Re:Impossible to compete with free software
by yason on Saturday March 07, 2009 @02:33AM
(#506358)
On a market a single law applies: the product that is better marketed wins out.
Eventhough I'd love to see it otherwise, any aesthetical or technical superiority would need to come in enormous figures to even challenge the position of the market leader. For a unsurprising and worn example, look at Microsoft.
On the other hand, if some company takes your code and does better both in marketing and technical aspects, you _should_ lose! The better product is better for everyone in the developer/user base, including you. The community and users don't lose anything -- instead they gain! You do gain as well because you can incorporate the other company's changes back to your own codebase -- of course you did license the software under GPL.
Eventhough I'd love to see it otherwise, any aesthetical or technical superiority would need to come in enormous figures to even challenge the position of the market leader. For a unsurprising and worn example, look at Microsoft.
On the other hand, if some company takes your code and does better both in marketing and technical aspects, you _should_ lose! The better product is better for everyone in the developer/user base, including you. The community and users don't lose anything -- instead they gain! You do gain as well because you can incorporate the other company's changes back to your own codebase -- of course you did license the software under GPL.