A little further down the Tail of Open Source Software, the fruits of its hard labor begin to flourish. By playing its part in successfully shaping an Economics of Affordability (...or Affability perhaps), more and more things are available at less and less of a cost, and at no cost. It seems counterintuitive to your mainstream economist but it works for making money, and it is the future.
The open source model is no longer a term reserved only for software. It extends to services and, to a rapidly growing extent, hard goods. Radiohead and others are proving it with music: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/19870/ And if it can work there, where can you really draw the line on where it cannot?
Free Nikes ("chip sneakers") that track all user data: can output a customized fit based on wear and stress data, available for $100. if you decide you like the model. That silver Tailwind model with the dark blue swish from the 80's? Yours: custom-designed Throwback Edition with optimized footbed and GPS/wifi for $200.
...but that first test model, the white ones with the red swoosh: "You're wearing 'underware' dude! Anyone who does that deserves it for free."
Underware: as in software, hardware, underwear, whateverware - underwritten by the label: as in "My underwear is underware!"
Then, even a bit further down the tail, it crosses over: and the techs and dotcoms will start wearing underware themselves as companies release versions of software programs all of their own customized for their user's experience before, during and after the sale...
I'm waiting for my free Barnes & Noble version of Word with book (and e-) publishing and purchasing options (software dictionary, anyone?) built into the interface. Believe me, it won't take much to write a program with a user interface that blows away Word for ease of use, and I'm still amazed Apple hasn't released a competing WP product, and wonder what kind of behind-the-scenes agreement took place there... We don't have to reinvent the wheel here, but I think we could do to reinvent the "Word".
And you thought those stadium names sounded funny...
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