Open Source vs Proprietary Solutions

One of the big attractions of open source is the idea of tapping into external labour markets. Afterall there is a plethora of people out there wanting to learn on the job, in an environment where they can get support, and they are willing to do it without payment. That is a compelling business model.
The closed ‘commercial model’ is supported by those whom regard OS as ‘disastrous in practice’. Well that’s true enough based on prior experience but it need not be the case. Like in any organizational model – the problem is better management. The principal problem with OS is the lack of market-savy developers and managers. These projects are too often run by tech-heads with no sense of market needs. Why? Because they are at an early stage of development. They are still looking to develop products for developers. Why? Because it’s a shared profit model. The idea is for developers to profit from value-added development for users, not to sell a universally loved factory-made solution. Why? Because it would decrease the value of their value add? So might we expect the likes of Drupal to become more customer-friendly? I think that’s inevitable as these products mature, the developers will profit from add-ons whilst offering a customer-focused core product. I think also there is competition which will drive this trend.
The other compelling reasons will be rising research & development costs, shorter product lifecycles forcing ‘commercial’ developers to develop open community solutions. We already see this with some products, so its an inverted model.
The risk of the traditional business model is that it is focused on internal content so can miss market ideas or trends. Commercial developers also restrict outside parties from developing ideas that they don’t have the resources to develop. Businesses run on dangerous assumptions of what constitutes value. Eg. They set salary and qualification criteria when exploying which might fail to reflect market pricing or candidate’s personal context. The result is that they pay more for sub-optimal value. The Chinese are the best ‘bottom feeders’. Recognising the lack of ceativity in China, they will employ 18yo western geeks to fill the vacuum because these guys are keen to travel, appreciate the value of working in a low-cost country, and the responsibilities that they would otherwise not get in the USA.