Talk:Software engineering economics

Maybe it's just me, but I think this page is rather confusing.

When it says "of the total cost" does it mean "of the total cost of the software"? Also, is the last part intended to imply that government developers are less efficient, or do they just not have as much to do? The paragraph on the lack of threat from open source is also rather obsure.

Could someone who knows this stuff please do some editing?


 * Not only is the wording confusing, but the article needs to cite some sources as well. I work in the industry, so the numbers look believable, but I'd like to see the actual source of the numbers.  I added a tag to that effect.  -- E lkman - (talk) 01:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

sweeping statements -- don't seem altogether logical or substantiated, or are opinion
"This explains why open-source / free software is not a major economic threat to commercial software..."

This in particular seems like the opinion/speculation of the author.

Also, I think the argument that the "cost" of supporting/maintaining the software is a large profit center for a software company does not necessarily mean that this is solely the domain of software companies to earn this money by providing such services. Open-source software could be supported by third-party vendors, not the software authors themselves. I'll add my own unsubstantiated data point to that effect: open-source companies seem to create "ecosystems" of related vendors and services providers. These ecosystems represent a somewhat different paradigm from that of the traditional software vendor.