This guest column by ZDNet News reader Charles Flink argues that software is no longer a product, but has now become a service. Flink offers some friendly advice to Linux software companies. Flink writes . . .

“Software is NO LONGER a product: It is a service. The actual cost of the development of Windows or Linux, was covered by revenues collected on the previous releases (or donated in the case of Linux). The part of today's price that goes to Microsoft or Red Hat, etc., is your payment for “upcoming issues”. You WANT software that WILL work with next year's applications and hardware, so you pay what is effectively a subscription fee to fund the updates, fixes and enhancements yet to come.”

“I wish the user community would flush this software product mentality out of their system. Software on the shelf “rots” and loses value with each new device, change in usage patterns and every security hack. It needs to be maintained and enhanced to have any value at all. It would be far more honest marketing if the industry simply called it a subscription fee, not a product price.”

“Warning to Linux community . . .”

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