[rzeznikj at stout]

Apparently, the OSS community is driving innovation. What customers want these days is innovation and a superior product--something that the OSS is currently doing at an efficient level.

It seems that in many areas, open-source software is very equal to, if not at times superior to their closed-source counterparts (e.g. Firefox vs. IE, OpenOffice vs. Microsoft Office). With open-source software, there are also fewer problems that sit for extended periods of time--hundreds, if not thousands, of people can fix the bug, write a patch, or provide a workaround should problems arise.

Plus, closed-source software makers in the U.S. are also charging way too much--hundreds of dollars for software where oftentimes decent (or near-perfect) substitutes exist at a much lower cost--often for free.

It's the same reason why Autodesk, Microsoft, Adobe, et al. have had problems with pirated software in recent years. People are simply refusing to pay out the rear end for software. And when they can't find a suitable alternative in the OSS community, that's when pirated software and file-sharing become rampant.

I'm not condoning piracy--it is illegal. What I'm saying is that maybe if software wasn't so overpriced, there'd be less of a tendency for people to seek alternatives to paying for software (be it piracy or OSS substitute). If Closed-Source vendor ABC Corp; puts out a software suite for $200 and an Open-Source XYZ Foundation creates a similar suite for free that does virtually everything ABC's product does, then why would people pay $200 for ABC's product?

Or, let me simplify it: If I have a choice between buying ABC's product for $200 or the clone for free, and assuming the products are virtually identical, which one do I pick?

It's a no-brainer. I pick the lower-cost one.

Finally, and having said all this, your diatribe doesn't make any sense at all.

[antiRepublicrat]

What I'm saying is that maybe if software wasn't so overpriced, there'd be less of a tendency for people to seek alternatives to paying for software

Probably true, but don't forget there's a common type of software piracy that open source helped -- companies using open source without adhering to the license. Many hardware and software makers have been caught illegally using open source software (the copyrighted works of others) in their offerings.

Of course, GE will say that the prosecution of these pirates is wrong, just FSF strong-arming.

[Golden Eagle]

Apparently, the OSS community is driving innovation.

LOL! Cheap rip offs are their specialty, obviously. If they had any sizable market share that wasn't fragmented a thousand times they'd have been hammered by patent suits long ago.

[zeugma]

Rzeznikj, Look into the history of the "competitve upgrade" as it regards office productivity software like word processing and spreadsheets. The reason MS-Office costs as much as it does is because there is effectively no real competition. WordPerfect owned the word-processing field, but couldn't keep up with the 3/4 price discounts Microsoft was able to sustain by virtue of the Dos/Windows cash cows.