Re: the free software paradigm [was Re: Amazon used lisp & C exclusively?

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
On 2006-07-26 01:36:17 -0400, Rajappa Iyer <rsi@xxxxxxxxx> said:

The important fact that is being ignored is that well over 90% of the
software industry consists of turnkey and custom software solutions,
an area where free software can never make inroads.

But it most certainly can and does when free software forms an
important part of these custom solutions because that means these
custom solutions will require fewer paid programming hours. Notice I
said *paid* programming hours - the total number of hours will be the
same, its just that no programmers will be getting paid for the work
they did to produce the free software components of the custom solution.

That's completely wrong.

The free components of the custom solution are only developed once. If
it costs (somebody) 1000 manhours to make it, then that cost is never
paid again. Hence, if somebody later decides to use a free component in
a custom program, that somebody doesn't have to pay that manhour cost
again. A hundred people could reuse that component in their own custom
programs, and each time the 1000 manhours it cost to make the component
originally does not have to be repaid.

Claiming that free software means everyone writing custom software
using that free software has to do all the work of making the free
software is as ridiculous as claiming that free roads means everyone
driving to the shops has to do all the work of laying the tarmac.

Ignoring the impossibility of the claim, even if it were true, the
actual result would be that custom software developers would more
likely *choose* not to use free software, since using free software
would mean they'd have to do the same amount of work but get paid less
for it. That would be silly: the attraction of free software for
commercial enterprises is that you do less work and don't have to pay
somebody else to do it.

.

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