Free Open Source Software
July 9th, 2008Despite the fact that nobody is willing to pay for software and that proprietary software is free as in free beer, there are some points to be considered:
- FOSS is legal to use, copy, modify, and distribute. Especially in China, where new laws can be enforced within little time, this can be a considerable advantage. However, it doesn’t seem that anti-piracy laws will be enforced anytime soon.
- FOSS can be modified to meet the exact needs of the users. This is impossible with proprietary software.
- FOSS has always been free, and FOSS-based companies have always been forced to come up with different business models. Hence the Chinese situation is not that different from other countries.
The question is: If people don’t pay for software, will they pay for customisation of open source code? Are they willing to pay for services and support related to the software?
July 9th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Let me try to help answer those questions from a very different tack.
I may have mentioned it before, but this Fortune piece on Microsoft in China is fascinating to me because Kirkpatrick outlines how MSFT changed their strategy in China to “succeed.”
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134488/
If Microsoft is successful in China (that’s what the article claims) I think it’s important to understand how and why, because every user of Windows in China is not a user of OSS (at the OS level at least.)
July 11th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Customization is definitely one of FOSSs advantages, but in reality it is very rarely used. Let’s not talk about how many average users would customize their software - let’s talk about actual software companies. How often do they modify the language / framework they are working with? I would say almost never. Customization is expensive and very few afford it.
Of course, you have the guarantee that you will always be able to use that software, because it’s not controlled by a company that might disappear or that might decide to discontinue the product. But in the corporate world people don’t think like that. There is this saying “nobody got fired for choosing Microsoft”. When people care about their job, they tend to choose the “big names” just because you can’t really be blamed for choosing that. Yes, MS is obsoleting their own technologies all the time, but people still use it! So I think people also don’t care about this freedom.
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Yes, I think it is already an item to charge in China. Although, some people and companies are trying to avoid the cost of those software, but they also have their own demands.
They can understand these “customization” even better than the original software. It can be hard to understand a software when you are not in it. But, if they understand these as they need something special, we can be willing to pay.
Chinese local companies are trying hardly to develop in their own ways, while taking foreign experience as references. They are trying out their ideas and philosophy with their own money. That is the thing worth their tickets. Actually, a lot of companies are sending their money in ERP programs.
That is it. Good day!