Astonishing Wikipedia!!

Wow, some random anonymous doner gave more than USD 200,000 to wikipedia today! So the bean counter jumped to almost their halfway mark of USD 1.6 million. This is extremely astonishing! Seriously, I think that some economist needs to study this phenomenon in detail.

I was speaking with some friends this evening, after a nice dinner. Somehow, at one point, the conversation drifted to the value of software. I tried to put across the point that the current value of software has been artificially inflated all these while. As an example, I will use Vista, a mass market/commodity software that is considered an integral part of the computer (it's the OS). Specialist software can cost millions.

Firstly, the cost of research, design and producing software isn't that great. Some may argue that it takes a lot of brain power to create software. However, any random teenager with half a brain can learn to design, code and build simple software. So, the basics aren't really that difficult. For larger pieces of software, the cost will obviously be more. However, the cost could not possibly be more than say, the cost of research, design and producing the microprocessor of a computer, which is considered an integral part of a computer (it's the brain).

http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-6112260.html

According to the article, the official retail price for Vista Home Basic is $199 and for Vista Ultimate is $399. We can assume that most home computers will be bundled with the basic version. Now, according to pricewatch, the cost of an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz is $159, and the 2.4GHz is only $279.

Vista should not cost more than the microprocessor of the computer. We should all remember that the real microprocessors have to actually be manufactured, tested, assembled, packaged, shipped before it even makes it to the OEM who will then install it into a new PC. This doesn't even yet take into the soft costs, such as marketing. If you look at the value chain, long and hard enough, you'll find that software takes up only a very small chunk of it.

People should not be asked to pay exorbitant prices for any piece of software. There just isn't any reason for it except for the inherent gullibility of people. But open source is slowly changing all this. One day people will wake up and realise that they've been had. I certainly hope that the day comes soon.