WAS : vtkCamera ...

[Will Schroeder]

Hi John-

This is a constant struggle if you want to make a living with open source 
software. I think the whole secret is managing the "barrier to entry", 
i.e., the cost of someone else recreating your application. From what I've 
seen (and believe and hope), there is a huge difference between building a 
commercial application and an in-house tool. Even if 99.9% of the code to 
replicate your commercial application is there, just finishing the last 
0.1% and doing everything you need to sell an application is a huge barrier 
for most people/organizations. (For example, RedHat bundles what's there, 
most people could download the software, but prefer to have a prebundled, 
tested, organized CD.) Also, most open-source business models depend on 
providing service: support, training, porting (i.e., widget frosting), 
documentation, adding features, consulting, etc. As developers, we often 
forget that the value of a product is strongly tied to marketing/sales - 
just because you have a kick-butt application doesn't mean it will make a 
dime until someone knows about it and people buy it. And the real money is 
to be made not from developers, but turn-key user's who don't care whether 
software is open, closed, or hyperbolic, just as long as it works right.

I believe that the benefits of open-sourcing the pieces (maintenance, 
enhancement, training, publicity/marketing, public service, etc.) outweighs 
the need to keep software proprietary. In addition, as Eric Raymond says, 
and Microsoft seems to have admitted in their Halloween documents 
(www.opensource.org), open-source software development is much more 
scalable than proprietary development (meaning that greater software 
complexity is possible in faster time) when you have a community of 
talented people pitching in together. Of course, I believe this requires a 
critical mass - if the community is too small I don't think that many of 
these benefits are available.

Off the box,
Will

At 11:26 AM 5/12/2000 +0100, John Biddiscombe wrote:
> >A KeepConstantHeightAboveTerrain(...) function would be very nice.
>
>Before I do this, I ought to ask. What is your application? if it turns out
>you're in "competition" with the stuff we do, I ought to stop improving the
>flight interactor and instead subclass it myself and keep it back :)
>
>this is a problem I have at work which is that although we're doing
>research, we are commercially exploiting some software and I'm told that if
>I "give away" too much useful stuff I'll get a beating.
>
>Anyone else had the same trouble and found a way out?
>
>John B

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