Free Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business (2008)

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3 points·johnchristopher··3 comments

11 years on and this is still prescient. Certainly free is the future of software for nearly all users, a huge shift back to its origins where software was given away and freely copied to support machine sales.

We are entering the era where software again wants to be free but now, instead of selling metal, we lease it to people as a subscription along with bug fixes and support. We are truly returning to the very origins of mainframe and personal computing.

This is the direct result of 20+ years of piracy. Most companies realized they not only didn't want to have to deal with having to re-create serial number generation systems every 6 months, but also the attorney fees involved in chasing bigger organizations making money on it.

SaaS is a great solution: a more steady and reliable income stream and no piracy concerns.

I don't think so. It's more the result of enterprise users needing full access to source code so that it can be audited for security issues and modified to meet their needs. This is where computing began, before piracy was a concept. In the 80's the industry moved to "object code only," as IBM called it, and what we are seeing now is the ultimate backlash against that. Enterprise businesses don't pirate software anyway so I don't think that's a significant factor.

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