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by arcanus 3652 days ago
Isn't that the magic of OSS? Linux::Windows, matplotlib::mathematica, android::iPhone, etc. In each case, the free variety quickly catches up to the proprietary version, and in doing so, cuts into the profitability of the parent. Furthermore, this often breaks down monopolies, as they must innovate or die.
2 comments

Matplotlib covers a tiny spec of a footnote of Mathematica's functionality. SageMath (a composition of Numpy, Scipy, Sympy, matplotlib, R, etc.) is a more appropriate analogy.
While some of the examples are more apt, iPhone/iOS actually integrates a good deal of open source software itself i.e. Darwin, WebKit, LibDispatch, Core Foundation, Swift, etc. Further the openness of Android has been called into question by many over the years. Android isn't just AOSP anymore than iOS is just Darwin. I imagine a degree of the innovation provided by OSS has helped Apple keep profit margins as high as they have.