| OSS externalizes costs; it's people working for free for whatever reasons that motivates them at the time. OSS provides value (let's say, large) uncorrelated to a large extent with those externalized costs (often almost zero). The multiple is enormous. Commercial software companies capture that value, because they can; they're not stupid. But, Commercial software companies also create an undeniable value above the captured value - they provide support, security, documentation, even familiarity, a "throat to choke", etc. The captured value, often at zero initial cost, is the margin. There is no change that can be made to any OSS license that will change that dynamic. Unless it's not OSS anymore. Governments can do very little; most OSS developers, as cost, will not work, for free, for a government. Maybe the patriots will, but not many others - so that idea will go nowhere unless the developers are government employees. That has its own issues, not all of which are necessarily bad. Government sponsored software infrastructure will probably not be as good as the OSS projects, or the Commercial products we use today. That's certainly not a given, but overlay it all with leadership, administration and bureaucracy, and you're probably on a hiding to nothing. Governments have little vision beyond the next election cycle. Software isn't the same as roads. A citizen knows what a road is; they see it, they use it directly, and also see its obvious value for many other purposes - they intuitively understand why they're paying, and for what they're paying. A citizen doesn't easily see the value of some OSS project embedded in the operations of their government - they see the chair and couldn't care less about the lumber. (I'll grant that taxes paid to a general fund might work.) That's also often the view of people and organizations that buy commercial products based on OSS software. They care about the chair, not the tree, or the process that turned the tree into the chair. OSS should, and probably will, always exist. People like doing things. It gives them pleasure. But, we can't really mix the open with the closed by screwing around with licenses. It's open or it's closed. |