Re: Methinks he does not know what he is talking about..
Original: "The tech market would collapse overnight."
Response: "No, it wouldn't. In fact, one might argue that the tech market might actually flourish, with the Weapon of Mass Monopolization once and severally neutered. Borland might actually still be a thing."
Really? Borland would still be a thing? When people could find the source for its compiler and use it as they saw fit without paying Borland? How exactly would that have protected them? Sure, the Borland compiler might have been used more, which gives us some ground for a very detailed what-if scenario, but Borland would not have gotten any more money out of that. Also, you think the tech market would thrive when no company could turn a profit from selling their code, only doing support? I can tell you that investors wouldn't be so eager, which is how a lot of risky tech ideas get the ability to start. Sure, I'd love it if every company decided to give me their source for free and we'd see a lot of interesting open source activity surrounding that release, but that's because I don't really care about whether companies live or die; I'm not under the misapprehension that they'd do fine by handing over all their work.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
