Re: Database market share 2004

>> My overall point is that OSS volunteerism can certainly support the platforms indefinitely, but the rate of innovation will shrink if such subsidies and capital shrinks. Innovation propsers when there's diversity and lower barriers to entry. During the late '80s and early '90s, Borland, Lotus Software, WordPerfect and the SQL vendors prospered. Today the situation is quite different. ISV's (for-profit companies) face serious challenges. Governments and computer manufacturers are pumping money into software that competes with commercial products Asian partners (Korea, Japan, China) have formed an alliance to promote open-source software and Linux R&D. Computer companies such as HP, IBM, Intel, Oracle and Sun have jumped on the Linux bandwagaon and signed on Chinese Linux parters. In a panel discussion last year, Jim Gray suggested "The thing I'm puzzled by is how there will be a software industry if there's open source." He went on to explain ""The key thing is [with] people who are selling their software, the software has to somehow be better than the free software and [if] it's not better, I'm puzzled as to what the business model is because they can't sell it."