Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!newsfeed.CARNet.hr!garrison.bnet.hr!gregory.BNet.hr!not-for-mail From: Josip Almasi Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Apache, Eclipse, ... Why do they do this? Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 12:27:17 +0200 Organization: B.net Hrvatska d.o.o. Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 188.252.185.242 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: gregory.bnet.hr 1404469637 9619 188.252.185.242 (4 Jul 2014 10:27:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@globalnet.hr NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2014 10:27:17 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.6.0 In-Reply-To: Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:28945 On 07/04/2014 03:28 AM, Stefan Ram wrote: > Apache and the Eclipse Foundation work to create libraries > and software, and then they give it to you for free. Why are > they doing this? Why not? > Several parties pay for them, for example > IBM supports Eclipse (for example, in 2001, they supported > Eclipse with 40 million USD), why do they do this? ... as did google, yahoo, microsoft, and everybody who is anybody: http://www.apache.org/foundation/thanks.html Check out apache organization chart: http://www.apache.org/foundation/governance/orgchart As you can see, there's 9 directors governing work of 3000+ people on 100+ projects, and 10 more for infrastructure, fundraising and all other outside business. How many directors, managers, salespersons, lawyers, marketing people would an IBM need to do the same, but proprietary, thing? Obviously, open source is organizationally superior to proprietary model. And, production is waaay cheaper. What about tech support? Often, users self-organize and answer each other questions. OTOH, Cisco had about 4000 people in tech support some 10+ years ago. Bug reporting and fixing also superior - user who can pipnpoint the bug can fix it, or reach the developper who can fix it. All this works out wonderfully as long as techies are users. Regards...