, as the GPL advances, the proprietary model declines somewhat. I happen to think that most developers are better off because of this but that is only an opinion and I don't have a lot of stats to back it up (but would like to hear good ones if anyone has them). It seems obvious that consumers are better off. Mike