From: "Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe" sam_buddhe@yahoo.com Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 10:01 PM
All this money was not made by creating and selling software that we
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use at home. It was made by creating specific solutions for specific problems that companies face and need to address. Repeat, _very few_ people actually work in a position where branded software is created!
I don't think so. So can we finally assume that proprietary software is OK only if it is not used for personal use? Dosen't it hamper the cause of free software ? Anywayz I guess the discussion is about proprietary software in general and not the software that we use at home.
BTW Please refer point 3.
Now I am not in this field, but I can take a small example which I hope is not entirely off the mark. Consider a big RDBMS like Oracle, which is used in many such solutions. If that is replaced by a better open source RDBMS that is available to all, won't that help our "IT" (sic)
I doubt. Let's suppose one of our IT companies opts for open source RDBMS only to find out that 8 out of 10 people don't know any RDBMS other than Oracle. So it starts imparting training . But it soon discovers that new applicants have excellent skill sets in commercial software. Should it keep on giving training ( and maybe falling behind other companies ) or should it stick to commercial software which is giving it large amounts of profit?
P.S. A thought ... Linux is everywhere. There is no concept of proprietary software. A business organization approaches me for software development. It is willing to pay me money without bothering about whether I provide the source code or not . The software should work and be ready within a given deadline. I work my a** out and deliver the software along with source code et al to the client only to discover that one of competitors has laid his hands on it and is making money out of my ideas :( I'm doomed. Shouldn't I make my software proprietary ? The trend continues everywhere and there is a great divide : proprietary software for Linux & free software for Linux (for home?) Brrrrrr. possible?
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