One note:I brought that example up. He was not impressed. Apparently, Clalit went, succesfully, through a court proceeding to enforce such a settelment without even having the actual source mentioned in a contract.
On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 10:47:43AM +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
Now, I tried to point the practical reasons behind the social contract, and his response rather suprised me. Basically, he has contracts with all of his software vendors that gives him full access to the source code in case the company goes under. His basic premesis was "I can get competition over support in proprietary software too - Clalit did it in the past already".
http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/10/18/1814211.shtml?tid=132&tid=82&tid=89
"What happens when a proprietary software company dies?"
In short, that article ddemostrates that when a company goes under, nothing is safe. The source code is considered one of the late company's assets, and as such, "giving it away" as guaranteed may not be easy.
I guess the bottom line is this. Given enough buying power and money for getting your way, the advantages of free software are brought over to the proprietary world. I'm hoping he will read this thread through, but I somehow doubt that any point raised here will change his mind much - it sounds like more of the same stuff (with only the price varying between the cases).
Even if he is 100% right, I still think that the free software revolution, bringing this advantage to EVERYONE, is a wonderous thing. Still, I'm trying to understand whether free software really doesn't offer any advantages in that respect.
-- Shachar Shemesh Open Source integration consultant Home page & resume - http://www.shemesh.biz/
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