[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: The non-future of XHTML x.x [LONG]
AndrewWatt2000@a... wrote: > > >AndrewWatt2000@a... wrote: > > > > > >>1. Indefinite continued development of not-charged-for Web browsers > is an > >>unsustainable business model > > > >I don't think it matters whether it is a sustainable business model. The > >question is whether it is a sustainable _practice_. > > > I take that slight realignment of the goalposts as tacit agreement > that not-charged-for browsers are not a sustainable business model. They were NEVER a business model, sustainable or otherwise. Free browsers are a strategy you use to support your real business model. The free Mosaic browser didn't have a business model. The free Netscape browser didn't have a business model. Now your claim is that after more than a decade the tap is going to run dry and people will stop working on free browsers. That doesn't make any sense. > When Netscape came along with a graphical paid-for browser users voted > with their feet and bought it in droves. That is not true. Netscape was always free for personal users. For a brief period they charged corporations but realized that was a doomed strategy so they switched to focusing on their portal and the server side. > Netscape, for the time, was the rich-client which added sufficient value > compared to the open source alternative(s) of the time that it took a > sizeable slice of the market. Netscape was not open source but nobody I know ever paid for it. I used to snicker when I would see the boxes in computer software stores because it was perfectly legal to download a free version from Netscape's website. > At the risk of over-generalising the fundamental business model of > open source software is Microsoft-paranoia and Microsoft-phobia by > competitor companies. Of course there are enthusiasts who donate time > but isn't at least part of the motivation for some of those > developers the same Microsoft-phobia and Microsoft-paranoia? Try to > imagine how limited open source software today might be without the > kick start donations and ongoing funding from the corporate interests > intent on spoiling Microsoft. I tend to think that people greatly exaggerate the importance of these big-company donations. Yes, they get a lot of press because they send out a lot of press releases. But the day-to-day integration of Linux patches happens by a guy who works at a CPU company, not a Microsoft competitor. > If hatred and fear of Microsoft were not so widespread there might be > virtually no open source software! Open source software _predates_ Microsoft. And many people work on it because they love it. e.g. JBOSS is a product that does not directly compete with Microsoft, but directly competes with Microsoft competitors like BEA and IBM. > > I don't recall precisely who donated what to Apache. Didn't IBM donate > Lotus XSL -> Xalan and Sun donate [something] -> Tomcat? I seem to > recall that many other (anti-vacuum/Microsoft) donations were also > made to Apache. If Xalan didn't exist, people would use one of the dozen other XSLT engines by people like James Clark, Michael Kay, Kieth Visco, etc. That's what is so misleading about these big company donations. Most of the time they donate stuff that was already available or would have become available if they didn't do it. It's the individuals who do random things that turn out to be important after the fact. > It isn't a black or white thing. Open source could progress but at a > slower pace without those donations and funding. Fine. As long as it progresses, it progresses. The free browser would not die. > If you can move to accept a position that paid-for rich-clients in the > future might, at least in principle, be *possible* then perhaps we can > go on to discuss how likely/unlikely that is and what relevance (or > not) XHTML 2.0 might have to such a future. I'm sorry: since the emergence of Mosaic, it has become intrinsically impossible to make more than a tiny amount of money selling a generalized rich client application. PERHAPS we could argue that Microsoft and AOL could bundle such things into their online services. And of course there is a place for specialized GUI clients like stock pattern visualization software. But generalized rich clients? The last one of those to make money was Lotus Notes. Paul Prescod
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