Features

Titans Talk Tech

  • May 1999
  • By Technology Review

Michael Dertouzos and Bill Gates ponder open-source software and the future of the computing industry.

   

DERTOUZOS: It is ironic to me that in the United States, the bastion of capitalism, where people have given of their work lives and capital to create a huge industrial economy, we are now asked to surrender the very same factors of production-our labor and our capital-to develop software that will be open and free for all. I do see some qualified benefits to open software, but I wanted to get your views on the big picture before going any deeper.

GATES: Most of the people and companies that create intellectual property will continue to want to get some payment for it, as with any creative area. The beauty of all intellectual property compared to physical property is that there is no marginal cost of production. The world benefits immensely from this, whether it's from a great book or a new drug or a new piece of software. There are fixed costs, so most work will cost something, but for software sold on a high-volume low-price model the price is very small compared to the value.

 

To read the entire article you must log in:

Most of our content — all daily news, blogs, and videos — is free. Magazine stories are paid. To read this story, you must have a subscription or you must use a reading credit. Registration to Technology Review is free and entitles registrants to three free reading credits.

Username or REGISTER
Password  
   
 
Advertisement

MAGAZINE

Can We Build Tomorrow's Breakthroughs?

Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.

Sponsored Content

Technologies from National Instruments

Adding Data Logging
Log measured data to a file and open it in Microsoft Excel

> Click here for more National Instruments Videos <
Whitepaper

Temperature Measurements with Thermocouples: How-To Guide

This document is part of the “How-To Guide for Most Common Measurements” centralized resource portal. This tutorial provides a detailed guide for measurement and device considerations to take temperature measurements using thermocouples. Get an introduction to thermocouples, which are inexpensive sensing devices widely used with PC-based data acquisition systems. Also review some specific thermocouple examples and learn how thermocouples work and ways to integrate them into a data acquisition measurement system.

View full PDF > Listen to story >
Find us on Youtube

Videos

Meet 2011 TR35 Winner Jesse Robbins

More

Advertisement

Technology Review Lists

TR50

Our list of the 50 most innovative companies, including the following:

iRobot

Lyric Semiconductor

SpaceX

Apple

More

Advertisement

Facebook

Advertisement