Comment Articles

Proprietary software: A defence

John Carroll ZDNet.com

Published: 16 Dec 2003 16:35 GMT

Delegates considered the ability to transition easily from one supplier to another to be an important requirement. Many expressed fear of proprietary company "lock in", where secret protocols and file formats make it hard to move to a competing solution. Admittedly, this may be a particular issue in markets just diving into the iInformation technology pool, given that such environments can be expected to go through a certain amount of experimentation on their way towards a "final" software solution (though as anyone in the industry knows, there's no such thing as a "final" software solution, so this issue applies beyond the unique requirements of developing nations).

Lastly, delegates expressed an interest in stemming the flow of money that goes to software companies located in rich nations. An African member of the audience claimed that 80 percent of all money spent on software in his country went to the United States or Europe. Open-source software allows third-world nations to stanch the outflow, leaving more money, at least theoretically, to go towards local software companies.

Why proprietary software exists
Ask yourself the following: how much of a "market" exists for open-source software, and in particular, GPLed software? By "market", I'm not talking merely a demand for the product. There will always be demand for software that can be acquired and used for free (as is the case with most GPLed software). I'm talking about a true MARKET for software, one that generates a strong and consistent profit and as a result, attracts investment capital to the development of software as such.

A market certainly exists for high-exposure items such as Linux, though it's interesting to note that its biggest proponents are hardware-oriented companies such as IBM and HP, who are more likely to view software as merely a lead-in to sales of hardware. Companies that concentrate on open-source software as such, such as Red Hat, have a much harder time turning a profit, as evidenced by Red Hat's massive rethink of its business model to favour customers who spring for the full Advanced Server over the "hobbyists" who play with the "Fedora" free product. Open-source software has managed to attract some paying customers, but it must be admitted that it hasn't done so in numbers comparable to proprietary software.