[Tfug] [OT] Microsoft Windows 7: Upgrade or just buy a pizza?

[Jeff Breadner]

keith smith wrote:

 > Still at some point one cannot continue to contribute for free.

Maybe you can't, and maybe 99.X% of the people out there can't (or 
decide not to), but then their options are limited to using what the 
remaining percentage decide to write, or what the "legacy" companies 
decide to write and then sell you.

Much of the software industry is still run by this mindset, that open 
source is inherently crippled by a flawed business model.  And yet free 
software / open source flourishes, with rapidly developing core packages 
and new projects continually being created.

The point is despite the fact that _you_ don't think that it's worth 
contributing, someone out there thinks that it's worthwhile.  It's hard 
to say whether open source / free software has found the right business 
model to succeed in the long term, but the fact that there are so many 
people (and businesses) contributing now virtually guarantees that the 
mindset has taken root, and that software will continue to be produced 
in this manner, regardless of the economics.

Jeff Breadner