
Sharecropping in the Orchard: Everything old is new again - raganwald
http://weblog.raganwald.com/2004/11/sharecropping-in-orchard.html?reason_for_repost=app_store_fuss
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biohacker42
That's a great essay.

I've since long forgotten where I first red the sharecropping metaphor for
software development. But I recall successfully convincing my manager that it
was worth it to build on top of open source instead of proprietary platforms.

When you describe things in terms of business risk, managers understand.

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raganwald
Thank you! I heard the expression "sharecropper" from Tim Bray:

[http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace)

It came to mind again with all the posts about the app store.

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GavinB
What's supposed to stop open source OSes from including a copy of your
commercial function in their next version? Isn't recreating commercial
products for free of the point of open source?

By your definition anyone who doesn't own the OS is a sharecropper.

The real danger is in writing software that is easily recreated.

In the end, all software is made obsolete by better (or better
marketed/distributed) software. The only difference with the OS is that it's a
little faster.

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nazgulnarsil
the phrase everything old is new again makes me wonder how many times great
inventions had to be invented before they gained traction. Everyone knows that
iPod wasn't the first portable HDD music player, but will people know that in
200 years? What inventions from 200 years ago do we attribute to the wrong
people? (tesla/edison is one obvious example, but I'm sure there are some that
no one knows about.)

