Successful transition of new informatics technologies will require the entire community - funders, users, researchers - to evolve models of success beyond software- and model-oriented measures, such as algorithmic elegance or the quality of software implementation.
"The success of software companies like Red Hat, and the benefits to vendors such as Dell and I.B.M., demonstrate that free software is not at all incompatible with business," said Bruce Perens, an adviser to Hewlett-Packard and author of the open-source proponents' response to Mr. Mundie.
I've been totally determined to be on the other side of that dynamic by being here, because success in software follows a power-law distribution.
While I'm not expecting to be throwing my TV in the tip next Christmas, I think they'll have a strong start, then it becomes about sustaining that success with software and further iterations on the tech".
It's a striking change of scenery for the entrepreneur who found extraordinary success developing software to combat the first computer viruses that had begun zipping around the globe.
But India's success in software development, Internet businesses and knowledge-intensive industries in which Japan has failed to make inroads has set off more than a tinge of envy.
As for Microsoft's aggressive accumulation in recent years, he asked, "Isn't Microsoft the poster child of success without software patents?" So why didn't Mr. Bricklin file for a patent for VisiCalc in 1979?
This leads to the second key component in its success: Virus software is ever-evolving.
The hope, however, is to extend India's success with software into manufacturing.
