Who Profits from Free Software?
Telelogic has just announced the release of Telelogic Modeler a free Unified Modeling Language (UML) design environment. This entry-level product will allow user with extended needs to migrate to other Telelogic’s products in the same area. Telelogic Modeler is available for download at http://www.telelogic.com/modeling/modeler. Facing the competition of open source products, editors like Microsoft or Oracle have followed the same strategy than Telelogic. They have created free versions of their software development tools. These products are “simplified” versions of the paying product, often minus specific features that are useful for large/complex projects or systems. They hope that people using the free version will one day have unsatisfied needs and will migrate to their paying versions. Time will tell if this strategy is right, but I think that it is facing major issues: – The majority of people looking for a free software could not be the one that are the more enthusiastic to get
