<br>I see two variables with two possible<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
values for each:<br>
<br>
Variable 1: Free/Libre/Open vs proprietary.<br>
Variable 2: Commercial vs non-commercial.<br>
<br>
So I think<br>
your statement "Some parts of open are closer to proprietary in that<br>
they are just businesses with a strategy" is confusing in that open<br>
cannot be close to proprietary because it is in fact its opposite, at<br>
least the way I see things.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Javier<br>
<div><div><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br>Okay, that makes a certain amount of sense.<br><br>What I was referring
to was the unstated thought that for a lot of companies open software is
just a way to share costs. It serves the exact same purpose as
strategic partnerships but with less risk of the most powerful
stakeholder taking over. So it's just part of their "gotta get paid"
strategy that they would have been doing without the open option.<br><br>My
impression is that proprietary came first and the highest priority is
to maximize cost to the user. Free came next and, in direct opposition
to proprietary, attempts to minimize cost to the user. Those are
incompatible priorities. <br><br>Open came last and serves as a
compromise by shifting the top priority away from money and towards
technical excellence. Everyone can get something out of a project that
works well, so they can work together and then go their separate ways
when the money issue finally comes up, which is only relevant after
something works. <br><br>I'm not sure that commercial/non-commercial is
all that useful as a discriminator. If someone accepts pre-orders and
does a bulk purchase of their open
circuit board, but just pays the relevant costs and doesn't start a
business or anything, then are they commercial or non-commercial? Maybe
profit/non-profit or professional/hobby would better capture the idea. <br><br>It
also seems like things can be open to varying degrees. Not only is
there ongoing disagreement on what public information actually counts
towards making a project open, but there will always be a variety of
licenses in which people state whatever combination of rights they are
most comfortable with. For example, if the general license a project is
released under forbids commercial use, but the project manager is happy
to provide a special commercial license to anyone who asks, then where
does the project fall in terms of open vs proprietary or commercial vs
non-commercial? <br></div></div>