Feature Article: "Why doesn't Soft write everything in Linux, the open-source language available for little or no cost? It would seem a no-brainer for a software entrepreneur in a desperately poor region of the world. Not so, and the reasons show why Chinery-Hesse is no ordinary third-world software tycoon. Linux is simply impractical for his purposes. 'It can't be used for serious business,' he says, because it would be too easy for employees of a business to learn to use—and abuse—the source code of essential programs.'"
So big European insurance companies, or Africas biggest bank or Munich and so on take a great risk with that the IT-managers will make bogus reports if they feel too disappointed with their wages? Or that there will be no software developers left in Norway if the Norwegian public sector plan "e-Norge 2005-2009" follows it planned path?
I dont think that open source developers in companies like Morgan Stanley will hesitate to sell their homegrown code, better to release it under GPL and get it back even better for the purpose of their core business in what they really earn money. If cannonical for example want to sell support to Ubuntu, they have to develop good code so that many people use it.
It seems to me as Chinery-Hesse is making an unrealistic assumption to talk about the needs for software as a finite space, but it helps for the purpose to convince people that closed source is the only serious way to make business. Busness want customized solutions, just as I want a personalized Firefox 100 times more than a one size fits all Internet Explorer. Then there will be an enormously need for software developers, that bring economic growth. Its like putting the Niger river into a hole in the desert because there is some Nigerian water sellers that want higher profit. I dont think one is making economic growth for other than the watersellers in this way.
Today I think the new microfinance software is making inroads into this banking system as a secure way to control the payback.
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