[wolfrom]

I think there are important differences between libraries and platforms.

1. Libraries are static, with versioning and upgrades, whereas platforms are real-time.

2. Libraries are based on a one-time usage, whereas platforms depend on providing constant value to maintain users.

3. Libraries do not generally offload any work to other servers, whereas platforms can provide efficiencies.

4. Libraries are platform, language, and version specific, whereas platforms can be built through protocols like REST and JSON that are known to most stacks.

That being said, open source libraries aren't always free when it comes to support and technical costs, and not all platforms are closed-source.

[bhousel]

That being said, open source libraries aren't always free when it comes to support and technical costs..

While it's true that you can't always compare open source support with vendor support, I definitely feel the tide turning on this one. In the past 2 years or so (and this is just my experience, YMMV) I've found it much easier to get changes made from a project maintainer, than from most software vendors.

Github has changed this drastically. I can fork projects, fix things myself, send pull request back to the project maintainer all in less time than it usually takes for a traditional software vendor to even put my support request in the queue and acknowledge the problem.

I'm just saying, things are changing. Your business will have to change too if you want to sell to developers. You can't keep repeating the same aphorisms about support and technical costs.

[wolfrom]

That's a good point. We're trying to disrupt the existing API platform market by being leaner and faster. Putting some Windsoc code on Github hasn't been ruled out, either. I think that assuming that for-profit vendors would never consider supporting and leveraging the open source movement would be just as dangerous as an assumption about open source being unreliable.