[Sussex] Re: Kylix and now PHP!

[Steve Dobson]

John
 
On 06 June 2003 at 08:53 John wrote:
> Which was the exact same point that I was trying to make 

Which I saw, but the route to there was not the one I would
have used, hence my post.  The sharing of ideas is after all
what this list is all about. 

> M$ try to hold on to the grossly inflated prices irrespective
> of how much they sell, though every now and again, when they
> think that a big enough part of their market is threatened
> then they go some way to appease the growing number of
> refusnik's with some goodies i.e. the freebies brought about
> by the last round of restrictive licencing.

Agreed
 
> I also feel that your  last paragraph has hit the nail on the 
> head and IMO the only way to make them change their ways is the
> same as experienced by MacDonald's and the reasons for changing
> their menu - loss of revenue. It's about the only thing that
> major corporations understand!

Agreed, and one of the thinks that I would like to change over
the next few years/decades.  Small businesses want competition
in the market place, they get their competitive edge by being
different (don't you agree Nik).  But when a business gets to 
a certain size they stop wanting a slice of the cake but the
whole thing.  This is bad, very bad.

The economies of scale that a super-sized businesses can make is
only good for themselves and their shareholders.  For the society
at large lots of small businesses is better.  They employ more 
people, pay more tax and generally contribute more back.  At least
that what I've been told by an economist.

Societies that share do better as a whole.  Look at the Open
Software area as an example.  There is competition there: Linux
FreeBSD, NetBSD, ... and these different groups have fun at both
flaming each other and sharing code.  I'd like to see that model
applied more globally.

Steve