On: An unexpected benefit of open-sourcing our code

[pjc50]

A sufficiently bad FOSS implementation can drive out a better paid-for solution, especially if the latter is from a small company.

(I can't immediately name an example of this)

[jahewson → pjc50]

A sufficient bad FOSS implementation can also prevent a better FOSS implementation from ever being built, e.g. Xpdf/Poppler.

[TD-Linux → jahewson]

It didn't prevent PDF.js from being built (though maybe it's not "better")

Though I haven't had problems with poppler, so I don't quite understand what is bad about it.

[wnoise → jahewson]

See also OpenSSL.

[joeyo → jahewson]

For what it's worth, MuPDF is quite good.

[lmm → pjc50]

I've heard server licensing suggested as a reason the web displaced Gopher.

I remember being amazed by AOLserver which I was surprised to discover is now open-source; possibly by that point it was too late though? My impression was that everyone used Apache because it was FOSS, but that could be wrong.

[JoshTriplett → pjc50]

"better" is relative; if it isn't FOSS, then many projects won't be able to use it.

[kwhitefoot → pjc50]

Surely it would have to be sufficiently good.