The future of Software (Was: August PLUG topic: Kylix)

[David P. Schwartz]

Alan Dayley wrote:

> I think software is slowly moving to the "commodity" state you describe but
> I like to call "open source."

I think you're confusing two distinct things.  No other commodity you can purchase comes with manufacturing and assembly instructions.
I believe that the "open source" movement has evolved as a more-or-less "social" means of addressing the complexity present in today's
software that is not being (and probably cannot be) solved by vendors of large complex software products.

> Eventually software, for most things, will
> be come so easy to create it will not be worth keeping proprietary and all
> will be open source.

Nope.  Large complex things will most naturally migrate towards an open source model because that is the most economically viable way to
ensure their reliability.  The Code Red virus is going to be the best thing that ever happened to the Open Source community.  IIS runs
on NT, which has some level of govt approved security on it, but IIS was never subjected to the same levels of security checks.  What's
the Govt going to do with all its insecure machines now?  The only way MS is going to be able to justify the perception that their new
software licensing model is somehow cost effective is to say the money is going to pay for more QA stuff.  Yea, right.  How much do
people pay for increased Apache QA?

Creating software will naturally become easier just as it has become easier to weld steel and design earthquake proof hi-rise
buildings.  If that were the sole criteria to the innovation of new things, then we'd be driving really cheap cars and living in hi-rise
tenaments.  As costs drop in one area, they rise in others.

Are you interested in purchasing a car that's got 14 computers on-board controlling everything from engine timing and efficiency to
braking operations, steering, and the radio -- and ALL of the software running those computers is Open Source and easily modifiable?  Or
how about the next time you're in a jet, think about the software controlling it's takeoff, navigation, and landing -- what if it were
ALL open source?

You say that just because it's so "easy to create" (somebody else created it, you just copied it) that the automobile or airline
companies will simply copy it off the web (from an early beta copy of MS Flight Simulator 2008!) and adapt it for their needs?

> It is the future of software, eventually.

Yea, right.  Can I interest you in a CAT scan?  The machine on our mobile van is running the latest Open Source version of CATatonic --
the guys on the primary support team are waiting to hear if it works without frying your brains in the process.  Oops, no, just
kidding!  It's been vet-tested with over a hundred cats and dogs and none of them have displayed even the slightest symptoms of any ill
side-effects...

> I think it
> will take a long time to get there

yes, a century or more

> and my wallet likes that.

IOW, you enjoy paying for software and aren't in a hurry for it to all become free (as in wages)? :-)

-David

>
>
> Alan
>
> At 03:46 PM 7/27/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >David,
> >You make some good points.  Do you see software for most uses approaching a
> >sort of "commodity" state where "it just works" and there's no real
> incentive
> >for users to upgrade?  When you look at the vast majority of applications
> that
> >most people actually use, such as email, web-browsers, and word processors,
> >there's really not a lot more that can be done.  It seems to me that the
> >biggest threat to proprietary software developers is that they can only
> >sharpen the knife so much before users just don't care anymore.  Version
> 19.7
> >of "Knife" might be 3% sharper than Version 19.6 of "Knife," but most users
> >aren't going to care and they're not going to be interested in forking (no
> pun
> >intended) over more money for a new tool that offers very minimal (if any)
> >advantages over their previous tool.
> >We've already pretty much reached the point of "commodity" hardware.  Do I
> >really care that there's a 8000.74THz Pentium 64 available, when my
> Pentium II
> >350MHz system does everything I need just fine?
> >My point is, I don't think that the software or hardware industry can
> possibly
> >support in the future the incredible growth (and high salaries) that have
> been
> >present in the past.
> >Microsoft realizes this, and that's why they're desperately trying to move
> >people over to a subscription model for their software.  If they can charge
> >you just like the utility company charges you, then they can ensure a
> healthy
> >revenue stream for their future.  But is the customer really gaining
> anything
> >over the old model?  No.  I'm almost positive that whatever "upgrades" occur
> >will be minimal.  Once Microsoft has you hooked on the subscription service
> >for Office or Windows or whatever, they won't even need software developers
> >anymore.  :-)  You basically pay over and over again to use their product,
> but
> >it's essentially the same product that had reached a certain level of
> >functional maturity years ago.
> >~M
> >
> >
> >Quoting "David P. Schwartz" <davids@desertigloo.com>:
> >
> >> Every product you buy, whether it be at the grocery store, the
> >> department store, wherever, has a portion of it's price going to the
> >> retailer, a portion going to the distributor(s), and a portion going to
> >> the manufacturer.  Some of the amount paid to the mfgr is for
> >> "intellectual property".  Nothing you purchase in a store costs even 5%
> >> of what you pay in terms of its raw goods
> >> costs.  I don't get the issue people have around paying for software.
> >>
> >> The only way companies can really make a profit is by gaining leverage
> >> on their costs of goods plus costs of manufacturing.  An average
> >> employee who's paid $10/hr in a mfgr job is part of a larger equation
> >> whereby the company is earning between 100 and 1000 times that.
> >>
> >> The stuff inside a box of cereal costs less than the package, yet people
> >> seem happy to pay nearly $5/box for cereal these days.  A floppy disk
> >> and CD cost more to manufacture than the entire box of cereal.  Some
> >> people argue that the major difference is that cereal is consumable,
> >> whereas software is not.  I guess the same argument can be made about
> >> cars, that they're consumable.
> >> So you don't mind paying $20k for a car that costs less than 20% of that
> >> in raw cost of goods.
> >>
> >> If you measured the "consumption rate" of software by the number of
> >> times you used software, then maybe $5/use would satisfy you for most
> >> needs -- but would you pay that for your email service?
> >>
> >> We are able to earn as much as we do as software developers because
> >> there is a far greater demand for our services than supply, and because
> >> the results of our labors are HIGHLY leveraged by the people who pay us.
> >>  If a company isn't earning 10x what they're paying us for our time,
> >> they're not being very smart.  If the results of our work were priced
> >> like cereal, then we'd be
> >> earning $10/hr, and the company would be earning 1000x our pay off our
> >> efforts and we wouldn't be having this discussion about "selling
> >> software" because it would be designed to be consumable, like cereal,
> >> and sell for $5 per use.
> >>
> >> -David
> >>
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