Re: Open Source Developer (Economics)

>>>>> "Benjamin" == Benjamin J Tilly <" <[email protected]>> writes:

    Benjamin> One of the commonly cited factors is the question of who
    Benjamin> you sue.  Decision makers often need to address the
    Benjamin> potential fears of what they do if things do not work as
    Benjamin> promised.  With OSS nobody wants to make legal promises,
    Benjamin> our assurances work through community dynamics that are
    Benjamin> unfamiliar to businesses.

I think this is a financial problem more than anything else.  When you
need to recover damages (whether legally or via day-to-day procedures
in the purchase contract) you know you can't get blood from a stone,
and you can't recover damages that are many times the net worth of a
company.  OSS by definition reduces the financial potential of
vendors, both directly by foregoing a revenue stream, and indirectly
by dissipating energy in inefficient directions (it's often the case
that what is "fun to work on" or "profitable to provide support for"
is not the highest-value product for the client).

If the finances were there, OSS vendors would be sue-able.  If current
ones insist on GNU GPL-style "No warrantee, you're supposed to be
giving alms to us, remember?" licensing, somebody would find a niche
(and probably more than a niche) selling "insurance" in one form or
another.  They probably would be better managers (hey, Mr. Steyn,
maybe that's you!) than programmers, but that's called "division of
labor" and it's a good thing.


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