vi21maobk9vp comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (857)
Software industry has been a service industry for much longer...
There are support contracts, there is customization, there is custom development.
Look at RedHat: it is a billion-dollar company selling boxed software which would take nearly no damage if copyright and trade secret laws were brought down. After all, it manages to compete with CentOS. Of course, larger near-monopolies would take a larger hit, but smaller players would gain and the amount of employed programmers would not change dramatically.
As for webservice software... Well, the pendulum is always in motion. A large data breach of suitable nature can swing it back.