[DUG] Delphi 2006 snippet

[Allan, Samuel]

Well, isn't this where software enters the public domain? There is very
little to distinguish one toothbrush from another. Sure, they have all
got flip-top heads and innovative tongue scrubbers, but they are all
essentially the same. In terms of pure utility, you may as well buy the
$0.50 supermarket brand.

Once people start to realise that there is little point in buying a
Reach Super Scrubber, when their Basic Toothbrush will do, there is
little incentive to continue to sell toothbrushes because the only way
to compete is on price. Unless you can re-write the paradigm with the
Electric Toothbrush, or market the begeebers out of your product in the
hopes of blinding the plebs to the existence of anything else.

With toothbrushes, you cannot buy one for free. But this is not true for
software. I point you to Star Office, an open source office suite that
is more or less feature equivalent to Microsoft Office. I do not know of
an IDE yet, but I imagine one is coming. It is simply that the demand is
less so the domain takes a little more time to reach the toothbrush
ceiling.

Incidently, the electric toothbrush is great, and is in fact a whole new
paradigm of teeth cleaning. Highly recommended.