The Industry choice

[Rob Emmons]

> Theoretically. Because even though the source code is available
> and free (like in beer as well as in speech) the work of 
> programmers isn't cheap. 
> 
> This "free software" (not so much OSS) notion "but you can
> hire programmers to fix it" doesn't really happen in practice,
> at least not frequently: because this company/guy remains
> ALONE with this technology, the costs are unacceptable. 

This certainly is the thinking, but I is the wrong thinking in many cases.
If companies could some how take a larger view and realize that by working
together here and there -- they enable and open development model which in
the end saves them money.  AHHH but that's such a hard argument because it
takes vision, time, and trust.  

It takes a whole vision change to work in this environment -- believing in
an economy of plenty rather than an economy of scarcity.

> It depends on definition of "rational", on definition of your or
> company's goals and on the definitions of  the situations that 
> are the context. 

I work for a very large company -- there is an internal culture that
defines what "rational" is:  (a) Rational means outsourcing and doing less
inside the company, (b) pretty much single sourcing commerical software,
(c) releasing nothing outside the company unless there is a direct 
demonstratable significant business benifit related to our core products. 

I could argue these are not rational in the long run, but this is
the direction of the company as far as I know.  This will change -- and
someone will get a big promotion for doing it -- but it will take a lot of
time.  And of course someone already got a big promotion for outsourcing
and developing the single source stratagy -- bone headed as it is.

Rob