Free/open source software has had a profound impact on the modern age of computing. It continues to grow with each day and has become a major competitor to even large software companies such as Microsoft. At this rate, free software will continue to develop to the point where it may very well be an entirely viable alternative to proprietary software (including operating system). However, what’s taking it so long?

The way I see it is - funding. The majority of free software projects are funded through donations. Yes, that’s a great way to fund a project and build up a community, however it also limits the amount of time you can spend on the project. Many open source / free software projects are done in the developers’ free time - they’re not really getting paid for their work. So development may be slow. Take for example my MyCustomBB project - under development for nearly two years but barely on track and already becoming outdated. I haven’t had enough free time. What can be done to address that?

“A report by Standish Group says that adoption of open source has caused a drop in revenue to the proprietary software industry by about $60 billion per year.” ~Wikipedia

(more…)