August 1981: IBM introduces the PC.
The mid-80's: Lots of PC's being sold and most purchasers also buy WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and Ashton Tate dBaseIII. These three companies rode the tidal wave of the PC (before 2 of them stumbled and the third was bought by IBM).
2010: Total revenues of open source software companies total less than $1 billion, in a software industry with total sales of over $300 billion. There must be a tidal wave coming - imagine only 5-10% of software spending shifting to open source!
But wait... the biggest open source projects advance thanks to the efforts of developers salaried by large companies, not by talented volunteers hoping for peer recognition. And, too many companies use the community versions of open source projects, contributing nothing back - not a bug report, not a blog comment, no contributed code, and certainly no money.
Will open source turn into a megatrend?
Can we get the freeriders to contribute something (especially money)?
Authored Comments
August 1981: IBM introduces the PC.
The mid-80's: Lots of PC's being sold and most purchasers also buy WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and Ashton Tate dBaseIII. These three companies rode the tidal wave of the PC (before 2 of them stumbled and the third was bought by IBM).
2010: Total revenues of open source software companies total less than $1 billion, in a software industry with total sales of over $300 billion. There must be a tidal wave coming - imagine only 5-10% of software spending shifting to open source!
But wait... the biggest open source projects advance thanks to the efforts of developers salaried by large companies, not by talented volunteers hoping for peer recognition. And, too many companies use the community versions of open source projects, contributing nothing back - not a bug report, not a blog comment, no contributed code, and certainly no money.
Will open source turn into a megatrend?
Can we get the freeriders to contribute something (especially money)?