Article:  |
Software Strategies for Emerging Developers | |
| Subject: | Great article | |
| Date: | 2003-01-28 23:07:38 | |
| From: | gaeldesign | |
|
Thanks for the great article. Unlike the previous poster, I thought it was well-written, though-provoking, and informative. I'm in the beginning stages of developing some software for OS X is taking a lot of design cues from Apple's iApps. I want to be able to charge for the software and have control over its development, yet I want to be able to allow developer access to certain portions of the software and encourage third-party add-on utilities. So I'm considering offering a free, and perhaps open-source, framework that I would use to build the user-oriented portion of my software and that would allow third-party developers to build their own software on top of it. In my opinion, the open source development community has typically fared much better at working on "platform technologies" rather than end-user applications, so Apple's strategy of "make platform technologies open-source, but keep the source of applications and high-end APIs closed" seems to be pretty sound. It's a strategy that I plan on following.
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Great article
2003-01-29 22:37:37 ruffnex [View]
Thanks - it's also worth taking a look at a MacSlash discussion on shareware:
http://www.macslash.org/AskMacSlash/03/01/28/1855232.shtml
Many of the comments argue why open source is better than proprietary commercial software, or vice versa. Some even declare that shareware is synonomous with low quality and has no viable future.
My feeling is that the different models are not mutually exclusive. There are many developers out there who are trying to balance ideology and commerce, and will come to the conclusion, like you have, that there are situations where open source can be a solid foundation for a software business.
Good luck with your software,
Simon Liu