Is Closed Source development slowly deceasing?

[Derek Djons]

The time that Closed Source developers made millions over one invention and their product is as good as over... or is it not?!

Many people in the Open Source community and development teams say that it is just a matter of time before the Closed Source companies realize that their profit is decreasing and they'll find less and less ways to adept themselves while remaining Closed Source.

I wondered how you guys think about it? In my opinion that's true. There lies much greater profit (not in the form of money and stocks) which makes the Open Source community stronger and stonger. This kind of community helps itself in achieving a good and working product. And if necessary even release multiple versions since it's source code can be used. When you compare it to the Closed Source market you see companies buying over eachother, hoping to spice up the product portfolio. Other companies like Microsoft have to switch from goals. Instead of making just Operating Systems and Office Suites it find itself making a part of people's Home Media Lifestyle Experience.

What's your opinion on this discussion?!

[Specialsauce]

just look at the p2p scene, all the closed source clients are going away, adn open source ones are taking over....

[Malphas]

I think there will probably always be segments of the market where a closed-source or partially closed-source model is more appropriate, particularly in areas that require large amounts of funding and strict adherance to deadlines. Not that you can't achieve this with open source projects of course, Ubuntu is a good example, but then that's largely due to Mark's funding.

[prizrak]

Closed source ain't going anywhere I can guarantee you that much. However the newer companies are gonna be mostly OSS, reasons being:
1) Protection: They cannot be randomly bought/muscled out by the big boys if everyone has the source.
2) Price: They can use things created by others before them to develop something new making it much cheaper to develop, not to mention that QA can be done by the community.

Older established companies aren't gonna be finished and even though Sun has been opening it's sources they are keeping enough restrictions on them. They all have been making money of closed source and will not stop doing so.

[prizrak]

I think there will probably always be segments of the market where a closed-source or partially closed-source model is more appropriate, particularly in areas that require large amounts of funding and strict adherance to deadlines. Not that you can't achieve this with open source projects of course, Ubuntu is a good example, but then that's largely due to Mark's funding.
Gaming is one of those things that will have to stay closed source at least while being developed. You need the secrecy in order to have people look forward to see what's been done, it's also difficult to make money of OSS games since there is very little amount of support that is needed. Although I believe MMORPGs could be an exception at least after they come out of development stage, since you pay every month anyway.

[poofyhairguy]

Closed source is dying in a few key areas for a reason- hardware companies are starting to figure out that if they help open source software (thereby reducing the cost of software) people might spend more on hardware.

Hence some of the best drivers you can get for Linux comes from Intel. They PAY people to make good open source drivers and release them....think if ATI did that.

[23meg]

How many companies working open source have you seen going closed source recently? And how many proprietary ones have you seen opening their sources? That alone should say something about where things are heading.

Proprietary development will remain in certain niches, but it will remain weak and obsoleted in most cases.

[Derek Djons]

Hence some of the best drivers you can get for Linux comes from Intel. They PAY people to make good open source drivers and release them....think if ATI did that.

This is indeed a very good point you've mentioned. The role of hardware companies cannot and must not be ignored. It's clearly that these companies are playing a small (but growing) role these days. Though it is in a very silent way it makes sense if you think about it. For these companies Open Source can (and in the future) will be a new (profit) market. Why not starting investing in it. However these actions are at first not very Open Source related they stimulate developers and End Users to experiment, use and even switch.

[disabled_20220313]

Gaming is one of those things that will have to stay closed source at least while being developed. You need the secrecy in order to have people look forward to see what's been done, it's also difficult to make money of OSS games since there is very little amount of support that is needed. Although I believe MMORPGs could be an exception at least after they come out of development stage, since you pay every month anyway.

I agree with that point.

But Quake is a good example. Even though they do not release the code for their current game they release the older version under opensouce. This means the community still gets the benefit of being able to view and see the source, even if we do have to wait.

Maybe more companies would like to release the source code to their redundant games?

[kairu0]

Closed source is dying in a few key areas for a reason- hardware companies are starting to figure out that if they help open source software (thereby reducing the cost of software) people might spend more on hardware.

That is A reason, but not THE reason. Hardware companies have incentives to help OS, but before that ever happens, people have to be using OS in the first place. People use OS in the first place because it is has the more optimistic future.

[prizrak]

I agree with that point.

But Quake is a good example. Even though they do not release the code for their current game they release the older version under opensouce. This means the community still gets the benefit of being able to view and see the source, even if we do have to wait.

Maybe more companies would like to release the source code to their redundant games?
Which is why I said "at least during development", I see no reason for most companies not to release source to their older games, innovation is so fast in the gaming market that old source code becomes damn near useless. There are some issues though, alot of games use 3rd party GFX engines and they cannot open that up since it would breach the terms of the license agreement, it's easier for those like Id since they do their own engines and don't give a damn about licensing :)
I really wish that some old games would get their source opened up, my favorite gaming series is Wing Commander that is not in development anymore and there are a few fan made games but if they opened up the source maybe something like jDoom could have been applied to the originals so you could play them with modern graphics, not to mention possible Linux ports :)