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| Newer page: | version 16 | Last edited on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 7:11:31 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
| Older page: | version 15 | Last edited on Thursday, January 8, 2004 9:05:50 am | by JohnMcPherson | Revert |
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__The majority of software is not "shrink-wrapped" commercial software__. There are estimates that only around 10% of all software is written by commercial software vendors for selling off the shelf. The majority of software is written either "in-house" or for contract, for custom solutions. (Of course, if you count units installed or units sold rather than versions released, then shrink-wrapped commercial software __is__ the majority -- StuartYeates) If software is not your core business, and it is merely a tool to help you conduct your business, then it does not affect you much if other people also have access to that software. However, you can benefit from any improvements other people make to the software.
While many developers of Free software are volunteers doing it for fun and/or recognition, there are many developers who are employed to help make the software better for their employers, and add features needed in their particular situation.
-Example 1: from a recent [Linux kernel changelog|http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ChangeLog-2.4.22], you can see code contributed from a wide variety of sources such as [IBM], HewlettPackard, [Debian], RedHat, SuSe
, many universities around the world, Telia (a large European Telecoms company), the United States military, [Intel], [AMD], [Samba], DLink, [Dell], [SGI], ... and dozens of other organisations and companies around the world. These organisations wouldn't spend time and/or money on developers if it wasn't in their interests to help improve the software.
+Example 1: from a recent [Linux kernel changelog|http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ChangeLog-2.4.22], you can see code contributed from a wide variety of sources such as [IBM], HewlettPackard, [Debian], RedHat, [Suse]
, many universities around the world, Telia (a large European Telecoms company), the United States military, [Intel], [AMD], [Samba], DLink, [Dell], [SGI], ... and dozens of other organisations and companies around the world. These organisations wouldn't spend time and/or money on developers if it wasn't in their interests to help improve the software.
Example 2: the famous [Apache] software came about because lots of system administrators cooperated to improve the software. They were all trying to make the software better for their own particular purposes, and benefitted from other people's effort to do the same. Today, Apache is used on the majority of internet servers on the planet.
