> Theoretically. Because even though the source code is available > and free (like in beer as well as in speech) the work of > programmers isn't cheap. > > This "free software" (not so much OSS) notion "but you can > hire programmers to fix it" doesn't really happen in practice, > at least not frequently: because this company/guy remains > ALONE with this technology, the costs are unacceptable.
This certainly is the thinking, but I is the wrong thinking in many cases. If companies could some how take a larger view and realize that by working together here and there -- they enable and open development model which in the end saves them money. AHHH but that's such a hard argument because it takes vision, time, and trust. It takes a whole vision change to work in this environment -- believing in an economy of plenty rather than an economy of scarcity. > It depends on definition of "rational", on definition of your or > company's goals and on the definitions of the situations that > are the context. I work for a very large company -- there is an internal culture that defines what "rational" is: (a) Rational means outsourcing and doing less inside the company, (b) pretty much single sourcing commerical software, (c) releasing nothing outside the company unless there is a direct demonstratable significant business benifit related to our core products. I could argue these are not rational in the long run, but this is the direction of the company as far as I know. This will change -- and someone will get a big promotion for doing it -- but it will take a lot of time. And of course someone already got a big promotion for outsourcing and developing the single source stratagy -- bone headed as it is. Rob -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
