  Will Open Source End Up Destroying Paid Software Developers? Companies that develop and sell software are generally evil. Take Microsoft, for instance. (Forget all that monopoly crap - I think that so-called anti-trust is a bunch of crap. ) They sell Windows XP Home for around $150 a copy and add another $100 for the Professional edition. Why does an operating system have to be so expensive? They know that they are going to sell hundreds of millions of copies a year. That's $20+ Billion a year in revenue... Did XP cost $20 Billion to create? No, of course not. Even if it cost $1 Billion to create (making it the most expensive software in the history of software development), they could still charge $20 a copy and make a 100% profit every year!
But at the other end of the spectrum you have open source software. Is open source also evil? It's hard to tell. It's surely hard to argue against free - I like the ability to download an operating system (Linux), web server (Apache), database (MySQL), and programming language (Perl). Other than the hardware, you can set up a decent server environment for free. So let's say you are a company that relies on server software - like Sun or Oracle. Is open source good for you? No, it might actually drive you out of business. Other than the established players, is anybody stupid enough to start a new database company in 2002? Or an operating system company? Entire categories of software (those that have decent open source versions) are off limits to new competitors.
Netscape went out of business because their paid browser (Netscape used to cost $99) could not compete with a free one (and, well the free one was a better browser let's not forget). How many companies will go out of business due to open source? How many will not even be formed? Is open source killing jobs and killing innovation, even worse perhaps than Microsoft? After all, companies can compete successfully against Microsoft (AOL vs. MSN, Intuit vs. MS Money, CNN vs. MSNBC, etc. ) You have to be able to adjust quickly (Netscape could not adjust). But can companies compete against free??? Time will tell... Scott 
