LWN: Comments on "The Penguin on the Desktop (IT-Director)"

Economies of Scale

AnswerGuy — Tue, 24 Jun 2003 06:48:21 +0000

By "economies of scale" I presume they are referring to issues other than software development. Things like installation on an assembly line, integration into a commodity user product, documentation, and demoware.

This isn't all just "economies of scale" it's alot of marketing and polish work!

Let's face it. Linux has a long way to go before it has the polish and non-technical consumer appeal of Mac OS. I'd love to see a distribution of Linux that installed with a full audio visual introduction, like the Apple Performa with Mac OS 7.x I bought for my mother a number of years ago. Broader commercial availability and demand will fuel the development of such enhancements.

The Penguin on the Desktop (IT-Director)

njhurst — Tue, 24 Jun 2003 01:55:05 +0000

I'd guess the 'economies of scale' in the free software world are things like the network effect - software which has lots of local support and manufacturer level support has an economic advantage over those that don't.

My understanding of economy of scale is that it is the lower per unit cost due to the spreading out of the initial development costs. For free software this would translate to lower per unit cost such as installation time and learning curve because enough people have done the ground work.

The Penguin on the Desktop (IT-Director)

toon — Mon, 23 Jun 2003 20:22:09 +0000

What are the "economies of scale" in free software development ?

Toon Moene (current GNU Fortran maintainer).