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" The behavior of retailers when a vendor folds is very revealing. It tells us that they know something the vendors don’t. What they know is this: the price a consumer will pay is effectively capped by the expected future value of vendor service (where “service” is here construed broadly to include enhancements, upgrades, and follow-on projects). In other words, software is largely a service industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry. "

Eric S. Raymond , The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary


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Eric S. Raymond quote : The behavior of retailers when a vendor folds is very revealing. It tells us that they know something the vendors don’t. What they know is this: the price a consumer will pay is effectively capped by the expected future value of vendor service (where “service” is here construed broadly to include enhancements, upgrades, and follow-on projects). In other words, software is largely a service industry operating under the persistent but unfounded delusion that it is a manufacturing industry.