🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MIKE.93Jan23142230@mystix.cs.uoregon.edu>,
mike@mystix.cs.uoregon.edu (Michael John Haertel) wrote:
>
> The line of argument seems to be as follows:
>   Given a choice between an adequate free product and an excellent
>   commercial product, users will nearly always choose the free product
>   even though it may not fully meet their needs.  Gnu software is
>   flooding the marketplace with adequate free products, and therefore
>   people who wish to develop better proprietary products will not be
>   able to make a living.  Thus Gnu software kills innovation.
>
> The fallacy of this argument is obvious.  The argument claims that gnu
> software harms innovation, since in the absence of gnu software better
> products would edge out the poorer ones.  The history of the proprietary
> software industry shows that nothing is farther from the truth:  the
> success of a product has little to do with its technical merit, and a
> lot to do with marketing and "standardization".

IMHO, the same could be said about GNU software: It does not succeed on its
technical merit, but because it is free and widely used (i.e. marketing and
standardization). Therefore, the same argument applies: How much would one
pay for a slightly better compiler than GCC? How much would one pay for an
unbelievably better super-compiler? Enough to even justify development
costs? How much incentive does a company that makes "free" compilers have
for innovation? Almost none. Note: porting is not innovation.

> As a counterclaim, I would like to suggest that making adequate free
> software available is a good way to help force entrenched obsolete
> software out of the marketplace, and therefore the gnu project may
> help improve software diversity.

Yes, it probably will force entrenched obsolete software out the market.
Normal market forces do that, too. The problem with GNU is that it forces
other companies out the market. This reduces the base of those with
incentive to make the new software and spur innovation.

Clearly, the only reasonable alternative under a GNU-utopia would be to
take jobs in software maintenance.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Mel Walker                                    mwalker@novell.com
All opinions expressed are of the author.
Novell, Inc. is not responsible for the content of this article.

In article <mwalker-250193094209@mwalker.npd.provo.novell.com> mwalker@novell.com (Mel Walker) writes:
>IMHO, the same could be said about GNU software: It does not succeed on its
>technical merit, but because it is free and widely used (i.e. marketing and
>standardization). 

I don't know about anybody else out there, but I can list (after
looking them up in the archives) a large number of GNU programs that I
haven't bothered to install here because we have no need for them (in
most cases) or they aren't any good (in a very small number of other
cases).  In other words, GNU software that has little or no technical
merit (which is extremely rare) does *not* succeed.

>Therefore, the same argument applies: How much would one
>pay for a slightly better compiler than GCC? 

Ask me first if I *need* a slightly better compiler than GCC.  The
answer is no; GCC is more than good enough, and blows most of our
vendors' compilers out of the water.  So therefore, I wouldn't spend
anything at all for a compiler which was only a little better than
what I have now.

>How much would one pay for an
>unbelievably better super-compiler?

The same principle applies.  (Quite frankly, I seriously doubt the
possibility of such a compiler on the architectures which we use
here.)

>Enough to even justify development
>costs?

I don't know.  First you should find out who needs a super-duper
mega-optimizing C/C++/Objective-C compiler.  Remember market research?

>How much incentive does a company that makes "free" compilers have
>for innovation?

You might ask Intel, Motorola, AMD, Data General, NeXT, and OSF.  Even
better, actually ***READ*** the SOURCE, and see for yourself.

> Almost none. Note: porting is not innovation.

Wrong, on both counts.

>Yes, it probably will force entrenched obsolete software out the market.
>Normal market forces do that, too.

Can you say MS-DOS?  I knew you could...

>The problem with GNU is that it forces
>other companies out the market.

So?  If they can't make a compiler that's better than GCC, they
shouldn't even bother.  Ask the people who are actually trying (and in
some cases succeeding) at doing so, and see if they agree.

> This reduces the base of those with
>incentive to make the new software and spur innovation.

So long as there are people performing basic research in compiler
technology, there will be an incentive to actualize that research.  So
long as there are people and companies who need to make that one
function run just a few seconds faster, there will be people doing
that research.  Companies don't create new and innovative software,
real people doing real research do.

>Clearly, the only reasonable alternative under a GNU-utopia would be to
>take jobs in software maintenance.

In case you haven't noticed, that's what most programmers are doing
right now.

-GAWollman

-- 
Garrett A. Wollman   | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... 
wollman@emba.uvm.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance.
uvm-gen!wollman      | It is a bond more powerful than absence.  We like people
UVM disagrees.       | who like Shashish.  - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant

mike@mystix.cs.uoregon.edu (Michael John Haertel) wrote:
>> ... the success of a product has little to do with its technical merit,
>> and a lot to do with marketing and "standardization".

In article <mwalker-250193094209@mwalker.npd.provo.novell.com> mwalker@novell.com (Mel Walker) writes:
>IMHO, the same could be said about GNU software: It does not succeed on its
>technical merit, but because it is free and widely used (i.e. marketing and
>standardization).

Well, it could be said, but it would ignore certain facts.  Almost all
the current users of GNU software are using it in preference to an
alternative that cost money (the compilers, editors, and tools that
came with their Unix operating system) because the GNU tools are
technically superior.  So it is the COMBINATION of freeness, wide
use and good technical quality that contributes to their wide use.

