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Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

(martinalderson.com)
413 points martinald | 5 comments | 08 Dec 25 19:00 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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CobrastanJorji ◴[08 Dec 25 22:47 UTC] No.46198710[source]▶
I love the hand drawn chart. Apparently "Open Source" was invented around 2005, which significantly reduced development cost, then AWS was invented in 2011 or so and made development even cheaper, but then, oh no, in 2018 "complexity" happened and development became harder!
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1. jcelerier ◴[08 Dec 25 22:52 UTC] No.46198778[source]▶
I don't read this as when open-source was invented, but when it happened for the corporate world. In 2002 it was a very reasonable choice for $BIG_COMPANY to use a proprietary web server, e.g. IIS. In 2008 that would have been really be weird.
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2. CobrastanJorji ◴[08 Dec 25 23:26 UTC] No.46199107[source]▶
But why did that make development cheaper? An enterprise copy of Windows with IIS cost maybe a thousand bucks, right? Maybe there were more costs, my knowledge is, y'know, 23 years out of date.
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3. hnfong ◴[09 Dec 25 09:45 UTC] No.46203112[source]▶
You decide you need a web server. Ask management chain for approval. Ask IT dept for approval. Ask finance for approval for the expense. Contact Microsoft sales. Buy it.

Now you can start developing on it…

With open source it’s not just the cost of software you save, but also potentially all the other bureaucracy that you save due to not having to pay money to do something. You also get a lot of transparency on the technical side about the products you may choose to use.

4. theshrike79 ◴[09 Dec 25 12:33 UTC] No.46204245[source]▶
Oracle has entered the chat.

If MySQL and Postgresql had been acceptables choices 25 years ago, our company at the time would've saved SO MUCH money that now went to fund Larry Ellison's yacht(s).

Both existed, but not in a way anyone could sell to a) customers b) C-staff making the final call.

5. lelanthran ◴[10 Dec 25 11:18 UTC] No.46216490[source]▶
In the 90s windows was shipping with components cribbed from open source (and properly attributed).

It's not something new.