Enterprise applications Toolkit

Story: Open source firms 'to be consumed by wave of consolidation'

Posted by: Scott Marlowe (Monday 20 February 2006, 6:44 PM)

Open Source companies are beholden to their users, not the other way around.

With Oracle, if they decide to not produce and support Oracle 8i, you either upgrade or quit using it, cause you can't get a license for it.

With Open source, if the PostgreSQL Global development group decides to stop supporting version 7.3, you either upgrade (for free, natch) or you take on the onus of support yourself. No one twists your arm to upgrade for money, and if you happen to have some bit of infrastructure you just can't upgrade today, you get to do the maths over how much it will cost you to support or scrap it.

This poor guy in the article just doesn't get it. He's lived in a world where the user is beholden to the software company for too long, and he isn't capable of seeing any other paradigm, right up until it bites him on his ass, kicks him to the curb, and takes his lunch money.