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>The open source movement has the motivation. Mostly, they don't have a boss pushing them in the back so that they have to write code quickly and badly and ends up beeing unmanagable so that they can sell it and get money faster. And when they find that it would be better to start from scratch, they do. Again, there is no guy behind (who's in software only to make money) who says that you can't do that because he already put too much money in it!
>

Not all bosses are like this, it is a real case depenedant situation.


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>I don't agree on that one. There are a lot of projects out there that have no close source equivalent. Nessus, for example, appears to be a quite advanced vulnerability scanner. Of course it's going to copy features of popular software, just like Microsoft copied the Apple interface, who had already copied it from Xerox. Not long ago, if someone wanted to do graphics, there was only one choice: Macintosh! Windows software then copied the Mac software's features. But in some points, the one copying the other gets ahead.
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Yes but I was reffering to the inability of Open Source to innovate new ideas, because all they do is copy old ideas, but give them out for free.

>"but at some stage the people doing this will become tired of giving all their hardwork away, and move to something where they actually get paid for their work" Painters, for example, do not hide their paintings so that no one will see them. Many are trying to make money out of it, but it's because they have expenses. You seem to assume that since they're not getting money out of it, there is no reward. I'd be quite proud to say that a software I worked on is used by thousands of people!
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I think there is a substancial time difference between a painting and a piece of software, and a very different level of credit at the end.
I could hear thousands of names of people that worked on say Mozilla, and I wouldnt care 1 bit, but roll of some famous painters, and I no doubt heard of them.

>For open source not innovating, what did Microsoft ever invented?
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Not even bother, MS has created a damn lot.


>Yes, if/when Linux becomes more popular, virus writers will turn their attention to it. But just because it's open source does not mean that it will be easier to write viruses. In order to exploit a bug, there has to be one in the first place. No, I'm not saying there aren't bugs in Linux, but it takes anything from hours to a few days before a fix is available, not weeks or months. Even if a user does start an email attachement virus for example, that user doesn't have administrator privilege, so the damage would be limited. When an OS is made to be multi-user from the ground up, there are security measures you have to think of to prevent a user from crashing the OS.
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Like with NT,
Win9x is flawed and noone doubts it, thats why anyone with half a brain uses NT,2000 or XP.

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>>It has to be sustained to keep on pace with the proprietary software, otherwise it becomes out of date and useless.
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>The people who are doing this aren't in it for the money; they're in it for the fun! It is not sustained by money, but by the pleasure of creating software.
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Pleasure doesnt pay the bills, so at some stage they need to make a living, and hence donate little time to OpenSource software.

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>Commercially? Who said open source was made for profit? Yes, companies such as Red Hat are trying to make a profit out of service, but there are companies that are making a profit out of Windows service, yet they don't sell Windows! Red Hat (and others) aren't making as much money simply because there isn't as much installed base. But it's changing: I think Linux has proven itself to be better than Windows in the server arena. I don't expect to see Linux overtake Windows in my lifetime, but I expect to see it grow.
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Everything has to be commercial to get any form of backing or support,
You think linux would have taken off at all if some companies hadnt come along and marketted it, NO, and do you think they will want to do that if there is no return to be had, NO.
I am sure there are 1000's of great pieces of software in the world, that no-one has ever heard of, simply because there is no support and commercial backing.


>
>As for "how long are people going to be willing to write copiuos amounts of code for free", take a look at UniversalThread; every day, people are willing to help others, often by providing code snippets. And people seem to think that all open source developpers are teens in their parent's basement. I don't think so. Sure, there are, but not all of them.
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UT is very very differnt, for reasons I dotn have time to go into, but you already know. Its an exchange of knowledge, as a group we are not creating anything.


>>Just look at the slow progress made by the Mozilla crew. Its taking years to get anywhere, and it is still riddled with bugs.
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>Ok, take a look at Apache: it is ahead of IIS in terms of perfomance, scalability and security.

I believe Apache to be the only example of OpenSource gone right, and have nothing I can say against it really :)
It is used enough, that it will continue to be developed. This isnt the case for most software.


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>Well, that was a long post! :)

Long indeed.