>Therefore, the same argument applies: How much would one
>pay for a slightly better compiler than GCC? How much would one pay for an
>unbelievably better super-compiler? Enough to even justify development
>costs? How much incentive does a company that makes "free" compilers have
>for innovation? Almost none. Note: porting is not innovation.

What you're ignoring is that a base like a freely available GCC is a good
platform for a lot of research that would not otherwise be feasible.  For
example, if I have a great idea for a new kind of compiler optimization
I no longer have to build a complete front end and the rest of a back end;
I can build on top of GCC.  Funding can come from a CPU manufacturer for
whom this optimization might be particularly beneficial; the payoff to
them is great SPECmarks their marketing droids can use to move more
product.

What you're also ignoring is something common to our culture, an American
bias that's killing us in our competition with the Japanese: the thinking
that the creative spark has to do strictly with coming up with the
original idea, and not on doing a really good engineering job.  There is
plenty of room for stepwise refinement of something like GCC or Emacs, and
the GPL assures that this work goes back into the pool for others to build
on.

>Yes, it probably will force entrenched obsolete software out the market.
>Normal market forces do that, too. The problem with GNU is that it forces
>other companies out the market. This reduces the base of those with
>incentive to make the new software and spur innovation.

Sorry, the GNU software is part of the market; it's not some separate and
alien force.  The cost charged for a software product is typically divided
into a cost to commission the work, a cost to buy one copy with a right
to use it, and a cost to have it maintained, supported, etc.  All the GNU
folks have done is to divide up those costs in a different way.  As Mike
Tiemann is fond of pointing out, "free software" is not free in the sense
of "no money".  It costs money and time to support it; you can do it
yourself, using the input of the net, or you can hire experts to do it.
The new model is that software is a service and that it will be marketed
and sold like a service.  To the extent that it succeeds, it will be
because it has out-competed alternative approaches.

>Clearly, the only reasonable alternative under a GNU-utopia would be to
>take jobs in software maintenance.

Well, that's one alternative that will become more important.  But new
software will still be needed; some of it will be proprietary, some will
come out of universities and R&D labs.



--
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu

mwalker@novell.com (Mel Walker) writes:

>Yes, it probably will force entrenched obsolete software out the market.
>Normal market forces do that, too. The problem with GNU is that it forces
>other companies out the market. This reduces the base of those with
>incentive to make the new software and spur innovation.

>Clearly, the only reasonable alternative under a GNU-utopia would be to
>take jobs in software maintenance.

1) There are still companies out there making money on their
   commercial compilers, even though some of them aren't very good.

2) Not every company has to write compilers. There are still plenty of
   areas which never will be interesting for the GNU people.
   I don't think I'll ever see the GNU Filter Design Toolkit unless I
   write write it myself.

3) Writing a compiler isn't really *that* inventive, is it?
   I mean, I've even seen books on the subject. :-)

	Johan



-- 
Johan Garpendahl                   | Email: garp@isy.liu.se
Linkoping University               | Phone: +46 - 13 - 28 13 24
Dept. of Electrical Engineering    | Fax  : +46 - 13 - 13 92 82
S-581 83  LINKOPING // SWEDEN      | May the Source be with you.

In article <mwalker-250193094209@mwalker.npd.provo.novell.com> mwalker@novell.com (Mel Walker) writes:

> How much incentive does a company that makes "free" compilers have
>for innovation? Almost none. Note: porting is not innovation.

A lot. People who want to pay for support are willing to pay more to a
company that they think is on the "bleeding edge". I suspect that a
big chunk of Cygnus' customers are people who like the notion that a
lot of GNU development happens there, and their staff did a lot of
work on g++ and a lot of work on instruction scheduling. It gives me
warm fuzzies when I'm trying to decide "which support company will be
better at solving my problems?"

If _you_ don't find higher profits to be an incentive, I'm not sure
what you're looking for.

Greg Lindahl writes:


   > How much incentive does a company that makes "free" compilers have
   >for innovation? Almost none. Note: porting is not innovation.

   A lot. ...

I find it surprising that those who can write such a clever compiler
cannot come up with clever methods so that anybody can port gcc to a
new architecture in a matter of hours at most, without having to pay
for external help. I guess it is a matter of priority. :-]

... oz

In article <1993Jan25.185757.13915@uvm.edu>, wollman@trantor.emba.uvm.edu 
(Garrett Wollman) writes:

> In article <mwalker-250193094209@mwalker.npd.provo.novell.com> mwalker@novell.com 
(Mel Walker) writes:


> >Clearly, the only reasonable alternative under a GNU-utopia would be to
> >take jobs in software maintenance.

> In case you haven't noticed, that's what most programmers are doing
> right now.

> -GAWollman

The great unpalatable truth.  Programmers love to think they are wonderfully
creative and innovative people who should be paid for creating and innovating
_new_programs_.  Most of the work waiting to be done consists of supporting 
and maintaining _existing_ programs.  That kind of work also requires creat-
ivity, innovation, imagination - but does not produce the kind of art object
which can be hung on the wall with a big sign saying "I made this!".

BTW some of things people want making or fixing are neither editors nor
C compilers.  When GNU start to muscle in on the ISDN packet handler or
automated directory assistance market just let me know, and I'll replan
my career path accordingly.

Just now I have to think about how to broadcast a firmware download to a
cluster of intelligent terminals with variable response times... bye...

Chris

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