[tonyedgecombe]

>You could build your own but it would have no economical value. Because it is a commodity. There are countless examples like this.

Not because it's a commodity but because it is free. Free because Microsoft or Oracle or an enthusiastic Ruby developer wrote the code once and then it was done. We can then go on and build our layers on top of it without raising a purchase requisition or getting our credit card out.

The reason this can happen is because the marginal cost of software is so low. Microsoft put the work on to create their standard library on the basis that it helped them sell more SQL Servers or Windows operating systems and we all get the benefits because each additional user costs them almost nothing.

At first sight this looks like a benefit to us all but there are downsides as well. If I wanted to offer a better date and time library for .Net then I would find it difficult to compete because the alternative is free even though it isn't perfect.

If you look at hardware it is a different story. I could buy a Dell laptop and it would run exactly the same software as my Lenovo (bar drivers). This looks much more like a commodified product to me.