| >Of your five examples, the first two reinforce $2k/yr as a reasonable spend How so? Annually? Nowhere I know spends that per employee in (software) tooling. Here's the first 2 you mention as reinforcing $2k as reasonable spend: Art people - Photoshop creative 600/yr, and there is nothing close to it in opensource at any price. Many creatives don't need all of ps, only a piece or two, much cheaper. OS is order of $100, lasts 5 years easily. Or maybe they're doing high end video editing in DaVinci Resolve, again with nothing even close in open source, for $295, again good for many years. Some artists will use a few tools, but then again many places also have floating licenses. Software dev: OS again $100, lasts 5 years easily. VS Pro 2019 $499, again many places keep a version about 5 years. So far we're at $120/yr for a significant amount of dev tooling. Again, some people use multiple paid for tools (say Resharper, etc.) but many don't. And again, lots of commercial tools have floating licenses to lower costs. Care to detail an annual software spend approaching $2k for either of these fields you claim provides reinforcement for that amount being a reasonable spend? I'd be curious how you spend $2k/yr for the average developer using commercial tooling. >the fact that in some fields there are no good open source alternatives suggests that there's room for open source alternatives to exist Actually, it points to open source being unable to meet market demand. That there is no CAD system comparable to a professional CAD tool, despite there being CAD tools for over 60 years, and despite it being a huge market, shows that open source simply cannot compete for many markets. This is true is nearly all products except a tiny few: Linux is a good OS, a few good web stacks, thunderbird, etc. But it sucks for the vast majority of product categories used by professionals. For CAD, basic SolidWorks is $4K, is insanely powerful, and a version easily lasts many, many years. And it has floating licenses. >Yes, there will always be companies that mooch. I, for one, prefer to work for companies that don't. I prefer to work for companies that apply the best tools for the job. If the tools are open source, so be it. If they're closed source, so be it. It's fine to raise money to fund open-source, it's fine to make closed source and sell it. Offering something for free, then calling it mooching when someone uses it for free, is simply childish emotional blackmail. |
> Open source doesn't even have an answer here.
> Open source sucks here too.
> open source not close
> But it sucks for the vast majority of product categories used by professionals.
This is all irrelevant to me. Companies should pay for the open source software they use today, not for the bad and non-existent alternatives that they don't.
> Offering something for free, then calling it mooching when someone uses it for free, is simply childish emotional blackmail.
Meh. As my kids would say, "That sounds like a you problem." :D
Just because open source maintainers legally allow companies to mooch doesn't mean they're not mooching. ;)
But I mean don't get me wrong, maintainers can be a whiny bunch sometimes for sure. ;)
> open source being unable to meet market demand
Open source software is a public good, and markets are so bad at efficiently provisioning public goods that this is in fact their text-book failure mode:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp
In other words, _of course_ Photoshop trounces GIMP. Use Photoshop, by all means! :D
But! What if we can evolve our markets? That's the macro opportunity here:
1. A critical mass of companies voluntarily pay for the open source software they use today. This is primarily in developer tooling as you point out (Linux, web frameworks, etc.).
2. Existing open source projects become more professional, by which I mean they get better at things besides coding, like design, sales, support, management, etc.
3. Software other than developer tools starts to be built as open source. This depends on the first two things happening.
Why is this interesting? To me it's interesting because it's a slight glimmer of a real opportunity to decouple work from employment, so that individuals can work collaboratively more out of intrinsic motivation than for a paycheck. This doesn't solve all the world's problems and doesn't come without its own challenges, but I think it's an interesting and generally positive evolution of society that is fun to be a part of. :)
[edit - formatting]