> Opening the source does not instil the knowledge that went into making the product.

I should have phrased my statement to distinguish the two better, but I agree with your statement.

> From which perspective? The user or the programmer?

From a ISV (handful of people making software) perspective. Why would I provide a service for free when I could do it for cash? I know this will boil down to some altruistic argument. The goal of (most) businesses is to make money, not improve the welfare of others through good deeds.

> You can also get the ingredients and recipes yourself and make food yourself. As can you do with clothing. Or numerous other things. However, people pay for service.

We are talking about software, not food or clothing. Digital goods are not physical goods so the comparison is irrelevant.

> Except for the fact that the software engineering profession is built on the back of open source.

That is purely conjecture.

> Why would I provide a service for free when I could do it for cash

The article is not saying you should, its saying that open source the code you are selling, it might not hurt sales at all, in fact it may improve them, I work for a software vendor (couchbase) where a lot of customers wouldnt even consider using a product that was not open source, but are still willing to pay.

> We are talking about software, not food or clothing. Digital goods are not physical goods so the comparison is irrelevant.

it is not irrelevant, freelance web developers have not lost their jobs because of the billions(+) of html/css/js code that is out there, they are paying for the process in which you came up with that code, then they give it to everyone for free, as all websites do.

> That is purely conjecture.

I think the burden of proof is on you here, open source is the base in which pretty much everything has been built, including this website, the web server it sits on, the programming language it was written in, the operating system that runs on, and more than likely the browser you are viewing it in.

> I think the burden of proof is on you here, open source is the base in which pretty much everything has been built, including this website, the web server it sits on, the programming language it was written in, the operating system that runs on, and more than likely the browser you are viewing it in.

The claim was about the software engineering profession not just the web-based sector.

that was an example that was closest to hand, it did include programming languages and operating systems though, which are not solely web related.

> Why would I provide a service for free when I could do it for cash? I know this will boil down to some altruistic argument. The goal of (most) businesses is to make money, not improve the welfare of others through good deeds.

To increase your the user base of your product, increasing reliance on your product, and thereby increase demand for support and licensing arrangements for said product.

Countless business have build their products and their business on top of that pattern. Both at the consumer end and developer end.

This is, in fact, a feature closed software cannot provide. The ability to continue to use and upgrade software after the developer loses interest in supporting the product.

Basically, open sourcing allows you to add features that you cannot otherwise add. Features that are valued by consumers. No one buys a product because it's closed.

Finally, if your products only advantage is being closed, it's only defense against competition is patents. So, unless you are playing the patent game, someone at some point will come along and create a replacement. And that will affect the money coming in.

> We are talking about software, not food or clothing. Digital goods are not physical goods so the comparison is irrelevant.

Why? Because physical goods are a finite resource? Your argument of "go get it for free and piece together yourself" also discusses a finite resource, "time", as well as "knowledge".

The comparison is relevant unless you can explain away time and knowledge.

> That is purely conjecture.

I disagree. Remove open source, and the software engineering profession would be far different from what it is today. The software engineering profession of today is built on the back of open source. It's not the only element, but to dismiss open source as not being a foundation of modern software engineering as mere conjecture is ignorant.

I'm not of the belief everyone should be required to open source their products. They decide what they want to do. Open sourcing something might require a lot of effort and time that an ISV doesn't have. That's fair. However, outside issues like that, open sourcing makes a lot of sense. Look at Mozilla and Netscape. Wordpress. Apache. Linux. MySQL and Postgre. All these products make the people that build those products money.

Why should you open source your product? I don't know. I don't know your product, or the business. Or what you are providing. However, what I do know is that if it's merely the source code that makes your product valuable, then their isn't much value there to begin with.

Just my 2 cents.