> Good software requires incredibly investment, even if the 'unit cost' is nothing.
True. But with open source that investment is of labor (sometimes it is volunteer labor, in part), and is usually incremental, there is often little in the way of large up front capital outlays.
Most of the exceptions would be a commercial company making a "Big Bang" initial release.
This is just to say that the concept of "marginal cost of producing another copy" needs some contextual adjustments.
For F/OSS, it might be better to think instead of "the marginal cost of making a new release", since at the point of making the release the marginal cost of all subsequent copies becomes zero.
True. But with open source that investment is of labor (sometimes it is volunteer labor, in part), and is usually incremental, there is often little in the way of large up front capital outlays.
Most of the exceptions would be a commercial company making a "Big Bang" initial release.
This is just to say that the concept of "marginal cost of producing another copy" needs some contextual adjustments.
For F/OSS, it might be better to think instead of "the marginal cost of making a new release", since at the point of making the release the marginal cost of all subsequent copies becomes zero.