[News] The Software Innovation Cycle/Pyramid Pays Respect to Linux

[Roy Schestowitz]

Here's a good depiction on how Microsoft imitates and customers buy cheap
imitation:

http://www.gridter.com/articles/software_cycle.html

[Rex Ballard]

The cycle is actually wrong.

GNU and Linux creates brilliant ideas that work initially, and improve
gradually over time
and sometimes never fully implemented (AS GNU). Eventually this
evolve's into ->

Commercial software (IBM, SUN, HP, SAP, Novell...) Might want to add
Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu to
that group as well. This would also include commercially marketed/
Supported OSS software. And "Simply
features" should be "Simply Functions". - which then gets adopted by -
>

Apple, who creates expensive versions that are stylish and easy to
use. Paying $400 extra
today saves you $20,000 in unpaid overtime over the next 4 years,
compared to ->

Microsoft who mass MARKETS Expensive copies of outdated ideas, and
"supports" them with an
aggressive legal team and copyright/patent enforcement technology
combined with "Baskin Robbins"
licenses for OEMs, VARs, Retailers, Corporations, and major
Institutions. Hugely expensive, and
the bugs are free. In fact, they are mandatory (to enable anti-piracy
measures).

Nice Concept though.