[thelist] RE: Template Monster [WAS: A Beginner Freelance Question]

[Greg Holmes]

"Ken Schaefer" wrote:
>I'm sorry you don't understand what I'm trying to say :-) It may be
>that I'm not explaining it very well.

Or that I was not getting it; sure :)  I certainly missed it if you
were talking about the impact on closed source developers, for
example.  I didn't think there were too many of those on theList,
at least compared to software "consumers".

(snip)

>Right - it reduces your costs. And it reduces the costs
>of every other developer. And guess what, competition drives
>down the price you can charge as well.

In the context of high-wage country  / low wage country,
competition, this is where we disagree in our predictions
(but neither of us is Nostradamus, so who knows?).  I contend
that there is at least a current of levelizing in the other
direction, when it comes to open source.  As copyright
enforcement is rather, ah, relaxed in low wage countries, 
the cost of software was probably *less* of a barrier to entry
than in high-wage countries, for many situations.

>Cutting costs is only helpful in a business sense if you're
>the only person doing it. If everyone's doing it, then the
>benefits flow to the purchasers, not to the suppliers
>(excepting the "income" effect - by cutting costs the overall
>purchasing pie will increase as the purchaser's buck goes a
>bit further).

Maybe in the static sense, but reducing captial costs for
commodity components also frees up resources for other
things.  To use an orthoganal example, I've never automated 
myself out of a full time job, though I automate madly whatever
I reasonably can.  It just frees up time to do a better job with
the rest of it.  Back to this discussion, if a project doesn't
have to blow half it's budget on a closed source component, it
can use that chunk of resources on a better overall product.

Now I'm rambling.  I guess the point is I just don't think that
the effect of open source on competition between high and low
wage countries is as cut and dried as you made it sound (to me).
But as you point out, maybe that was just me misreading what
you were saying :)

Greg Holmes